[K12OSN] Student problem

Wed Apr 28 12:24:05 UTC 2004

The drop box answer is in this week's archives.  It's actually pretty 
easy to do.

For pulling Internet access, it'll take just a bit of work, but it's 
quite feasible.  The available browsers on a K12LTSP server are 
Epiphany, Mozilla, Konqueror, Lynx, and Galeon.  This is not a foolproof 
way to do it (the foolproof way to do it requires an authenticating Web 
proxy server--not exactly trivial), but it's quick 'n' easy and will 
typically stop most folks.  You take those executables, make sure 
they're owned by root, set group ownership on them to "internetusers" or 
something like that, and change your ownership to 750 on those executables.

Now, to let people actually use those browsers, you simply add them to 
the "internetusers" group, and voila, you're done!

Yes, there are ways to defeat this.  I can think of two right off the 
top of my head.  However, if a kid does that, you can boot 'em from the 
computers for the rest of the year, since the kid had to go out of his 
or her way to defeat it (this is very easily shown).  Also, since you 
have a policy of "no Internet" for kids that go porn surfing, there may 
be other disciplinary actions possible.  Finally, that lab needs to be 
rearranged if teachers cannot watch their students.

One last thing:  if folks can go surfing porn by just typing in directly 
"http://www.playboy.com/" or something like that, then your Internet 
Content Filtering system needs to be seriously re-evaluated.  Just 
stopping porn sites from search engines is not sufficient and would 
never pass muster in our district.  I'm surprised your e-rate funding 
hasn't been pulled!  Note that this is not a criticism of you or your 
school.  It's a technical criticism of what the district's bosses chose 
to buy, and they really need to consider something a whole lot better, 
say, Dan's Guardian or its commercial version, SmoothGuardian.

--TP

John P. Conlon wrote:

> I have a lab teacher who needs things set up so that her students 
> can't print unless she enters a password at their desktop.  What is 
> currently happening is that the students are typing extremely nasty 
> notes to her and because of the lab layout she hasn't been able to 
> catch the culprits.  The students are using Open Office for their word 
> processing.  Two things that I can think of would help her solve this 
> problem but I don't know how to implement them.
> 1. How can I create a drop folder for her that is accessed through 
> OO's File Save As command?
> 2. To prevent students from printing unless she has approved their 
> work, how can I set up a password on the OO print feature?
>
> This same teacher has also had problems with students entering 
> Pornographic Internet sites when her back is turned.  What changes do 
> I need to make in the users file to deactivate Internet access for 
> thoe students?
>
> Please be fairly detailed in any set of instructions.
> Thanks
> Bye
> Pat
>
>
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