[CS-FSLUG] Windows XP restrictions & exploits

[N. Thompson]

Josiah Ritchie wrote:

>On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:56:54 -0600
>"N. Thompson" <n.thomp at sasktel.net> wrote:
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>>Josiah Ritchie wrote:
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>>There are three main computer rooms in the school each with probably 
>>between 30 and 40 computers running completely locked down versions of 
>>Windows XP, then there are 12 computer in the library and aside from 
>>that the rest of the computers are strictly for use by the staff only. 
>>The computer tech is not the same as the computer science teacher.
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>Maybe he'd like a program we use on our labs here called DeepFreeze. It's
>pretty popular in schools. The basic idea is that each time the computer is
>rebooted, it goes back to the state it was in prior to the last start. It
>is possible to "thaw" a system and make changes, then freeze it again. It
>also has a number of central management related functions depending on the
>version you purchase. We've had to make some of our machines ADMINs for all
>users so that certain old pieces of software would operate on the lab
>computers. I wouldn't have dreamed of doing this without that software and
>I'm still a good bit... hesitant, but paranoia is a good thing right?
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I came across that before at one of my old schools, the sysadming did a 
pretty good job of trying to hide the fact that it was there too, I 
tried to do a search on it when I saw it in the task manager that pops 
up when you give windows the three finger salute but I coudn't find any 
information on it on the internet, probably because the sysasmin blocked 
the site to keep us from finding out since most of the kids there had 
fun deleting files in the Corel Wordperfect folder when the teachers 
weren't looking. Until now I had absolutely no idea what that program did.

[snip]

>Most projectors are pretty dumb, like monitors. Some of the newer ones seem
>to provide advanced features via USB. My advice would be to know the model
>of projector, test far enough ahead of time to get in a bit of research,
>and keep the resolution and all that not higher than it needs to be.
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That shouldn't be too hard, all the computers at that school despite 
having fair sized monitors still have an 800x600 resolution, I would 
have liked to increase mine to 1024x768 but as I've mentioned previously 
there is absolutely no way even to change these settings on the school 
computers.

>>>If you have enough programming types, maybe you could start a school
>>>LUG. Once organized, you might have a voice to present changes and offer
>>>to help the school out. Definately try to be the benevolent assisters
>>>rather than the discgruntled fiends in the eye of the administration.
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>>I've helped lots of kids with their homework in the library when they 
>>were having trouble with MS Word so at least a few kids there know I 
>>have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about when it comes to 
>>computers, but unfortunately there are very few of them who actually 
>>know what Linux is and when I was looking for the school computer tech 
>>everyone wanted to know what Linux was.
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>Sounds like an excellent way to tell the school about Linux. :-) Keep that
>up, it might even give you an opportunity to share your faith with them.
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Most of them are already Catholic by tradition, I say by tradition 
because I don't think serious Christians of any denomination would say 
the f word as well as many other swear words as often as they do, 
everywhere I've been in Canada youths on public school seem to have 
swearing as their first language and english as their second language 
but hopefully when they get older the swearing will decline and 
hopefully stop.

>That's one of the great things about this list. When people ask, "where'd
>you learn all this stuff" you can say "a lot of places books, websites, My
>friends as ChristianSource have been especially great." :-) 
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>JSR/
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If anyone asks that sounds like a very good answer, I'll keep it in mind 
:-) .

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