On Fri, 4 Aug 2017 19:35:34 -0700 King Beowulf <kingbeow...@gmail.com> dijo:
>On 08/04/2017 07:02 PM, John Jason Jordan wrote: >> On Fri, 4 Aug 2017 18:14:03 -0700 >> King Beowulf <kingbeow...@gmail.com> dijo: >> >>> Slightly OT, but when I am stuck having to use a Windows box >>> somewhere, I carry a FAT32 USB thumb drive with portable versions >>> of F/OSS apps and utilities: >>> https://portableapps.com/ >>> Reputable site that has been around for a long time. Good stuff. >> >> It sounds very useful. Can you get these apps to run on a computer in >> the library or a classroom at PSU? > >They will run on any MS Windows box that doesn't have the USB port >locked. All the app data ad files stay on the USB drive and so nothing >ever touches the hard drive. I am sure you are right that nothing touches the hard drive. But when I run a program that is installed on a PSU computer I can save the files I create in my student H drive. The USB ports are not locked in the sense that I can open a file from a USB drive in one of the programs installed on the computer. But I doubt that PSU allows other not-installed-by-PSU programs to write to even the student's H drive. In fact, I would imagine that running programs from a USB drive is summarily blocked. How PSU can do that is beyond my ken, but I bet that somehow they do. I leave it to those more familiar with security on such systems to explain further or to point out why I am wrong. I am not attending PSU at this time or I would do an experiment myself. However, I know there are others here who might oblige. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
