Archived: School Software

[Kazar]

I'm going to a boarding school next school year and they require the students to give them their laptops to install an antivirus and take the MAC address. Is this normal in a boarding school? Could they possibly be installing anything to watch over me?What would be the legalities of that?

[The Explanation]

Just make an image of your hard drive on another computer, and re-write the image when you get your laptop back. You may want to check out what proxy settings they put on your browser too. Also, use a mac address spoofer if you don't want them to know what sites you visit.

They do this in order to keep track of you. It isn't likely they put a keylogger on the computer itself, but rather just use your mac address to keep track of what sites you visit.

[Dysgraphia]

Originally Posted by The Explanation

Just make an image of your hard drive on another computer, and re-write the image when you get your laptop back. You may want to check out what proxy settings they put on your browser too. Also, use a mac address spoofer if you don't want them to know what sites you visit.

They do this in order to keep track of you. It isn't likely they put a keylogger on the computer itself, but rather just use your mac address to keep track of what sites you visit.

Hold on. Care to explain what the HD image does?

I'm really interested.

[LSA King]

Originally Posted by Dysgraphia

Hold on. Care to explain what the HD image does?

I'm really interested.

Basically it images your computer to the state you made the image. So if you image your hard drive and then a minute later give it to them to fuck with and do whatever they want to do, when you restore that image after getting the laptop back it will revert to the state before it was before you gave them the laptop. Meaning, anything they installed or changed will instantly be lost as your computer will be exactly how it was before you gave it to them. Just don't fuck with your computer or change anything too much before you have to give it to them because it will be lost unless you throw it on an external hard drive or thumb drive until you get it back.

Make sure you get a hard drive imaging software that supports a bit-by-bit copy, it should advertise that if it does it, or just look through to see the specifications. A bit-for-bit will just make sure everything is copied to perfection.

[The Explanation]

Originally Posted by LSA King

Basically it images your computer to the state you made the image. So if you image your hard drive and then a minute later give it to them to fuck with and do whatever they want to do, when you restore that image after getting the laptop back it will revert to the state before it was before you gave them the laptop. Meaning, anything they installed or changed will instantly be lost as your computer will be exactly how it was before you gave it to them. Just don't fuck with your computer or change anything too much before you have to give it to them because it will be lost unless you throw it on an external hard drive or thumb drive until you get it back.

Make sure you get a hard drive imaging software that supports a bit-by-bit copy, it should advertise that if it does it, or just look through to see the specifications. A bit-for-bit will just make sure everything is copied to perfection.

I use Acronis True Image Home. Not sure if it's bit-by-bit, but it's always done a good job for me.

[Lanny]

BTW, this kind of thing is totally legal, sadly. You could refuse to turn your property over but then they would probably expel you, which is within their rights.

Basically, as long as you have physical access to a computer you can circumvent whatever security measures have been put in place.

[Dysgraphia]

Thanks for summing it up.

[LSA King]

Originally Posted by The Explanation

I use Acronis True Image Home. Not sure if it's bit-by-bit, but it's always done a good job for me.

Yes, Acronis does have the ability to do a bit-by-bit imaging and is a damn good one. Probably the best out there since Norton Ghost kind of took a dump in popularity and features many moons ago.

Originally Posted by lanny

BTW, this kind of thing is totally legal, sadly. You could refuse to turn your property over but then they would probably expel you, which is within their rights.

Basically, as long as you have physical access to a computer you can circumvent whatever security measures have been put in place.

Doesn't surprise me one bit. The same goes for the military. Anything paid for while you are active is subject to military action. Basically, if you fuck up your Team/Squad leader can take everything out of your room for whatever reason to "discipline" you. It happened many times and there is a regulation that allows it. Military pays you therefore they consider it as the militarys property, not yours. It gets more sketchy when you bring something from outside into the military environment.

The whole damn country is shady, rules, regulations, laws, TOS, licensing all this bullshit is meant to give the man dictatorial powers over us subjects.

[Jaguarstrike]

Just run linux, odds are they wont have software for that platform. If they refuse to let a linux machine on their network, fake a box with VMWare (easy enough to pirate), spoof the mac and let them install their monitoring software on a bullshit little virtual windows XP box.

If you need to have a valid mac to put traffic across the network, just route your traffic through a proxy on the VMWare box (i once got wifi working under linux this way).

If you do proxy your traffic out through the virtual box, make sure to use HTTPS!

[Mutant Funk Drink]

If they won't let you use Linux, your best route in my opinion is to do everything in an OS inside VirtualBox, and keep the VirtualBox image in a Truecrypt drive. Also be sure to use a proxy and/or encryption.

Oh yeah, and spoof your MAC address.