Timing is everything: Little Brother and the Australian Netbook Initiative

[elfs]

Yamaraashi-chan and I are reading Cory Doctorow's Little Brother out loud. It's a much geekier book than she'd usually be willing to read, but to spend time with Dad she's willing to put up with a geeky book.

Last Thursday, we read the section where Marcus describes his SchoolBook computer:

The SchoolBooks were the snitchiest technology of them all, logging every keystroke, watching all the network traffic for suspicious keywords, counting every click, keeping track of every fleeting thought you put out over the net. We'd gotten them in my junior year, and it only took a couple months for the shininess to wear off. Once people figured out that these "free" laptops worked for the man -- and showed a never-ending parade of obnoxious ads to boot -- they suddenly started to feel very heavy and burdensome.

Imagine my amusement when I showed her the news out of Australia:

Australia's Federal Government decided to give 240,000 Lenovo IdeaPad S10e netbooks to Year 9-12 students. Officials are calling them 'unhackable. While the netbooks are loaded with many hundreds of dollars worth of software, 2GB of RAM, and a 6-hour battery, the cost to the NSW Department of Education is under $435 (US) a unit. Wilson praised Windows' new OS: 'There was no way we could do any of this on XP,' he said. 'Windows 7 nailed it for us.' At the physical layer, each netbook is password-protected and embedded with tracking software that is embedded at the BIOS level of the machine. If a netbook were to be stolen or sold, the Department of Education is able to remotely disable the device over the network. Each netbook is also fitted with a passive RFID chip which will enable the netbooks to be identified 'even if they were dropped in a bathtub.'

I asked her if she thought the RFID chips would be used only to identify sold or stolen laptops, and not to track kids. She looked kinda dubious at the prospect.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

ha. I see your youngest's bullshit detectors are starting to rub off on your eldest's... good.

freakin' nanny-state bastidges.

[mundens.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised that the Aussie government department in question was stupid enough to allow such a system to be created. Paedophile and terrorist networks will be ready to track kids via that "BIOS-level tracking software" before they start handing them out. The quoted officials are obviously stupid though, calling anything written by Microsoft "unhackable" is like calling a Malaysian inter-island ferry "unsinkable".

If the device is able to be disabled over the network at all, then within the first six months some kid will figure out how to disable all his classmate's computers. Also, RFID is a significant security risk in itself, not to mention easy to (even accidentally) disable, with a high power tight band transmitter (such as a microwave?) that burns out the RFID chip

I bet a Linux version of the same hardware with the same capabilities would have cost noticeably less per unit, unless Microsoft is (illegally, under Aussie government tender reglations) providing them with Windows 7 licenses and application software for nothing in an attempt to "corner the market".

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

LOL! If Microsoft is unhackable, I'm a purple komodo dragon with porcupine spines!

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

ORWELL WAS RIGHT!