Facts about Lakewood Public Library's Registration Software

[Steve Hoffert]

The bottom line is not to use a public computer or an un-secure wireless connection for anything that you don't want others to know unless you want your private info to become the business of those who would use it to manipulate you.

I wonder if the library uses the SQL logging option that their software is capable of. Also it would be interesting to learn whether a packet sniffer/analyzer is used on their public connections as well as personal wifi on private laptops connected to the library's wireless network.

[S. Galwey]

The bottom line is not to use a public computer or an un-secure wireless connection for anything that you don't want others to know unless you want your private info to become the business of those who would use it to manipulate you.

I wonder if the library uses the SQL logging option that their software is capable of. Also it would be interesting to learn whether a packet sniffer/analyzer is used on their public connections as well as personal wifi on private laptops connected to the library's wireless network.

I asked some of these questions at the library a while ago. The employee replied that they do not log any web use on the wireless or regular network. When you log onto the wireless it tells you that it is an open network, like most places now. In other words at the library or Starbucks someone can be sniffing the packets. When at hotels during travel for work I enjoy seeing what people have in iTunes.

Don't bother with filtering. You will never keep up with the sites and undeserving sites get blocked. Besides if I want to read a Playboy interview I should be allowed to do so. I can turn off images and just read the text. As far as I know they aren't telling patrons to stop viewing sites because of the words shown. Are they? If the fear is a bad atmosphere for children, why doesn't the library get privacy screens and be done with it?

To me it is far more annoying to have to give up my library card to LOOK at DVDs or CDs than it is to not be able to look at nude women while using their computers.

[Ivor Karabatkovic]

I don't understand why the news (and the Cleveland Public Library) made such a big deal out of the LPL using a software that allows workers to view screens.

Lakewood City Schools has had that type of software in their computers for years now. I remember playing jokes on my teachers with friends where we would make single letters in MS Paint and spell out a full sentence on the admins screen. I don't see anyone making an uproar about having the software in our schools.

Is a school that much different from a library? Does the Library have it's right to make and enforce the rules that the directors feel are necessary to keep things orderly, clean and family safe?

In my opinion, one less person searching myspace for their next victim at LPL means one less troll in our community. If the CCPL isn't doing it's part in growing with the evolution of technology and the dangers this evolution brings to the table, then send the predators their way. It sounds to me like their policy will welcome them with open arms.

As for the Plain Dealer, it's not the first time they haven't been present for a great Lakewood milestone, and it probably won't be the last time either. That's why there are 35,000 printed papers out on Lakewood streets and 3 million visits on the LO website every month.

If I recall, this isn't the first disappointing article printed in the PD about Lakewood. If the PD keeps printing and posting that garbage, let them be MIA for as long as they wish.

[Grace O'Malley]

In today's PD, another criticism of Ken Warren and the library's computer usage monitoring, from a former CPL board member:

http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/st ... xml&coll=2