Do Whatever You Want on Library Computers

Many times, you are at the library and want to use some program, like Firefox, to browse the Internet. You might also want to take notes on something, but they won't let you open anything! This is how to do that.

Steps

Use Firefox

  1. Get a USB flash drive. This will let you get your software onto the computer. If you plan to do heavy duty work from your USB drive, try to get at least a 1 GB drive.
  2. Load the Lupo PenSuite on your flash drive. You will need to do this at home. Be patient.
  3. Install any Firefox extensions before you leave home. It is also good to install a theme that looks just like Internet Explorer, so no one at the library gets suspicious.
  4. Log in to a library computer, and plug your flash drive into the USB port.
  5. Open up the Lupo PenSuite menu (it is good to write an autorun script to do this, as you probably will not be able to open explorer) and open Firefox. You're done!

Get full functionality

  1. Download the latest release of Ubuntu Linux from [1]. Make sure that you get the version for normal computers, as library computers are never 64 bit.
  2. Write the large ISO file to a CD, and hide it in your pocket.
  3. Go to the library, and find a computer that is out of the way and not noticeable.
  4. Put in your live CD and kill the power for the computer.
  5. Turn the computer back on, and watch as it boots from the CD into a Linux operating system, with no restrictions and limits!

Create a Persistent USB drive

  1. Plug in your 2GB+ USB drive. Make sure there's nothing important on it, because it is going to formatted in step 4, which erases all the files on it.
  2. Download Universal USB Installer from here.
  3. Download the ISO for Ubuntu Desktop edition from here into the folder from step 2. This will take a while, be patient.
  4. Run the Universal USB Installer. After accepting the license agreement, select the drop-down and click your version of Ubuntu Desktop. If the ISO is in the same directory as the installer, it should turn green and tell you that it found it. Then select the drive letter than your USB drive is plugged into and check the box telling it to format the drive.
  5. Press Create.
  6. Once the setup is complete, shut down your computer and turn it back on with the USB drive still plugged in to see if it works. You'll need to have the computer boot off of the USB drive. Nearly every computer has a different way to do this. In most cases, you'll need to go to the BIOS settings (accessible when you boot up, sometimes F9, F10, F11, or F12 - it should say) and change the boot order to boot off of a USB Hard drive first.
  7. You're done! Now if you take this to the library and boot off of it, it should work if it works at home. Any changes you make will still be there next time you boot off of the USB drive (LiveCDs are not persistent - they store all of your changes in RAM, which is temporary).

Tips

  • Try speaking constructively to a librarian about your problems with their computers. If you're not doing something malicious, you may be surprised how helpful they are. Remember, most libraries appreciate feedback and may be able to make policy changes, install additional software, etc.
  • If you want to access the Internet via Linux LiveCD, make sure you know your way around their Internet connection setup wizards, etc. Since most libraries use modems/routers which (as is standard) assign IP addresses via DHCP, and most Linux Distributions (such as Ubuntu) detect that automatically, this shouldn't be a problem.
  • Try this at night, as the librarians are not as alert after a long day.
  • Sometimes, simply plugging in a flash drive at the log in screen allows you to bypass it. (The log in screen does not let you minimize it, but Windows XP minimizes it to show you the AutoPlay window)
  • Load more than Firefox on your USB drive, so you can do things like image editing and note-taking.
  • On the Linux LiveCD, use Ubuntu or Kubuntu, as they have all of the most important applications installed.
  • If you have a U3 smart USB drive, you can download Firefox from the U3 Download Central under web browsers.
  • Using a program that forcefully enables task manager.exe is recommended, because through task manager you can kill tasks that restrict your computer usage. IE: Programs that log you off after x minutes, etc. In some computers, they will disable Explorer, but using Ctrl+⇧ Shift+Esc (or Ctrl+Alt+Del click Task Manager) will bring up taskmanager.

Warnings

  • If you use the Lupo PenSuite, do not forget your flash drive when you leave.
  • Some administrators may disable USB access or disallow CD boot. However, most computers allow no-BIOS-configuration forced boot through a function key at boot-up. Most of the time, this is F12. Usually it will refer to the CD drive as "IDE CD-ROM DEVICE" or something similar.
  • Don't use this for malicious purposes, as it just ruins things for everybody.
  • Be very careful when doing this! The librarians are usually very alert, and you will get in trouble if caught.

Things You'll Need

  • 1 GB or more flash drive
  • CD
  • Internet connection

Related Articles

  • Not Get Caught After Hacking Into a Computer

Sources and Citations

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