Re: $10 laptops from HRD Ministry, India

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Rod Van Meter <rdv () tera ics keio ac jp>
Date: May 6, 2007 8:33:14 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: Gene Spafford <spaf () cerias purdue edu>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: $10 laptops from HRD Ministry, India
Reply-To: rdv () tera ics keio ac jp

Dave, for IP, if you wish...

I've been a satisfied customer of Gene Spafford's writings since the
heyday of INFO-VAX, but I gotta say: Spaf, I think you're off base on
this one.

> Where is the investment to educate the new users about proper use of
> the technology?  About security?  About avoiding dangerous activities?

These are legitimate concerns.  You're right, an education budget to
match should be included.  And, in the light of the NYT article the
other day about some schools giving up on laptops because they don't
help test scores, it's appropriate to worry about what value a $47
laptop will bring to the end user.

But there's some hoary cliche about infants and soapy water.

> Does anyone seriously believe that these machines -- whether $100
> from Negroponte's group or $10 from India, or anywhere else -- won't
> quickly be assimilated into bot networks?   Or serve as virus/worm
> reservoirs, if not breeding grounds?

Well, call me an optimist (I've been called worse), but these machines
are unlikely to run Windows.  In fact, they're likely to run such a
specialized SW stack that even an endemic piece of malware is unlikely
to be able to spread outward.

The bigger issue here might be human botnets -- crowdsourced spam -- or
by-permission use of the machine.  Offer somebody a few cents to run a
program that sends some spam out, why would they say no?  (On the
upside, Google can crowdsource image annotation this way, if the PC is
accompanied by an adequate level of literacy, and bingo, a million new
jobs at a few dollars a day.  I won't cry if some of Serge's money goes
to making the lives of a few poor people better.)

>   How many of the recipients are
> going to be victims of identity theft, or regional pedophiles, or
> phishing attacks taking their meager resources because they don't
> have either protection mechanisms or education about how to safeguard
> themselves?

Excepting the pedophiles, another legitimate list of concerns.  (I have
two daughters, but I've always found the lurid focus on online
pedophiles to be sensationalistic; the vast majority of abuse comes from
people you know but never suspect, and it's been a major source of
literary drama, from "Lolita" to "Monsoon Wedding".)

> Over the last couple of decades, when law enforcement would make one
> of its (infrequent) arrests for hacking by a young person, the
> parents would always say "We had no idea!...

Taken to its extreme, this would argue against allowing any teenager to
have a computer.  Then we wouldn't have most of the software
professionals we have today.
> And are the machines being distributed into countries that have the
> resources for good law enforcement for IT-related crime?

Not likely.  And there is growing recognition in the international aid
community that good governance is a strong prerequisite for aid to be
effective, and yet there are very limited options for imposing that from
outside.

But is that really a strong enough argument to shut down either external
or internal attempts to raise tech literacy?  (Keep in mind that the
project in question is an indigenous Indian one.)
> We can't defend against the threats we are facing now. If these mass
> computer giveaways succeed, shortly we will have another billion
> users online

Yes, if these projects are wildly successful, and all of the machines
are actually used, the number of machines on the net will roughly
double.  So what's wrong with that?  Spam sucks, but if it doubles, so
what?  We need a solution that will eliminate 99% of it, not the
hypothetical next increment.

If you're arguing that security should be paramount, and nothing new
should be allowed on the net unless it's controlled by an intelligent,
well-trained, altruistic, morally upright sysadmin, well, more power to
you, but we should've stopped after Morris's Internet Worm in 1988,
declared the ARPANET a failure, and rethought authentication back then.

The next billion users will be coming online in the next few years,
regardless of these projects.  What will change will be the
demographics: it will be more poor people.  Why is that worse than more
middle-aged middle-class people?  This weekend I helped my mother-in-law
connect a new digital camera to her NEC Windows 98 machine (almost a
decade old).  When I asked if any software had come with it, we went a
couple of questions, then her eyes lit up and she held her hands up to
make a circle and said, "Oh, the round software?"  and dug out the CD.
Should she be prevented from connecting to the Internet until she can
pass some competency test?  If not her, then why a poor family in India?

>  who are being raised in environments of poverty, with
> little or no education about proper IT use, and often in countries
> where there is little history of tolerance (and considerable history
> of religious, ethnic and tribal strife).  Access to eBay and YouTube
> isn't going to give them clean water and freedom from disease.  But
> it may help breed resentment and discontent where it hasn't been  
> before.

This argument borders on "keep 'em in the dark, they'll be happier that
way; or, at least, out of my way".  It's not much different from telling
India and China that they shouldn't have the same cars and light bulbs
the developed world has, because they will contribute to global warming.
It's morally indefensible.   (That's not to say we don't need a
solution!)

> Gee, I can barely wait.

To watch more of the world a) get connected, and b) lift themselves out
of poverty, illiteracy and ignorance?  Neither can I.

The question is whether these programs will make a significant step in
that direction.  It's not a straight line from a to b, but under the
right circumstances it can help.  There are lots of uplifting anecdotes
on connectivity helping improve governance (the fax machines in the
USSR, the SMS "flash crowd" in the Phillipines, etc.) as well as the
lives of many people (negotiating fish prices via SMS to pick which port
to bring your catch to, for example).  But it's not at all obvious that
creating a Cargo Cult of PCs dropped from the sky will achieve much.
Supporting education is a must, and the machines must do something that
people perceive to be of value.

"Raj, I'm going into the city today, can you check the weather for me?"
"Sure, mom, hang on...oh, the train is stopped, why don't you take the
bus instead?"

The fear of Internet madrassas fostering hatred of all things Western is
a whole other conversation, and even more likely that the rest of this
to come down world view.

(btw, did you hear that the Chinese government's official figures are
that something like 78,000 incidents of unrest (riots, etc.) occurred
last year?  If people organize via the Net to demand better working
conditions, environmental protections, and better governance, why is
that a bad thing?)

> The metaphor that comes to mind is that if we were in the ramp-up to
> the Black Plague in the middle ages, these groups would be trying to
> find ways to subsidize the purchase of pet rats.

Okay, so the particular species of rat that's the biggest problem is
Microsoft Windows.  How does arguing against a million new Linux
machines solve that problem?  And why should rich people be allowed to
have pet rats, but no one else?  Or are you arguing for banning pet rats
altogether?

There's lots more to be said on this topic, but I think this is enough
for now...

                --Rod




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