--- Marko Vojinovic <vvmarko@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wednesday 15 August 2007 03:45, Antonio Olivares
> wrote:
> > Administering the Lab is a pain in the glass.
> There are many threats,
> > virii, spyware, trojan horses and the MySpace
> workarounds. Kids are kids
> > and there are several extreme ways to prevent the
> kids from doing bad
> > stuff, disconnecting the computer from the
> internet. Still kids manage to
> > load games, download stuff, in restricted
> accounts, visit sites that are
> > blocked and all.
>
> [snip]
>
> /// Note: what follows may possibly be off-topic.
> ///
>
> Sorry for not quoting earlier posts in the thread,
> they're scattered around.
>
> First I need to check if I understand the situation
> correctly. There is a
> highschool computer lab, running Windows, connected
> to Internet, which is
> used for teaching students Word, Excell and
> PowerPoint.
>
> Q: is it sane to keep the lab connected to the
> Internet if it is used only for
> this purpose?
The students need the internet to fetch assignments,
i.e., research some topics. If it was not important,
pulling the plug solves this issue.
>
> These students are needed to learn those basic apps,
> while they are
> profficient enough to be able to tweak the registry,
> change admin passwords,
> circumvent firewalls etc.
>
> Q: is it sane to assume that such students do not
> know how to use Word?
Nope, They know how to use Word. It is just that
assignments start off with word processing, ie.,
typing letters, documents, research papers, ..., etc.
>
> There is a lab administrator, who doesn't know how
> to change the admin
> password if it is stolen, short of reinstalling the
> OS.
The administrator knows, but is not there most of the
time. He is very busy attending to other computers or
other duties outside of his job. He has to work on
other labs.
>
> Q: is it sane to hire an incompetent administrator
> who is outperformed by geek
> teenagers? (btw, tell him to google for
> "winternals", for example...)
>
> Let me just paraphrase Douglas Adams and the Guide
> --- when creating a top
> list of the most important things in life, "sanity"
> got stuck somewhere
> around 182. place... :-)
>
> Ok. Sanity aside, there are several distinct
> approaches to deal with the
> problem.
>
> 1) Determine what *is* the problem, exactely. Why
> are the kids not allowed to
> watch movies from YouTube, download music, etc? The
> only thing that one
> really needs is a tight firewall preventing them
> from attacking outside world
> (you don't want the kids to hack into Department of
> Defense or something).
> Other than that, it's up to their education to help
> them restrain themselves
> from immoral and similar content, rather than rules
> being enforced on them.
The school's internet comes from a source where
YouTube, MySpace, Porn Sites, ..., etc are blocked
because of contents inappropriate for the kids. The
kids wanting to know more ****except about subject
area*** explore and find proxies, workarounds to
bypass the firewalls. They even cracked the
Administrator passwords which allowed them to visit
the inappropriate sites. These kids are amazing and I
am not joking.
>
> 2) Delegate the problem to the kids themselves. Pick
> three or four of them
> that are most knowledgeable wrt computers, and hire
> them as assistants in the
> lab. Give them full access to computers, and ask
> them to do their best to
> keep them in working order. I have personal
> experience that once a teenager
> is given a task that assumes responsibility, "we
> rely on you" attitude and
> proper respect to his computer skills, he tries to
> do his best to prove
> himself worthy of it and up to the challange.
> Sometimes they exibit behavior
> that is more adult then adults. Besides, one of the
> main point of school in
> general is to teach children responsibility and help
> them grow more mature.
> Administration of a computer lab is a nice
> toy-problem for that.
>
My friend has tried to do that, but as Spider Man
said, with great power comes great responsibility.
One of these students put some games on their
computers, installed LimeWire and started downloading
off.
This suggestion will be put off by my friend. He has
been there done that.
>
> 3) Fight against kids. Put passwords in bios,
> disable booting from anything
> other than trusted media. Limit their user-rights.
> Or create diskless
> machines that are booted over the net from a main
> server. Create domains or
> such. Prohibit entering the lab with a laptop. Weld
> the computer case so it's
> not to be opened easily (not kidding, I've seen this
> done!!). Log their
> complete activity (web sites visited etc.),
> eventually displaying it on a
> public place for everyone else to read. Send weekly
> reports to their parents.
> Humiliate in public every kid that visits a porn
> site. Ask the
> director/principal to punish every kid that ignores
> the rules. And so on...
>
Yes, my friend setup the machines with limited
accounts in XP. Each student had an account with
their own password. These students started installing
games and programs with some options that bypassed the
administrator account.
>
> A computer is a tool, and as such does not make a
> distiction between good and
> bad usage. Consequently, it is inherently impossible
> to enforce only "good"
> usage automatically. You have to use social rules,
> laws, punishment, etc.
> If that is the approach you wish to pursue, that is.
>
> If you ask me, I would go for option 2) and ask the
> kids to help me fix the
> problems other kids made. Put *them* in charge and
> in your position, and let
> them feel what it's like. They'll learn something
> far more serious and
> important than Word and Excell... ;-)
>
> Oh, and btw, regarding your original question, you
> may install Fedora on one
> test machine, install vmware or similar with a
> frozen windows client (you do
> have licensed windows, iirc), put a line in
> /etc/passwd to invoke it on every
> login, and copy the frozen client from the backup on
> top of the
> possibly-modified client on every logout. Instruct
> the kids to use cd/flash
> memory/diskettes/other to save their data. Put the
> test machine randomly in
> the lab, wait for a month, then decide what to do
> next.
This is one solution that seems to be the best other
than the one suggested by Casey.
How should one set this up so that all these things
take care of themselves and what do we need to do,
like the steps to implement this solution.
>
> P.S. Sorry for a long mail... ;-)
>
I have enjoyed your mails and others' as well. There
is a wealth of talent amongst fedora users. I like
this very much! :)
>
> Best, :-)
> Marko
>
> Marko Vojinovic
> Institute of Physics
> University of Belgrade
> ======================
> e-mail: vmarko@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>
Regards,
Antonio
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