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One Secure Laptop Per Child
Chris Crum
Staff Writer
2006-10-10
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
You may have heard of the "One Laptop Per Child" project, which aims to give kids their own laptops paid for by the government.
According to Fox News, 7 million machines will be bought at $100 a piece by governments in Thailand, Nigeria, Brazil and Argentina next year and will be given to children in those countries.
These relatively simple-looking machines are getting some attention for their approach to security, which some are calling "revolutionary". Fox News explains:Standard computer design generally lets most any program access any file stored anywhere on the machine. That is one reason why flaws in programs can be exploited by outsiders to steal or erase private information.
By contrast, the $100 laptops will force any application to run in "a walled garden" and limit the files it can access, said Ivan Krstic, a software architect at One Laptop Per Child focused on security.
Even if the security were to fail, Krstic believes a specialized encryption technology will prevent the BIOS - the software that runs a computer when it is initially turned on - from being overwritten. That means the PC could not be rendered unable to boot up. The computers do not contain hard drives, but will utilize Flash memory instead, and the operating system of choice will be Linux. This would no doubt be one factor contributing to being able to keep the price of the systems low.
Designers of the machines are collaborating with outside security experts on the project.
Tag: One Laptop Per Child
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About the Author:
Chris Crum is a staff writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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