Our solution traps logoffs & re-initializes the registry but in schools security is not the only problem. A much more significant problem is students who don't log off & then the next student sits down & starts working on the 1st student's account. Another serious problem is students who switch machines during class without logging out. This kind of trouble is far worse on a day-to-day basis than the would-be-hackers because it happens frequently & it causes students to lose or mis-place their work. The complaining from the student & teachers becomes very serious if you don't address this.

We colour code the screens & screen-savers so a teacher can tell exactly what type of account is active & if the machine is in a proper logout status. At the start & end of classes the teacher can visually sweep the class to ensure all is well. Any machine not displaying the correct colours must be manually re-initialized by the teacher pressing a desktop icon.

We attempted to put in place a solution that both addresses security & ensured proper control of student's work.

A final note,

Schools are unique in many ways & their security needs are very different from private industry. In schools, security is a physical thing. You are trying to stop students from damaging the machine & OS. A student trying to high-jack a server or another student's machine is very rare. Stealing the mouse ball, putting pencils in the CD-ROM drive, deleting files, souping up the desktop & downloading games or porn are the order of the day.

One of the things that almost every successful system in schools has is an image refresh function. No matter what OS or security you have in a school, students will find a way to disable it. Without this refresh function, school labs will always be in a state of disfunctionality. You must be able to return the OS back to is orginal state every week & it must be relatively fast.

In my opinion, investing in this type of software is far more important than investing in security software. We spent most of our programming efforts on this function as well. In schools, these things are further complicated by the fact that really expensive corporate solutions are not financially feasible. (We use PCR-Dist a ghost derivative. They use to give it free to K-12 schools but it is still cheap & very powerful.)

I recommand you do a search of the web on computer security in schools & libraries. You will get lots of ideas.

Some further thoughts on security: Keyboard control is important because some hot keys bypass the registry restrictions. We use the freeware utilities "killf3" &"wkeykill". Also, junk wordpad & paint. Both allow creative students to circumvent restrictions. Paint in particular allows students to change the desktop.

Jooel,

An improved version of eliminating "ctrl-alt-del" utility is offered here:

DX21 software

Somebody on this board is related to this site but I forgot who. They have an extensive kixtart area as well.

[ 07. October 2002, 20:51: Message edited by: Jack Lothian ]
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Jack