System Folder Lock & Control Panel Lock =============================== At the school where I teach, we have recently installed several Mac LC's with hard drives. In the past, we had only dual-floppy Pluses, SE's, and Classics, so security was not a big problem. However, with the hard drives on the new machines, the potential for problems is great. The Locks I've written are intended to help avoid problems such as bozos mucking around with the Control Panel or System Folder. The Locks work well together under system 6.0.7 or 6.0.8, but I have not yet had time to make them system 7 compatible. =( Shareware: ----------- I wrote these programs because I needed them. If you use them, please be considerate enough to compensate me for my lost March Break (I spent the whole week working on these things). If you use the System Folder Lock, I ask that you send $10. If you use the Control Panel Lock, I ask that you send $5. If you use both, just send $10. Site licenses are available, as are educational discounts for bulk orders. As the control panel interface says, registered users will get goodies in return‹ whatever I happen to have come up with lately, including the most recent versions of The Locks. Right now, I'm working on a program to scan a hard drive and compare the contents against a master list of what should/shouldn't be there, and automatically move unrecognized junk to a common folder called "Student Work" (the kids have a habit of leaving a lot of garbage on the hard drives, and it's a pain to manually clean it up). My address is: Roy Wood 122 Britannia Avenue London, Ontario CANADA N6H 2J5 (519) 438-3177 or you can contact me at school: Roy Wood c/o Birchmount Park CI 3663 Danforth Avenue Scarborough, Ontario CANADA M1N 2G2 System Folder Lock: ------------------- Place this cdev in your system folder, and once it has loaded, the system folder will be invisible under all circumstances. Note that this patch does not simply mark the system folder as invisible; it hooks into the PBGetCatInfo system trap and prevents the system folder from being listed in any dialog box, as well as the Finder. If the system folder were simply marked as invisible, it would still appear in save/load dialogs, and bozos would still be able to get into it and muck around. Note that access to the system folder is still possible‹ e.g. MS Word can still create its temporary files in the system folder. Note that the System Folder Lock must be the last INIT to load; otherwise when it locks the system folder, the System will not be able to locate any INIT's which should be loaded after the System Folder Lock. The System Folder Lock has a simple control panel interface which allows you to enable/disable locking of the system folder. Obviously this simple interface is a security problem, which is where the Control Panel Lock comes in.... Control Panel Lock: ------------------ Place this cdev in your system folder, and after it has loaded, access to the Control Panel will be password-protected. This means that bozos will not be able to muck around with stuff they shouldn't be mucking around with‹ e.g. the System Folder Lock. To gain access to the Control Panel when it is locked, hold down the command and option keys while choosing "Control Panel" from the apple menu. A dialog box will appear and you will be prompted to enter the password (the default password is "BPCI", no quotation marks of course). If you enter the correct password, you gain access; if you enter the wrong password, you're out of luck. Be aware that the delete key is not implemented‹ sorry! The Control Panel Lock has a simple control panel interface that allows you to change the password easily. Installation of System Folder or Control Panel Lock: ----------------------------------------------- No tricks are involved in installing The Locks‹ just place them in your system folder and reboot. If things work right, you should see their icons displayed at startup. If there is a problem with a Lock, its icon appears with an "X" drawn through it (at present, no information is given as to why there was a problem, though I could fix that if enough REGISTERED users were to encourage me). Removal of System Folder or Control Panel Lock: --------------------------------------------- If you have access to the system folder, just drag The Lock out of the system folder, and then restart the machine. If you do not have access to the system folder (e.g. you forgot the password and can't get into the Control Panel), then boot up with a floppy and then remove The Lock from the now-unprotected system folder. Shortcomings of The Locks: ------------------------- If a user boots up from a floppy, he or she will easily bypass The Locks. As well, the Control Panel Lock password is easy to discover if you have a copy of ResEdit and care to examine the Control Panel Lock's 'STR ' resources (no encoding, since there are so many loopholes anyway). Remember, The Locks are deterrents. Determined Bozos will always find some way to cause you grief. .