On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 09:36:23 +1300
Richard Tindall wrote:

> Nick Rout wrote:
> 
> The question is, can a reliable Linux service company offer any 
> (conditional) guarantee to a cafe owner, that the Linux stations they 
> may choose to set up will protect their clients' privacy, now, any 
> better than Win/dos can?

[snip]

> Steve is saying that as long as a standard PC is the platform, it can 
> still quite easily be cracked (aside from methods of box and boot 
> access). Are we looking at an opening market for a cutdown net device, 
> consequently? R&D?..
> 
> "Kiosk" PC setup options may already have the security sorted out to 
> support commercial responsibility, but I'm not so sure about that yet.
> 

Hold on, are we talking here about the ability for the owner to
compromise his customer's security, or the ability of one customer to
compromise other customer's security?

Take a look at the history of the thread, I am not sure we are all
talking about the same thing at all!

Anyway Steve postulated the answer, read only distro with a reboot after each 
user. The only reason not to pull the plug on any OS is unfinished
work being unsaved and cached disk accesses not being written back to
disk properly. If you are writing nothing to disk there is no bother.

I guess if you are running an internet cafe and fail to spot someone
prising open a keyboard and installing a keylogger, then you're in
trouble anyway.

For a read only (CD) approach see here:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7127





> -- 
> Richard Tindall
> InfoHelp Services
> 

-- 
Nick Rout
Barrister & Solicitor
Christchurch
<http://www.rout.co.nz>
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

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