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How Laptops in Education Can Help Dictators, Hurt Learning

Posted by timothy on from the digital-cassandras dept.

holy_calamity writes "New Scientist reports on worries that the OLPC's BitFrost security protocols could hand a ready-made surveillance system to controlling 3rd world governments. The laptops identify themselves regularly to a server that can disable individual machines reported stolen — a system that hands a government a kill switch for every unit. BitFrost also has the potential to have machines attach a unique ID to every internet transaction, helping out anyone wanting to track net internet use. A freely available paper from a recent USENIX conference spells out the concerns." Relatedly, an anonymous reader points out a story at Slate about a study which examined the impact that free PCs had on poor students in Romania, writing that "giving the kids machines without a corresponding level of parental supervision just resulted in distractions which ultimately damaged academic performance. By contrast, allowing children access to machines in a supervised setting, say an after school program via school labs, might mitigate some of the negative effects."

9 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. In other news... by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Dictators use whatever means at their disposal to control their people.

    Details at 11.

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    1. Re:In other news... by Americano · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think the point of TFA is that the OLPC's security system can be mis-used as an assistive technology for those dictators in their efforts to control their people.

      I wonder if you'd be equally glib in your dismissal if this article were about Google filtering content at the request of Chinese authorities, or Yahoo disclosing the identities of people advocating democratic reforms?

    2. Re:In other news... by Duradin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Anything can be misused as an assistive technology for dictators in their efforts to control their people.

      Pen(cil) and paper? Leaves written records. A certain Cardinal had a pertinent quote for that.

      The kid sitting next to you? Would probably sell you out so he could get a bag of rice for his family that is starving.

      Who do you think would employ the teachers if the dictator is that paranoid or controlling? Commit a thoughtcrime against The Most Benevolent Leader and you and your family go off on a permanent vacation.

    3. Re:In other news... by colmore · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Thank you.

      This is a kind of report and study that I cannot stand. Laptops cause all these problems in the developed world for middle class kids as well. But nobody says suburban tweens shouldn't have the internet. I doubt very much that they are on the whole better supervised than Romanians or Africans, basing this on my own internet-connected undersupervsed childhood in the suburbs which I might add, turned out pretty much OK.

      As for dictators? People in glass houses, come the hell on. Maybe not America too much, yet, but from every thing I seem to be reading about half of Europe, Big Brother has been on laptops in the developed world for quite some time.

      There's such a tendency to hold the poor to standards we do not apply to ourselves. I find it kind of disgusting.

      --
      In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
  2. 3rd World? by Wylfing · · Score: 4, Insightful

    3rd-world dictators? Shyeah. Try "all governments everywhere."

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    Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
  3. Just more practice for the budding hackers. by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    True, this all is quite a problem, but for every problem, there's a solution. For every surveillance method, there's some talented kid out there figuring a way to circumvent it.

    One of the geekier recipients of these laptops will engineer a way around this BS...and then he'll share that info with his less-geeky friends. The government will have considerably less control than it thinks it does.

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    ____

    ~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey

    1. Re:Just more practice for the budding hackers. by mckinnsb · · Score: 4, Insightful

      True, this all is quite a problem, but for every problem, there's a solution. For every surveillance method, there's some talented kid out there figuring a way to circumvent it. One of the geekier recipients of these laptops will engineer a way around this BS...and then he'll share that info with his less-geeky friends. The government will have considerably less control than it thinks it does.
      And in the end, isn't that what OLPC is all about?
  4. Supervision. by LWATCDR · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Internet is like New York City. You can find anything you want there. From great art and science to the worst filth.
    The same basic rule should apply. Don't let your kids run around unattended.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  5. Computers in schools... by argent · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When I was a kid, computers in schools meant punch cards at universities. By the time I was a teenager, it was an Apple II in the math lab and the only people interested were the real computer nerds. I was reading about things like PLATO and computer languages designed for teaching... languages better than Basic... but they were out of reach. I figured my kids would benefit.

    Then the personal computer revolution hit its peak and we got an Atari and Logo and all that good stuff, and then my kids were born, but by the time they were old enough to be really interested in computers and what Daddy was doing what they mostly had in school were IBM PCs that were running Office and used to teach kids how to be secretaries and accountants.

    Computers in schools seem to miss the point more often than not.