Talk:Correlating Bitfrost and threats

I agree with most of this article.

Assume officals are self serving, and governments will use any central repository to coerce the users. Because of this, theft protection and user control must be fully placed at the 'school level'. There can be no means for a government or master key holder to exert control. This control, for example, could simply be threats of shutting down the OLPC population used by an ethnic group unless a that group submits to a demand, such as placing one of its leaders into government custody.

Secondly, ownership transfer should be a very simple process handled exclusively at the school level. I don't know why such extreme mesures are needed for positive identification of the owner. This is an educational appliance - not a CIA computer!!! Why does the user even have to identify himself to the computer? Windows95 was good enough and demanded no login.

If the user loses the OLPC, who cares?? This assumes that unknown machines can't participate in any school mesh, so they becomes quite useless. If the machine reappears on the original mesh where it was lost, the administrator could disable it, until its user is identified.

An OLPC denied mesh access is not much of a theft target. Recall, it is not a CIA machine with tons of valuable documents!! A stolen OLPC wont help terrorists much without net access, and it is much less functional to a different child without the mesh. Social stigmas will undoubtedly be enough to minimize theft from one kid to give to another, as the value of the asset is diminished greatly without mesh access or a learning program in place.

Lets not keep applying western complexity appropriate for western security risks and sensitivities to a little bitty child's educational tool. The V-tech 'laptops' found at Walmart have a much more effective security model - none!