Jacob Cherian - All Headline News Staff Writer
Cambridge, MA (AHN) - The $100 laptops designed for "The One Laptop Per
Child" project - a nonprofit program by the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology to improve childrens education around the world - could be an eye
opener not just for its cost but also for its security measures.
The laptops are bright in color, wireless-enabled and portable. According to
organizers over the next year, 7 million of these hand-made computers will go to
Thailand, Nigeria, Brazil and Argentina, where each child will have a computer
of his own.
The computer will use free Linux operating systems, flash memory and slow but
minimum-power microprocessors.
Programmers have also taken a revolutionary "start-from-scratch nature" to
security measures tool. Already they say the security components on the laptops
would not require anti-virus software. But, they are calling in outside security
experts just to make sure.
Ivan Krstic, a software architect at One Laptop Per Child says, that the $100
laptops would have applications to run in a "a walled garden" limiting access to
files.
Additionally, Krstic says a specialized encryption technology prevents the
BIOS, the software running the computer while booting up, from overwriting.
Kristic tells MSNBC.com, "Its essentially unbelievably difficult to do
anything to the machine that would cause permanent hardware failure."
Kristic was quoted by the AP as saying, "We have code-sharing in the
machines, which is really scary if we were not paying attention to it...But we
think we have solutions to all of these problems."
