[Sugar-devel] Parental controls (UPDATE)

[Ryan Cunningham]

The releases with this feature would at least include Sugar 0.104 onward.

What inspired me to create this feature is that Mac OS X has a similar feature. (This feature, other than that inspiration, has nothing to do with OS X.)

In creating this feature, I am considering that the user would be a child using an XO or Sugar on a Stick at home and not as part of a deployment. Deployments are free to use or remove this feature at their own will; this feature just makes it easier for deployments and parents to control their users', child's, or children's behavior such that the parent or deployment planner won't need to have any Python programming skills.

The controls can be enabled if, for example, a child visits (or at least is seen visiting) a site containing and/or dedicated to pornography (as some Nigerian children did, a couple years ago), or a child uses an activity for libelous or threatening reasons or other harmful reasons.

As a side note, you could as well add a feature with which a deployment or parent can disable 'getty' on non-X11 virtual terminals (but first check if the client's operating system is Linux-based).

Sorry for the confusion.

-- 
Sent from my iPad

> On Apr 23, 2014, at 5:38 PM, Ryan Cunningham <rvskmbrly3 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> By the way, I do have an installation of Sugar, but I don't have an XO.
> 
> -- 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
>> On Apr 23, 2014, at 5:38 PM, Ryan Cunningham <rvskmbrly3 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> One could simply disable access to the Terminal activity. He could also disable 'getty' on all virtual terminals not being used for X11 (how to do so depends on his flavor of 'init' and is outside the scope of this feature). For Ubuntu, additional steps are needed: he would also disable the "Resume normal boot" entry in the recovery menu and configure a password for the root account.
>> 
>> -- 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>>> On Apr 23, 2014, at 5:10 PM, forster at ozonline.com.au wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi
>>> 
>>> You say "For this  GUI to reach a wider user base, parental controls are therefore  needed."
>>> 
>>> Can you please expand on this. Why are these controls needed? In which circumstances would they be enabled? Which releases would be controlled?
>>> 
>>> Historically, Sugar and OLPC have been based on a philosophy of empowering the user. "Hacking" has been facilitated by Sugar as default and only disabled if at the specific request of a deployment.
>>> 
>>> The security you propose could possibly be bypassed by reflashing with another image or by hacking the Browse Activity?
>>> 
>>> Tony
>>> 
>>>