Re: XOs interacting with general computers (was: Devel Digest, Vol 17, Issue 52)

[elw]

> I think a critical point is to make sure they get at least the chance to 
> learn responsible/safe behavior first.

Yes - whatever that happens to be for their particular locale and 
sociocultural positioning.  This is not something that I am particularly 
comfortable with the notion of us people "from outside" strongly 
influencing.  We don't have the context, and should avoid the temptation 
to impose mores or practices that we think are 'most' valuable.

To some extent, I think it is worthwhile to watch people who have 
previously not had access to technology evolve their own responses to it; 
they may come up with new things that are better than what anyone else 
currently has.


> An approach I've seen at schools in the US was that they taught the kids 
> what to do/not to do, but then basically allowed unrestricted access.


Yes; this happens a lot and is quite counterproductive.  We have to 
remember, though, that teachers in the US are not always the most 
sophisticated of beings.  They do what they think is best, but largely 
work independently of much supervision.


> Unfortunately these days that approach can land you in jail in certain 
> US states.

*nod*

> Having the school/teacher as an intermediary/safe guard could be an 
> approach. As you wrote, the decision about access needs to be made in 
> the local context including aspects/variables that we probably don't 
> have the faintest idea about.


I think that the host countries are largely going to deal with this 
independent of OLPC; at the school server or at the uplink to the rest of 
the world seems like the right 'boundary' to me.

[I wonder what the school server team thinks about being folks' target for 
censorware deployment..]

--e
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Re: XOs interacting with general computers (was: Devel Digest, Vol 17, Issue 52)

[Bruno Coudoin]

I don't have a solution either but I have have been in touch with one
organisation concerned by child abuse in France. What they told me is
they would like to provide the children with an easy way to report
abuse.

The hard problem is that if an organisation go in an online forum with
the nick littlegirl_11yo, they will see abuse but it has no value for a
judge because they are adults. So they need to get report from children
directly. If the child can understand there is an abuse, she can't
easily report it, even the adults beside won't be able to easily gather
all the information needed to catch the offender because they lack the
technical knowledge.

Based on that, I would suggest to have an 'Abuse report' button that
would gather the information and send it to a team that will analyse and
take the appropriate actions. This could be to improve the filtering
system if any, blacklisting, or even go to the police with the
evidences.

Like in real live, there is no way to avoid abuse but it's rare because
the offenders are easily detected and are punished.

Bruno.



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Re: XOs interacting with general computers (was: Devel Digest, Vol 17, Issue 52)

[elw]

good.

looking forward to seeing you write up your ideas w.r.t. it - I guess it 
really *is* somewhat related to the things you're doing.  :-)

--e


> Precisely.
>
> Precisely.
>
> ... and precisely.
>
> Anyway, I'm pretty comfortable with my thinking about this set of 
> problems for FRS and hope to write something up about it soon. Cheers,
>
> --
> Ivan Krsti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | http://radian.org
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Re: XOs interacting with general computers (was: Devel Digest, Vol 17, Issue 52)

[Michael Rueger]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
...

thank you for your thoughtful answer!

> 
> I'll say it again.. I think that it is important to protect kids, but 
> probably MORE important to make sure that 'protection' isn't cutting 
> them off from flexibility and the opportunity to gain new educational 
> experiences.

Couldn't agree more :-)

I think a critical point is to make sure they get at least the chance to 
learn responsible/safe behavior first.
An approach I've seen at schools in the US was that they taught the kids 
what to do/not to do, but then basically allowed unrestricted access. 
Unfortunately these days that approach can land you in jail in certain 
US states.

Having the school/teacher as an intermediary/safe guard could be an 
approach. As you wrote, the decision about access needs to be made in 
the local context including aspects/variables that we probably don't 
have the faintest idea about.

Michael
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Re: XOs interacting with general computers (was: Devel Digest, Vol 17, Issue 52)

[Ivan Krstić]

On Jul 25, 2007, at 9:56 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> this is made much more complex by the fact that XOs will end up in
> countries with very different social taboos, different cultural
> assumptions, and very different legal systems.

Precisely.

> hardwiring censorship/filtering/content-protection into the XO is  
> probably
> antithetical to the educational goals of the project.

Precisely.

