dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (07/16/84)
I am in the process of setting up a "Computer Education Facility"
at the Law Society of Upper Canada, which will consist of a
central machine running UNIX, about 13 terminals in one room, and
remote phone lines. Since the room will be accessible to law
students and lawyers in the evenings, I have some concerns about
security (that is, other people getting in and walking off with
terminals).
I wonder whether it's possible to set up a mechanism which uses
RS-232 signals to trigger an alarm if someone tries to steal a
terminal? Has anyone tried this before?
One possibility would be to use CXR (carrier detect), and have an
alarm triggered via the UNIX "hangup" signal if CXR is dropped.
However, most terminals drop CXR when they are powered off, so
false alarms would occur. Perhaps some other pin can be made to
be always high when there's a physical connection, and dropped
when the connection disappears. Obviously, there would also have
to be some kind of tie-in to the UNIX device driver to detect the
dropped signal.
There would also have to be some way of disabling the alarm
selectively (by port) from UNIX, for terminal servicing and so on.
We are getting a Perkin-Elmer 3220 running "Edition VII Workbench"
(basically v7), and the terminals will probably be Esprit
Executive 10/102's (which, by the way, are not well-suited to
being bolted down to the tables).
Any suggestions? If I receive anything, I'll post a summary to the net.
Dave Sherman
Toronto
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