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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ll-xn!cit-vax!mangler
From: mangler@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (System Mangler)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: watch-dog program
Message-ID: <2652@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: Mon, 11-May-87 06:23:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: cit-vax.2652
Posted: Mon May 11 06:23:13 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 13-May-87 01:14:11 EDT
References: <7305@brl-adm.ARPA> <5848@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 17
Summary: the users will defeat it

In article <7305@brl-adm.ARPA> rachiele@nadc.arpa writes:
>I am in need of an automatic logout program for unix sys V (2.2) running on

When our computing center installed an idle timeout on their terminal
switch, it took very little time for the students to figure out how
to defeat it.  "In Use" programs were rampant.

No matter how sophisticated your idle logout daemon, it can be defeated.
If nothing else, the user can plunk a paperweight on some auto-repeating
key on his terminal.  If there are no auto-repeat keys, there are still
interesting things one can do with answerback messages (on VMS, try
setting the answerback to ^E.  Fun)  I hope you have enough CPU cycles to
still get some work done after the idle-daemon defeaters take their toll.

Buy yourself a used Able DH/DM instead; they're cheap, and very good.

Don Speck   speck@vlsi.caltech.edu  {seismo,rutgers,ames}!cit-vax!speck