computer lab

Tuesday, September 4. 2007

Today Flora and I went to the Universidad de Sevilla and there we checked up on the computer lab. This is what I found (besides many Win XP computers):

Though to be fair I also have to mention that they then said I should stay away from that computer.

Posted by Matthias Kretz in Linux at 14:25 | Comments (15) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Please respect us the same way we respect your country. If you don't like it, no one invited you. Sorry, but it seems to me you feel a little "superior". Hope not.

#1 Fran on 2007-09-04 14:58 (Reply)

What the f*** are you talking about? Who is talking about countries?

#1.1 Anonymous on 2007-09-04 15:12 (Reply)

What are you talking about? There's nothing even a little disrespectful in this post.

Ok, disrespectful of Windows, but I can understand that.

#1.2 Jan on 2007-09-04 15:22 (Reply)

He is saying he found a GNU/Linux box with KDE, and that's cool (though the fact it runs as root by default isn't great, even when they told him to stay away from it)...

nothing about, what country is that even? spain? spain is great

#1.3 jospoortvliet on 2007-09-04 18:01 (Reply)

Sorry

to inform you that it was GNOME. But at least it was Linux in this room dominated by Windows systems. And that surely was a welcoming sight.

I expect that it was some experimental setup...

#1.3.1 Matthias Kretz (Homepage) on 2007-09-04 18:14 (Reply)

I've found something like that in the hacklab at the Akademy this year in Glasgow

#2 Anonymous on 2007-09-04 15:20 (Reply)

Hi Kretz!

I am a student there, in the Universidad de Sevilla. First thing I have to say is .. you are welcome here! Please ignore the troll..

The boot manager inside those PCs is not grub, but another one which AFIAK doesn't let you execute anything like init=/bin/bash.

We do some kernel programming in those computers that involves loading your own kernel modules, and of course, that's something that requires you having superuser rights.

If someone hijacks the linux or the windowsw install of a PC, it's not really a problem. Why? Because in the bootleader and with just one click you can download,install & then run a fresh working image of your favourite OS (Windows, Linux).

Have a good time in Sevilla!

#3 Eduardo Robles Elvira (Homepage) on 2007-09-04 18:04 (Reply)

Thanks for the nice words! I must say I really like Sevilla and the university building surely looks great (yeah, not the places inside that are getting renovated).

Today my wife tried to get access to the University network, but didn't get an account yet because her matriculation is not finished. I'd like to help her with setting up her (Linux-) laptop to work on the University WiFi, but it seems she won't have an account until after I have left. I just hope it's not as hard to use as in Heidelberg where we have to install the Cisco VPN client (which comes with a kernel module that has to be custom compiled)...

I've seen systems like what you describe (though Windows systems) in my old school in Germany. There we would install Halflife and on the next reboot it was gone (we found ways to make the Halflife installation process more efficient though

)

#3.1 Matthias Kretz (Homepage) on 2007-09-04 18:35 (Reply)

@VPN in Heidelberg: I think you don't have to use the Cisco client, try vpnc: http://web.urz.uni-heidelberg.de/Netzdienste/vpn/cisco/otherOS.shtml
With it, I could use my good old Zaurus

#3.1.1 Nik on 2007-09-04 20:38 (Reply)

<em>I just hope it's not as hard to use as in Heidelberg where we have to install the Cisco VPN client</em>

Most Spanish universities (including U. of Seville) are part of the <a href="http://www.eduroam.org/">Eduroam project</a>. This allows users to seamlessly use the WiFi of any participating University.

Please read the information about <a href="http://reinus.us.es/ssid-eduroam.en.html">using Eduroam at the University of Seville</a>.

Enjoy your time in our land.

#3.1.2 Quique (Homepage) on 2007-09-05 09:10 (Reply)

I just came back from the university - this time we had the laptop with us. It was no problem there to find the unencrypted wifi that had enough documentation about eduroam as well. Looks very nice indeed!

Is it correct that you can use knetworkmanager and set it to "WPA Enterprise" EAP-Method: TTLS and then only enter user id and password?

/me is enjoying Spain - though a bit sick today...

#3.1.2.1 Matthias Kretz (Homepage) on 2007-09-05 20:05 (Reply)

here in kiev polytechnic institute (ukraine) we have similar setup: the subject is called 'computer networks' and the students do kernel network hacking since 2006.

the system is debian and kde, though some students figured out that i've forgot to remove gnome from the system so they switched to gnome (yak!). btw: apt-proxy rules!

#3.2 nick on 2007-09-05 13:44 (Reply)

Hi Matthias,

+1 ignore the troll.

I am studying in the Complutense University in Madrid, and at least here we do not have root access. We have to enter with our own identification number into the system (gdm...) and you're in.

You even are at the group "students".

There's a nice issue here too: all of us have our own home directory at /home/youridentificationnumber, what is the expected thing. In security terms is really nice to see that some of them have their folders in 777 mode, and they save precious things inside

I hope you are having a really nice staying in Sevilla, and in Spain in general.

Bye !!

#4 Rafael Fernández López (Homepage) on 2007-09-04 20:34 (Reply)

I guess you'ld be surprised how many happy blinking root prompts you'ld find in IT departments all over the world, esp. when you go to the virtual consoles. I once found one that was still open to fix some issues (loading a device driver) during the installation, and must have stayed like that for at least half a year.

#5 furanku on 2007-09-05 15:54 (Reply)

Oh, I'm hardly surprised. IT security's weakest point is always the human...

#5.1 Matthias Kretz (Homepage) on 2007-09-05 19:08 (Reply)

Add Comment

Name
Email
Homepage
In reply to
Comment	E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly. Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above: HTML-Tags will be converted to Entities. You can use [geshi lang=lang_name [,ln={y\|n}]][/lang] tags to embed source code snippets Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.
	Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry