[OLPC-devel] OLPC "bootloader"

[Christopher Blizzard]

Jim Gettys wrote:
>> We might be over-thinking this, though.  We're all computer experts in 
>> thinking about what _could_ happen.  But maybe it's fine to just trust 
>> your local wireless network.  The larger the set of people (think 1,000 
>> child schools) the more likely you are to have problems.  But in a 
>> 30-person school?  Eh.
>>
> Unfortunately, we do have to worry about the security issues.
> 
> MIT Project Athena has seen man-in-the-middle attacks: if that can
> happen there of only a couple thousand machines, we can see it in our
> world.
> 
> And the Thai's have schools up to 3000 students.
> 
> Whether we have to deal with it on our first day, is a different
> question.

We will need to work through the design issues on the re-install.  It's 
dangerous to overload the discussion with project athena issues.  It 
might be as simple as a single shared secret with checksumming.  It's 
the experience that matters.

--Chris