By now most people have heard of the “one laptop per child” initiative, also known as the $100 laptop project. In case you haven’t heard, the basic thrust of the one laptop per child project – and their 2B1 laptop – is to be able to produce this $100 laptop and distribute as many as 100million of the 2B1 $100 laptops to children in developing countries.
However, they are finding that securing these laptops is tough. Even though the $100 laptops are running Red Hat Linux, with a custom bios, they are still not invincible, and if the One Laptop per Child project reaches its 100million distribution point, that’s a very wide, attractive target for bad guys. Especially with 100million of these $100 laptops connected to the Internet.
In fact, Ivan Krstic, the $100 laptop project’s director of security, explained “Security for these machines is hands down the hardest thing I’ve ever worked on.”
So, the One Laptop per Child project is openly seeking hackers to help them, by hacking the machines so that they can find and close the security holes.
“We want hackers to get in touch, look at the documentation, play with the machine, and try to break into it. We run the risk of getting parts of this wrong and that’s not something we can afford.”
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Speaking of affording things, here’s what I want to know: how many of these $100 dollar laptops are actually going to remain with those children, and how many are going to be snapped up by their families and sold for money to fill a more pressing need, like buying food?
Anyone want to take any bets how quickly these things will end up on eBay?
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Essentially, yes, Brian, you are correct. I am Romanian and still live in this damned country… However, you cannot compare Romania with Fourth World countries because we are in the Third category! :)) No, seriously, our country has grave problems but not such as those from the Asian continent because there is where these “laptops” will go. Well, I wouldn’t call them laptops at all, by the way they look and function… I also wrote an article on them but it’s in Romanian, so you can’t read it. :)
Sell it for food? If they get to sell it I will be surprised. They will be taken from them by the gangs or thugs running their contries. The same thugs we give money to so that they can “feed” these people. The people are starving and the palace lives on.