ProctorU...hell in a handbasket Part 1

[bricabrac]

I'm not a computer expert, but would creating a separate log-in with limited access for your machine help at all in this situation? You could log in with the "guest" account, so at least none of your sensitive files are accessible without your prior approval.

Thoughts?

Hi there Tedium. Thanks a million for taking the time to share an idea. I am not sure that a second user account would resolve this issue. The ability to directly connect to unspecified hard drives and the ability to adjust application settings to have it run at startup and the ability to alter the application so that it did not install into the Control Panel and was thus unable to be easily removed, all of these reasons suggest that a different user account would probably not have resolved the issues this time.

Tedlum, Cypster,

I'm thinking if you are on Win7, you might run a virtual machine and possibly dedicate a portable drive to that machine. That may alleviate any issues, but what a PIA. As Cypster advised, once you've completed your exam, check all files and folders, run your security programs, remove the portable drive then sign off.

If anyone attempts to drop a file on your hard drive it would now be on the portable drive, which is basically a throwaway, and you are making it much harder for someone on a time clock to burrow into your computer. Of course this is only theory, you would have to test it to see if it would work.

Personally, I would first investigate the offsite proctoring service provider. If too far from me, I would use a dedicated computer, and use my phone (or another mobile IP) for internet access. I would also boot from a second portable drive when getting ready to test. Bottom line, I could never give a company such as this access to my main computers.