[Olpc-open] Re: [OLPC Security] Application bundles and delegation

[Edward Cherlin]

On 2/12/07, xuan wu <wuxuan.ecios at gmail.com> wrote:
> Although the discussion is orginally in the security list, I set the reply
> here because I find it a rather open topic.
>
> I assume that the OLPC take the stratedgy to negotiate with the governments
> first and ask them to give out the laptops because OLPC think the
> governments' support can be seemed as assurance to the right ways of usage
> and management just as OLPC proposed, such as a activation server which
> confidentially keeps all the identities of the users(which'll be costly
> too), and a responsible person who keep the USB drive to activate the system
> periodically.

It appears that the real reason is simply that governments have the
money and also control their public school systems. I don't see any
way that anyone other than a government can buy millions of Laptops,
organize official teacher training, authorize the use of particular
electronic textbooks in schools, and so on.

> It seems to me a little too ideal, and I guess the governments which reject
> OLPC program also have the same feeling. We are afraid that some people down
> there won't be so noble as we wish, and the security mechanism just seems
> not so fit.

The only government that has positively, publicly rejected OLPC is
India. They have other problems. The Indian government talks a lot
about computers for the poor, including Simputers and the ITC
e-choupal project, but has yet to fund anything.

> Another example, In many parts of many countries, there's still no phone in
> most families. If the laptops can form a p2p network, which means it act as
> free cell phone in this network, will the parents or friends of the parents
> of the children "borrow" them from time to time to save some phone payment,
> only if there exists phone service in the area?

Letting family use the computers some of the time is part of the plan.
Do you think that parents will keep the computer at home, and not
allow their child to take it to school and learn? Such parents would
be regarded as evil and unfit to raise children in the societies I am
familiar with.

> There're just too many ways to let the adults take advantage of the kids and
> the mechanism seems not to protect the children's benefits enough.

Based on what evidence? This is a very distinctive computer to be
issued only to schoolchildren. It will be rather obvious if anybody
messes with the children.

> 2007/2/11, David Hopwood
> <david.nospam.hopwood at blueyonder.co.uk>:
> > xuan wu wrote:
> > >Ivan Krstić wrote:
> > >> xuan wu wrote:
> > >> > Actually I didn't find how to disfunction the laptop after it's lost
> > >> > from the spec

I didn't know that OLPC had plans for such a thing, but I work at a
company that creates software for managing mobile phones. Disabling
lost devices is an essential feature.

> > >> Section 8.19.
> > >
> > > Simply to shutdown the laptops after the expiration date seems to me a
> rude
> > > and reckless idea. This gives an excuse to those who don't want the
> pupils
> > > to waste time on the laptops.

What expiration date? Why would anybody think that these laptops
should be made artificially obsolete? And what is this about wasting
time? What should they be doing instead of accessing the pool of all
human knowledge?

> > Perhaps more worryingly, there have been several historical instances of
> > governments that have come to hold anti-technology,
> anti-universal-education,
> > and/or radically isolationist ideologies, to the extreme detriment of
> > their citizens: the Taleban in Afghanistan, the Khmer-Rouge in Cambodia,
> > or the Burmese government, for example. Such a goverment could easily view
> > the existence of the laptops in their country as a threat. I don't think
> > that this possibility can be dismissed as unrealistic, given the number
> > of countries involved and the probable lifespan of the laptop design.

They do regard computers as a threat, and won't let them in. North
Korea, too. Would you be interested in getting Laptops to the Burmese
refugees in Thailand, and to the North Korean refugees in China? I
think it might have an impact back home even without illegally
importing them.

Past experience has shown that governments that don't like the
Internet can control it only at the cost of near-total isolation from
the world. Serbia is a good example, where Internet growth was a
factor in changing their electoral politics. China is the best
example. At first the Party said, No Internet, nohow. Then they said,
Only for the Party (on a need-to-know basis), top business managers,
and professors. Then the managers' assistants and the graduate
students. Then, bit by bit, year by year, until they let almost anyone
on who can show any business or educational reason, but they
firewalled the entire country against Web sites advocating Democracy
and other such pernicious outside influences. Never mind. China has
lost this war, even though it is continuing a rearguard action and is
not ready to surrender.

The power of people talking to each other is like the power of water
droplets to wear down mountains, when there are enough of them.

> > It would be unfortunate if a feature that was intended as an anti-theft
> > measure could instead aid a government in imposing some oppressive regime.

No, oppressive regimes just simply won't buy them. On the other side,
some people put Libya in this class until recently, but in fact it was
one of the first to sign up.

> > --
> > David Hopwood <david.nospam.hopwood at blueyonder.co.uk>
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Security mailing list
> > Security at laptop.org
> > http://mailman.laptop.org/mailman/listinfo/security
> >
>
>
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>


-- 
Edward Cherlin
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OLPC4USA  End Poverty at a Profit
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