Forum Moderators: bakedjake
I know absolutely nothing about Unix, etc. to be honest, but I was wondering if this would be possible in any known operating system (it's more of a technical/curiosity question to be honest):
Create a program that copies the time from the operating system and continues to run it's unique clock (on an administrator account that other accounts wouldn't have access to). The program/application would simply be a clock (which other than the time the computer is turned on runs independently from the computer time).
Use a line of code that would say something like "if comptime < applicationtime then shutdown". So in other words if a user tries to turn back the clock of the computer the computer gets shut down.
I bet this must seem like a silly question, because one could probably simply disallow any non-admin account to change the clock, but I'm wondering if this would work, too.
been looking too much into parental control/time restriction software recently, I guess lol
But normally you would just set the OS so that it won't allow normal users to change the clock in the first place. That's the default in Unix/Linux. It's not recommended to let anyone set the clock incorrectly, because it can confuse applications if the time jumps.
Still, I was interested if that idea/such an application would work (on whatever OS). But wouldnt it be easy for even a restricted user to simply use the taskmanager (or the equivalent of it in another OS) to simply cancel the application that's running?
I assume simply making sure the clock synchronizes every few seconds would not be an effective solution, because the computer would do too much work, right?lol
Hide the Clock with the Group Policy Editor in XP Pro or Vista:
open the group policy editor
Start\Run type gpedit.msc
Move through the left pane to:
User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Start Menu and Taskbar\
At right find the key: Remove Clock from the system notification area double click and select enable
Also, a restricted user shouldn't be able to kill a process that's running as admin.
As for gpedit, the two (more tech-savy than me) friends asked me to do this right in the beginning, but it couldn't be found (b/c win xp home?).
Anyway, what I'll do now is either get a portable power outlet, put it in a safe box with a plug-in timer (etc.) or find a back up power resource kind of thing..sort of like batteries for the computer. Guess notebook + taking away the cabel to recharge the batteries would work, but for a stationary PC those back up power sources dont seem to last long enough.
Anyway, thanks for your help guys..despite my posting about windows when this forum is really about Linux/Unix.
I am 99% sure the "Guest" account can't alter anything including the time.
