The Theft Problem

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Revision as of 21:09, 17 December 2006 by Frief (talk | contribs) (also briefly discussed there)
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There are brief discussions of the theft problem here:

Hardware_Ideas#The_colour_of_the_case,
Case_design#The_Theft_Problem,
Case_design#Blank_field_for_personalizing_indented_in_the_case

How can we make sure that adults do not steal these laptops and start to use them for nefarious purposes?

Make them different to public available comercial products

If the olpc laptop has different

  • color
  • shape
  • size of motherboard

it can be easily identified as a olpc laptop.

Serial Number

The MAC Adress can be used as a serial number. If a laptop is stolen this number will be written to a database. There can be a USB Stick with a small linux and all serial numbers of stolen laptops. If you boot from this USB stick it should show if the laptop is stolen. (MAC adresses can be changed temporarily by software)