[/thread]Something on a less ethical note
Posted: 2017-01-21 20:59
I've returned to college this year, after a long hiatus. When I originally enrolled, I was still a win user so at that time this did not concern me as it does today.
One of the courses I have, a Statistic related with Social Sciences, requires a certain program to be used to treat and analyze exercises and problems the teacher assigns. I'm still trying to relocate the name of the program but I do know there is a FOSS replacement in the Debian repositories; as soon as I find the name, I'll update this post.
My problem, today, is that I no longer have the chance to use whatever alternative I can find and I'm forced to use a licensed copy of the software. It has versions for Win, Mac and Linux. But what gets me angry is that the program, according to a fellow student, when installed, creates a direct access to my machine, which the teacher can freely use to review work and, supposedly, grants access to the hard drive has well, to allow for copyright and plagiarism control.
If there is one thing I'm not willing to accept is having someone snooping around inside my machine.
I've already emailed a complaint to the course direction but I'm not holding my breath for replies. What measures can I take to lock out this kind of abuse (beyond pulling the Ethernet cable) and in a worst case scenario deploy a back-track attack?
I understand that what I'm asking goes way off what can be considered as ethical, so I'll fully understand if nobody can help me on this subject.
EDIT - the software is called SPSS but no further information is given about it.
Edit2 - PSPP is the FOSS alternative.
One of the courses I have, a Statistic related with Social Sciences, requires a certain program to be used to treat and analyze exercises and problems the teacher assigns. I'm still trying to relocate the name of the program but I do know there is a FOSS replacement in the Debian repositories; as soon as I find the name, I'll update this post.
My problem, today, is that I no longer have the chance to use whatever alternative I can find and I'm forced to use a licensed copy of the software. It has versions for Win, Mac and Linux. But what gets me angry is that the program, according to a fellow student, when installed, creates a direct access to my machine, which the teacher can freely use to review work and, supposedly, grants access to the hard drive has well, to allow for copyright and plagiarism control.
If there is one thing I'm not willing to accept is having someone snooping around inside my machine.
I've already emailed a complaint to the course direction but I'm not holding my breath for replies. What measures can I take to lock out this kind of abuse (beyond pulling the Ethernet cable) and in a worst case scenario deploy a back-track attack?
I understand that what I'm asking goes way off what can be considered as ethical, so I'll fully understand if nobody can help me on this subject.
EDIT - the software is called SPSS but no further information is given about it.
Edit2 - PSPP is the FOSS alternative.