I for one would love to know how you eventually defeat this crapware but until then.....
Centurion guard is far from crapware. I'm a sysadmin of about 7 library branches, and ever since I have installed centurion guard I have not had to touch those computers at other branches.
Centurion guard is hardware based with a small bit of software on an included floppy and hooks inline with your floppy drive. It's amazing, you can even fdisk the drive, hit the reset button, and all is back to normal.

To unlock the system, you have to have a key. (not software, you need an actual key) wich is on the back of the unit. The user can basically trash the system and a reboot fixes it.

I'll have to try knoppix out on one of them and see if it works. Although, a good sysadmin prevents booting from anything but the hard drive in the BIOS.
Here is a link to the device http://www.centuriontech.com/centurionguard.htm