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Bulletproof Tool For Golden Age Browsing?
An anonymous reader writes "I work in a retirement/assisted living home. Many of the residents had never used the Internet but really find it fascinating once they are given a little training. However, I've stopped introducing it to them because of the drain it puts on me. There are a million and one things that a computer novice can screw up, and I don't have time to solve all of them. These folks don't need any sophistication. and they need only the most basic options. Adjustable text size would be nice, but otherwise — no email, no word processing or editing, no printing — just Internet browsing. This may not seem like a big market, but it's getting bigger every day! Is there an absolutely fool-proof device that can provide this without requiring virus scanners and constant attention?"
Check out the VMWare browser applicance... basically a disposable OS with browser in a vmware image. If it gets broken, just create another copy - no need to worry about the base system getting hammered with crap.
VMWare Player is free - have at it!
5468652047616D65
http://www.opera.com/support/mastering/kiosk/
Designed to be used at public terminals. Bonus points for installing it on Linux.
It uses javascript to load Flash because of that issue with IE and plugins because of patents problems. Its the workaround to go around the workaround (wow...) that allows external code to load a plugin without user interaction so you don't have the "Click here to enable this plugin" thingy popping up.
Wow, thats the most runabout post I ever wrote. Going to bed.
Firefox in kiosk mode, configured as your X session (i.e. the app that is executed by X when it starts up), on an X server that is reloaded automatically, with all the VTs disabled, is apparently pretty bulletproof in practice.
Run Mac OSX. set it to the simple finder mode. There you can lock out all applicatons you don't want them to have. They cannot edit the icons in the dock so what they see is what they get (and they can't accidentally delete them either). And finally if ALL you really want is Browser, you can put it in kiosk mode and even have it boot that way. SO all it is is a browser, up and running when you snap on the machine.
Now if you are budget minded you could do the same with Linux. Use a Live CD, configure it to boot to a browser. Remove all the other icons and don't give them permission to the apps. One of the very easiest ones to configure this way is DSL linux which has the benefit of booting very very very fast from CD and running on old, memory starved hardware, and being parcimonous about screen realestate. However, for you i'd recomend DSL-N (not DSL) as that is more modern.
If you are not budget minded, it would be smarter to go with the mac. several reasons
1) lots of plugins will be easier to use. likepdf support in the browser itself, (flash quicktime silverlight....)
2) some folks there might want a real computer too. The liveCD linux boot will be constraining. Macs, have faster user switching so you can corral the people who need the simple finder but let other use it in advanced mode.
3) Eventually they may want to add a few more apps. maybe they want for example to have podcasts. google earth. Watch DVDs
4) you can keep a mac secure without going crazy. You can even firmware lock it to keep the wiseguys at bay.
5) it's easier to attach portable disks, second or external screens, cameras, etc... to the mac. No sys admin needed.
6) If you need support you can call apple and so can they if you are not around.
7) For desktops there are no cables and they are easy to adjust to viewing angles (like for a wheel chair)
8) easier to use applications, should they want them.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
As every poster has pointed out, you can rock-solid a computer with Kiosk modes, virtual machines, etc, etc. But if you're going to put a tool like the Internet into the hands of (shall we say) "unskilled" users, you have a responsibility to protect them from the baddies.
Before anyone gets on the computer for the first time, drill some basic saftey tips into them. Do not give out passwords. Do not give out personal data. Do not give out financial data. Not to anyone, no matter how legit it looks. For many, this is probably their first experience on the internet. You cannot take for granted that they have been ingrained with The Basics. They don't know about Phishing. They don't know people can make a website that looks exactly like their banks' website. They don't know about Nigeran princes. Their bases have only every belonged to them.
Print out some Golden Rules, and post them in the computer lab/common area/whatever. If the computers are going to be in the resident's apartments, make sure you print out something that can be stuck to the monitory.
Send them out to play, but not in traffic.
You can do some things behind the scenes as well. Route everything through a gateway you control. Make sure you have some good security on it. Go grab PeerGuardian's list, and maybe mvps.org's host file. Keep it up to date so that it blocks all the well known phishing sites. Concider blocking any outbound request for an IP address (rather than an URL). Run a mail server with a kickass spam filter, and give them all their own email boxes. (grandpaAbe@shadyacres.com). It also makes it easier to whitelist their friends&family email addresses to let legit attachments through.
Try running guided tours of the Internet. Don't just pluck them down and say "here you go". Show them good places to go, and how to get there. News sites. Wikipedia. National Geographic's site. Typing Tutor sites. Maybe some instructional courses: How to use Flickr to view and post family albums. How to edit a Wikipedia article about the hometown they grew up in (and know everything about... preserve the knowledge!)
Do this right, and not only will you have safe comptuers-- but you'll also have safe, happy, productive users.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
There is an easier way to do it with Linux than live CD. Much higher performance as well.
Start with a full install of Debian or Ubuntu or any other distribution that strictly complies to the fs standard and does not write into /usr. Build it with separate /,/var,usr and use tmpfs /tmp /var/tmp. Install all necessary plugins. Once you are happy with the result switch /usr to read-only mode. Do not give them a root password and provide sudo instructions for the visiting grandchildren if the golden age customer asks them to install something in addition.
This has been tested on a Golden Age customer (my mom) and this setup is the first machine she has had so far that does not require any maintenance. It just works regardless of powercuts, cats sleeping on the keyboard, etc. She had a windows before that and it got trojaned with a dialer hijacker which clocked her an insane phone bill. It also worked 10% of the time. During the rest it was suffering from various windowsy degenerative diseases. Prior to that she had a linux with a normal read-write install and she successfully managed to f*** it up by pressing the power button during fsck a couple of times.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
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