[vdr] Re: Child protection / access control module

[Steffen Barszus <st_barszus@gmx.de>]

On Thursday 19 December 2002 10:16, you wrote:
> Hello Harald,
>
> First of all, "I" do not have children of my own, so I don't
> need "Jugendschutz PIN" etc. HOWEVER, I just flew
> across the mails in answer to your question and I must
> say the answers you are getting are TOTALLY ridiculous.
>
> If I had children, I, too would be concerned in the same way
> you are. So your questions are perfectly "legal" in my opinion.
>
> Children ARE inquisitive and even if you say no, they will
> still want to try some things (just because you said no). I
> think this perfectly normal behavoir and I seriously doubt
> anyone on this list ALWAYS did what their parents told
> them (no, I do NOT mean criminal behavoir, but rather the
> usual things which are simply "verboten" at certain ages)
>
ACK

> There are four possibilities which come to my mind (at the
> moment)
>

<------snip----->
> 3rd possibility (of which I do not know if it will work unter
> linux): get yourself a (programmable) USB dongle. As long
> as the dongle isn't plugged in, linux starts with a "child user"
> version of VDR. If you plug it in,  VDR starts with the full
> version of VDR.
>
> Problem: I know this can be done under Windows, but USB
> support sucks unter linux (at least SuSe), so I don't know if
> it is really possible.
<----snip------>

USB-support isnt that bad. It can be used a normal USB-Storage-stick. There 
was an article in the german c't Magazin (208 ff)  and they had a great idea:

Use a normal usb-storage stick to save a  passphrase on it:
head -c 15 /dev/urandom | uuencode -m - | head -2 | tail-1 > /mnt/usb/pass

This one can be used to mount a crypted filesystem only if the usb stick is 
plugged to the system:

cat /mnt/usb/pass | mount -p 0 /var/vdr/ 

AFAIK if in these mountpoint is content, the content disappear as long as the 
medium is mounted. So you could easy switch between to configurations.
(the crypted filesystem can be an file mounted by loop-device).

Notes:
- can be extended further
- this does not prevent anyone to manipulate the configuration, so it is not 
really a secure solution, but it should be enough for child-protection
- hotplug maybe is able to switch the vdr version on plug-in and out
- another medium could do the same (storage-cards etc.)

Hope this will help you a littlebit.

Greets

Steffen
-- 
____________________
counter.li.org : #296567.
machine: 181800
vdr-box : 87
____________________
Please dont CC me, since if I have replied I'll watch the tread. Both mails 
will be filtered to the ML-folder. Thanks


--
Info:
To unsubscribe send a mail to listar@linuxtv.org with "unsubscribe vdr" as subject.