[John R.Hogerhuis]

Let me take a crack at it...

The closest thing to a valid criticism here is that bitfrost does not protect
political dissidents from government monitoring and control. Similarly, a valid
criticism of my shampoo is that it doesn't protect me from falling satellites.

Which is the bigger threat to 6-12 year olds? Retribution by the government for
political activism or certain elements of the general society targeting them
over the Internet for whatever reason? The XO security model has always seemed
more concerned with the latter. I'm sure there are a few, but I haven't met
many 9 year old revolutionaries.

(But, if you're out there: probably you should reconsider unencrypted
communication between government provided laptops to plot your subversive
activities!)

Is it even possible to design a system that both provides anonymity and permits
close teacher oversight? Has anyone every tried in a public school system,
typically a state-run affair staffed by employees of the government to
seriously protect the students from government eyes and ears? Would any teacher
or school system want to deploy laptops to their students that puts measures in
place to lock them out of doing their job of taking care of their charges?

This paper is half-baked. Generally their arguments almost get to a point but
instead they leave you wondering how and why they bothered to get where they
went. 

The authors need to go back to the drawing board and bring some more serious
arguments to the table.

-- John.