> While it is very important to protect kids from some things that  
> they are
> really not cognitively equipped to handle, it is also important to  
> equip
> them with a toolbelt of educational possibilities that can be applied
> freely and without too many crazy restrictions.

... and precisely.


Anyway, I'm pretty comfortable with my thinking about this set of  
problems for FRS and hope to write something up about it soon. Cheers,

--
Ivan Krstić <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | http://radian.org
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Re: XOs interacting with general computers (was: Devel Digest, Vol 17, Issue 52)

[elw]

>> does anyone see danger in letting nonXOs talk to XOs, these are
>> handled by 8 year olders
>>
>> Yes, we recognize there are very real dangers. Various security 
>> settings and UI elements will likely be used to make it clear to the 
>> user, and
>
> You must be kidding me. We are talking about very young kids, probably 
> without supervision from internet savvy adults. How do you expect them 
> to make good decisions on contact requests?

they probably can't, and won't, and at some point it seems likely that 
SOMEONE is eventually going to have to address this.

this is made much more complex by the fact that XOs will end up in 
countries with very different social taboos, different cultural 
assumptions, and very different legal systems.

hardwiring censorship/filtering/content-protection into the XO is probably 
antithetical to the educational goals of the project.

for people in the outside world to contact kids with XOs gatewayed behind 
a school jabber server could be obfuscated fairly trivially, i would 
think.  [maybe the addresses to contact from the outside should be... 
maybe an sha-1 of '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' @ 
schoolserver.xo.network??  Something similarly trivial to generate.]

kids who are smart enough to hunt up the jabber addresses of people in the 
outside world well, you'd hope that they'd be able to be quickly 
educated about appropriate behavior.


I would hate to see a situation where kids got hurt or were punished 
because some nutjob in the outside world decided to send 
culturally-vastly-inappropriate content to some kid with an XO in a 
societal situation that had not yet evolved means for coping with highly 
offensive content delivered automagically by means of Internet.



> > protect them where appropriate, from random third-parties.
>
> Define "where appropriate"...

I think that this is a highly complex situation, and one that merits a 
whole lot of thought.

While it is very important to protect kids from some things that they are 
really not cognitively equipped to handle, it is also important to equip 
them with a toolbelt of educational possibilities that can be applied 
freely and without too many crazy restrictions.

Let's imagine that a kid decides he wants to interview some kind and 
willing person from the US, who is not very hard to track down contact 
info for.  Let's say... Jim Gettys.

Should the kid not be able to contact Jim and ask him interview questions, 
just because he's an "outside person", not necessarily running inside the 
XO network?

What if a (slightly older) kid wants to collaborate with an outsider on a 
school project, drawing on the outside person's life or career experience 
in order to enhance what they themselves are doing in the local school?

Imagine all of the positive things that can happen in a social interaction 
between kids and non-kids... and then weigh that against the need to 
'protect' kids from the real world.


I'll say it again.. I think that it is important to protect kids, but 
probably MORE important to make sure that 'protection' isn't cutting them 
off from flexibility and the opportunity to gain new educational 
experiences.

Any proposed solution really needs to do both.


--e
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Re: XOs interacting with general computers (was: Devel Digest, Vol 17, Issue 52)

[Michael Rueger]

MBurns wrote:
> On 7/23/07, *Nehemiah Dacres* <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> > wrote:
> 
> does anyone see danger in letting nonXOs talk to XOs, these are
> handled by 8 year olders
> 
> 
> Yes, we recognize there are very real dangers. Various security settings 
> and UI elements will likely be used to make it clear to the user, and 

You must be kidding me. We are talking about very young kids, probably 
without supervision from internet savvy adults. How do you expect them 
to make good decisions on contact requests?

 > protect them where appropriate, from random third-parties.

Define "where appropriate"...

Michael

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XOs interacting with general computers (was: Devel Digest, Vol 17, Issue 52)

[MBurns]

On 7/23/07, Nehemiah Dacres <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


does anyone see danger in letting nonXOs talk to XOs, these are handled by
8 year olders



Yes, we recognize there are very real dangers. Various security settings and
UI elements will likely be used to make it clear to the user, and protect
them where appropriate, from random third-parties.

At the same time the power of this project is, in part, that children get
access to the Real Internet (TM) and not allowing them to interact with
non-XO users at all would be a great disservice to that goal.

--
Michael Burns
One Laptop Per Child
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