Live CDs for Public Access Computing

My experience with the Live CD was overall a good one. The interface took a little getting used to, and the applications took slightly longer than I'd like, but the benefits to public access computing are great.

According to the website infopeople.org, the three main requirements for secure public access computing are Availability, Integrity and Access. Availability means that computers are available to any library patron during library hours. To guarantee availability, computers should be low maintenance and protected against viruses from the Internet. Integrity means that a patron's privacy is protected while searching on the Internet, and Access means that Internet access will not be slowed by attacks to the network.

Good Public Access Computing means not only protecting users from hackers, breaches in privacy and protecting computers from viruses, but also protecting public access computers from the users. According to Jim Semmelroth in the article "Keep Your Small Network Sailing Safely in Dangerous Waters", public access computing is inherently dangerous to computers and networks. "Only a very few patrons can be considered malicious, but many of the others are too uninhibited. Patrons have told my librarians that they come to the library to visit some sites so they don't infect their home PCs" (2006). Nice.

Using Live CDs for Public Access Computing in libraries can solve some inherent problems with public use and guarantee Availability, Integrity and Access. The benefit of using Live CDs in public access computers is that a public computer's hard drive is no longer necessary and can be removed from the machine. Users would not be able to install programs that could damage hard drives and the computers would be safe from Internet-borne viruses. This would also save on maintenance in both time and expense.

Works Cited

Infopeople website: http://infopeople.org/resources/security/basics/about.html

Semmelroth, Jim. (2006). "Keep Your Small Network Sailing Safely in Dangerous Waters." Computers in Libraries 26 (1 ), 45-46.