[OLPC Security] Some anti-theft questions

[reynt0]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008, Benjamin M. Schwartz wrote:
  . . .
> If OFW detects a date indicative of a failed battery, it would be very
> nice to make that information available to the OS, so that Sugar can pop
> up a warning on startup: "Your clock battery has failed.  To use this
> laptop outside of school, you must replace this battery."

Or--having in mind the complexity of the human condition
including possible user situations, the variability of human
linguistic cultures into which alert messages may be translated,
the possibility of future changes of standard operating
assumptions, and the general rule not to give useful information
to bad guys--perhaps something like:
"This computer's clock battery may have a problem.  The computer
may not work when at some locations."

As well as possibly being reusable in various alerting cases,
this would identify the two main factors for problem solving,
battery and location, and leave the rest to local facts, user
guides, understanding, & skills.  I believe that is the approach
of OLPC??