The biggest (and very important) difference between Linux and Chromebooks is the hugely smaller attack surface.
NK On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 2:36 PM, Brian Conley <bri...@smallworldnews.tv>wrote: > 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 <noergelpi...@hotmail.de>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 <noergelpi...@hotmail.de> >> 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 > > > > -- > Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech >
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