[Web4lib] Disable USB drives on public computers

[Dobbs, Aaron]

Greetings fellow thread readers...

The easy way to block the described hack (and the floppy and CD hacks,
too) is to configure the machine's BIOS to only boot from the hard
drive, or better yet the System partition only, and enable BIOS security
which will require a password to change BIOS settings.  
Quick, easy, painless (but repetitive as each machine must be touched)

If you would rather not allow executables to run from the removable
drives/media there are a plethora of findable software packages or
registry hacks to do so.  

Personally, I'd like to be able to run my Portable Firefox and Portable
Thunderbird apps to browse the web in my environment and check my email
on a public machine.  If that's not possible, the least I would expect
to be able to do is save files to my removable drive/media (thumb drive,
CD-/+R(W), floppy, etc.)

-Aaron
:-)'
 Vis tecum sit! 

Aaron W. Dobbs, MSLS, MSM
A+, MCDBA, MCSE+I, Network+
Network Services Librarian
Austin Peay State University
Box 4595
Clarksville, TN 37044-4595
(v) 931.221.6408
(f) 931.221.7296
http://library.apsu.edu/library/dobbsa


-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Drew, Bill
Sent: Friday, April 28, 2006 2:26 PM
To: Thomas Dowling; web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: RE: [Web4lib] Disable USB drives on public computers

Or I might want to reboot your computer from my USB drive with my own
operating system so I could hack into your computer.

Wilfred (Bill) Drew
E-mail: mailto:drewwe at morrisville.edu
AOL Instant Messenger:BillDrew4 
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." (Benjamin Franklin)
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org 
> [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Dowling
> Sent: Friday, April 28, 2006 3:23 PM
> To: web4lib at webjunction.org
> Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Disable USB drives on public computers
> 
> On 4/28/2006 3:11 PM, travelinlibrarian.8248287 at bloglines.com wrote:
> 
> > O.k. I'll bite. What do you have on a public computer that 
> you don't want
> > someone copying to a USB drive. Further, as a patron, I 
> want to run my portable
> > Firefox and would be suitably upset if you didn't let me...
> 
> Hear, hear!
> Or maybe I just want to save my search results without paying 
> a dollar a
> page for color printing...
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> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
> 
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