Why disable access to software features?

[Bill Jenkins]

I'm going to put many things in one post.

At 3:14 PM 11/2/95, Withington, Rebecca wrote:
>Perhaps the intent here is to keep users from editing or modifying www
>documents.

Web browsers browse; they are not editors.


At 3:31 PM 11/2/95, Ilene Frank (REF) wrote:
>RE: Netscape.  We had a problem with patron(s?) sending anonymous postings
>of a virulently racist nature.  What to do?  The systems people decided to
>disable telnet.  This goes against the grain as Eric said, doesn't it? So
>does policing the use of those 14 terminals!  They are out there in
>the open just sitting there...

Blue US Postal Mailboxes dot all across the country. What is to stop
someone from sending anonymous (no return address) racist US Mail?


At 4:09 PM 11/2/95, 204.177.98.220 at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu wrote:
>Also, we found that people like to change the appearance of the machines to
>their liking, so we always had to be ready to explain the new appearance to
>a computer-illiterate person.  For obvious security reasons, we are doing
>whatever we can to limit access to the hard drive.

I don't think Eric was actually asking that kind of question. Of course you
don't want people saving files to hard drive, that is like writing in a
book. But controlling settings (so they cannot be changed in a program) is
not the same as disabling functions (Let's rip out Chapter 5.)


At 4:49 PM 11/2/95, Mary V. Payne wrote:
>Think about it Eric!
>If your library had a bookmobile, would you worry that you weren't offering
>free and equal access if you didn't let your patrons drive it?

I think Eric has thought about it, that's why he has asked the question.
You're driving the bookmobile example hints of the real nuts and bolts of
how a computer works, which is probably not the issue at hand. The issue,
in my opinion, is restricting people's access to resources.


At 5:18 PM 11/2/95, Walter Lewis wrote:
>What would I change in a browser?
>Controls for Save, Print, Mail, Open Location [even exit]; Adding Bookmarks
>that could be turned off at the institutions discretion.

Why would you remove Open Location? That truly baffles me. So a patron gets
a URL out of a newspaper and they want to check it out...

>In Netscape I'd eliminate the entire "Directory" sub-menu, but others
>might not agree.

I don't agree. It's part of the program and I also think Netscape has been
very protective about people changing it's program, as they should be.
(Let's rip out Appendix A.)


-----
Many of the posts go to people tampering with the computer. Of course we
don't want people to tamper with the computer that is not the same
question. And there are ways to allow patrons to change settings and have
them go back to defaults after they are done.

BillJ