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February 08, 2007, 12:05 PM ET
Locking Down the $100 Laptop
This much you probably know: When Nicholas Negroponte's much-discussed $100 laptops hit the field, they will have a bunch of unorthodox features, like hand-cranked batteries, flash-drive memory, and screens that switch between low-resolution color and high-resolution black and white. But here's something you might not have heard: The devices will also have fairly innovative security systems.
Basically, the laptops will impose limits on what any individual program can do, according to Wired News. Microsoft's Windows XP, for example, lets every program jump onto the Web and send e-mail, making the operating system an appealing target for spyware designers. But the One Laptop Per Child machines, which run a Linux-based operating system, will force each program to run in a vacuum without affecting other software.
"Applications can no longer run rampant," says Ivan Krstic, the Harvard security expert who designed the system. "Spyware becomes very, very hard." --Brock Read
Categories: Security
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