[Web4lib] Read and write but not execute from USB flash drives (&other removable media)

[Robert Sullivan]

>I'm looking for advice about how best to allow our library users to
read from and write to their USB flash drives, but not to run programs
from them.

We use the freeware Trust-No-Exe for exactly the situation you describe.
It allows you to specify locations from which software will run and
block everything else.

<http://www.beyondlogic.org/solutions/trust-no-exe/trust-no-exe.htm>

We have been using it for about a year and a half without any problems.
Of course, you'll run into things in a public access situation which end
up blocked even though they are harmless, e.g. a CD of images which uses
some sort of photo album to display them.  You can work around this if
you have some sort of graphics software which can navigate through the
drive to load images.

We consider this occasional inconvenience a small price to pay for the
security provided.

Bob Sullivan  <rsullivan at sals.edu>
Schenectady County Public Library (NY)  <http://www.scpl.org/>
Schenectady Digital History Archive
<http://www.schenectadyhistory.org/>