First OLPC Deployment: Now It’s Real

“Early on, when talking to countries interested in OLPC laptops,
we heard one serious concern repeatedly: theft. In places where the
price of an XO is several times larger than the annual per capita
income, the laptop is an obvious target. To mitigate the issue, the
Bitfrost security platform features a three-prong theft deterrence
system; without going into too much detail (more information is
available), one key protection feature deters XO theft in the
delivery chain by deactivating the laptops when they leave the
factory. Until they’re activated at the target school with keys
that are delivered out of band, the laptops are non-functional
bricks.

“A couple of months ago, we were picking apart the deployment
details of this scheme in a security review with Nicholas and
Walter. The scheme requires certain logistical information to be
available: either we have to know where laptops are heading
somewhat in advance so activation keys can be generated and
delivered, or trusted deployment teams have to scan laptop barcodes
once they arrive at each school. I was given good assurances that
enough information will be available to allow everything to proceed
smoothly, but in attempting to establish the worst-case scenario, I
might have asked ‘how can we be sure?’ one time too many.
Eventually, Nicholas responded with ‘well, we’ll just mail
you along with the first laptop shipment, and then you can
be sure just how things will work.’ And thus, when Uruguay
officially became the first country to place an order for XO
laptops, OLPC purchased a ticket that had me landing in Montevideo,
the capital, the same day as the first batch of machines. My
mission: make sure nothing breaks. Translation: when something
breaks, fix it…”

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