Andreas, Plenty of Syrians do have internet access, and use it on a regular basis.
Also, lack of appropriateness for one use-case doesn't necessitate lack of appropriateness across the board. Linux is a great solution for many use cases, but as has been elaborated, quite a terrible one for many others. Brian On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 7:44 AM, Andreas Bader <[email protected]>wrote: > On 02/06/2013 04:24 PM, Tom Ritter wrote: > > Nadim, I'm with you. I'm not sure it's the perfect solution for > > everyone, but like Nathan said, if you already trust Google, I think > > it's a good option. > > > > On 6 February 2013 07:12, Andreas Bader <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Why don't you use an old thinkpad or something with Linux, you have the > >> same price like a Chromebook but more control over the system. And you > >> don't depend on the 3G and Wifi net. > > We started with the notion of Linux, and we were attracted to > > Chromebooks for a bunch of reasons. Going back to Linux loses all the > > things we were attracted to. > > > > - ChromeOS's attack surface is infinitely smaller than with Linux > > - The architecture of ChromeOS is different from Linux - process > > separation through SOP, as opposed to no process separation at all > > - ChromeOS was *designed* to have you logout, and hand the device over > > to someone else to login, and get no access to your stuff. Extreme > > Hardware attacks aside, it works pretty well. > > - ChromeOS's update mechanism is automatic, transparent, and basically > > foolproof. Having bricked Ubuntu and Gentoo systems, the same is not > > true of Linux. > > - Verified Boot, automatic FDE, tamper-resistant hardware > > > > Something I'm curious about is, if any less-popular device became > > popular amoung the activist community - would the government view is > > as an indicator of interest? Just like they block Tor, would they > > block Chromebooks? It'd have to get pretty darn popular first though. > > > > -tom > > -- > > > But you can't use it for political activists e.g. in Syria because of > its dependence on the internet connection. This fact is authoritative. > For Europe and USA and so on it might be a good solution. > -- > Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech > -- Brian Conley Director, Small World News http://smallworldnews.tv m: 646.285.2046 Skype: brianjoelconley
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