[Olpc-open] Broadening OLPC security model considerations

[Evangelinos Dimitris]

Disclaimers: I am not a computer expert. I don't even have kids. I am 
a science educator that just encountered today's slashdot.com article 
and discussion (http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/02/07/2137233.shtml) and 
out of curiosity read the public release of the Bitfrost security 
spec. Following are my first spontaneous reactions, so please excuse 
me if I reiterate issues already taken care of. If this is out of 
topic, please advise for a suitable place to post it.

These are my worries:

1. The laptop will descend like a gift from heaven and land into a 
child's life, invoking possibly unforeseen changes to her life.

2. The laptop, like mythological fire, will become a new tool 
bringing power, self-awareness, individual and collective 
development, happiness but also may have unpredictable side effects.

3. If the laptop is stolen, damaged or just worn out, the child can, 
and will be hurt in multiple dimensions, the most important of which 
is the emotional one.

4. Therefore, the concept of "olpc security" should be reexamined to 
include the dimensions of "olpc use and abuse security" and "personal 
content loss security".

5. In the long term, a weapon attacking olpc laptops should be 
considered as powerful as an atomic bomb.

Some comments and proposals:

1. Implementing laptop security should not seen only from the 
perspective of computer science. I am glad regarding the privacy 
provisions of the spec, as well as the precautions regarding incoming 
content (nothing gets installed without approval) and safety of 
owner-created content. Regarding the latter, the implementation of 
centralised backup as described in the spec is a very important and 
welcome decision. However, I think that in the case of olpc, 
operating system security is closely linked to personal content 
security, which in turn is linked to children's psychological  security.

2. olpc should consider consulting child psychologists and if 
possible, include them in all aspects of development.

3. Psychologists should make a spec of possible psychological damages 
("bad things") caused by laptop theft or damage, but *also* from 
laptop use, abuse, and addiction (the latter being very important).

4. Implementing personal document security should become top 
priority. I expect that one of the first functions of the laptop will 
be to serve as a personal 'locker' where the child will safe keep her 
dreams, her complaints, her agonies and her hopes. Personal 
documents, photos, school assignments or personal diaries should 
become as secure as possible out of the box.

5. Schools and teachers should get in advance specific training to be 
able to deal with the potential psychological damages caused by 
laptop theft, vandalism, peer violence, malfunction and also its use, 
abuse, or even addiction to it.

To sum up:

We live in a dangerous world. The children of e.g. Africa, although 
sometimes more aware than us that they live in a dangerous place, 
cannot protect themselves from the laptop itself or from the loss of 
it. To clear things up, I am not saying (as some educators would) 
that "education (and the world in general) is better off without 
computers". All I am saying is that the laptop, as every tool, is 
potentially (and sometimes unintentionally) dangerous from many points of view.

Computer security as an academic science and a commercial discipline 
developed out of the need to protect individual property and 
sensitive information by hardening systems, implementing backup 
strategies, etc. These represent mainly the machine point of view and 
I am very glad the olpc security spec raises the bar on these issues.

In my humble view, the concept of "security" in the context of olpc 
should be reexamined and attempt to enlarge its scope: not only focus 
on machine security, but also children/human security. Even Asimov's 
laws of robotics considered that beyond protecting the machine from 
itself and others, it should also never harm the owner or do 'bad 
things' to other humans.

I think that Asimov's tales are not irrelevant to the present 
discussion. The olpc laptop may not be a robot, however, the child's 
relation with it will be as strong as with a newborn "brother/sister 
in the machine". The laptop will acquire multiple roles: a play 
partner, a window to the world, a dream fairy, a super hero, an 
all-knowing wizard, a savant teddy bear, a missing family member, 
perhaps it will even acquire the status of a better 
mother/father/teacher/friend.

The above roles already make the laptop more human than usually 
thought of. In that sense, not only there is a ghost in every 
machine, but children are always able to see it, and therefore *will* 
live with it. Unfortunately, most grown-ups have lost this ability. 
So let's consider some more specs regarding that ghost.