[OLPC Security] Bitfrost automatic centralized backups

[Bennett Todd]

Was reading "OLPC Bitfrost"[1], a very exciting document.

The problem of avoiding all the issues raised in "Correlating
Bitfrost and threats"[2] in the "No permanent data loss" section
seems worrisome to me. Might it be easiest to go with a dodge and
ship a cheap 2GB SD card in every laptop, with periodic software to
sync to it? Using tricks with rsync it's not hard to automatically
achieve an effect like filesystem snapshots, providing historical
depth in the backup and rotating oldest-deleted stuff out as
necessary to keep the device just short of full.

Or maybe, instead of an SD card, go with a USB key so the children
won't be encouraged to leave it in the laptop. Dunno how cheap one
could find couple-of-GB USB sticks if you are in a position to order
in bulk.

-Bennett

[1] <URL:http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Bitfrost>
[2] <URL:http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Correlating_Bitfrost_and_threats>

[Edward Cherlin]

Post by Bennett Todd
Was reading "OLPC Bitfrost"[1], a very exciting document.
The problem of avoiding all the issues raised in "Correlating
Bitfrost and threats"[2] in the "No permanent data loss" section
seems worrisome to me. Might it be easiest to go with a dodge and
ship a cheap 2GB SD card in every laptop, with periodic software to
sync to it? Using tricks with rsync it's not hard to automatically
achieve an effect like filesystem snapshots, providing historical
depth in the backup and rotating oldest-deleted stuff out as
necessary to keep the device just short of full.
Or maybe, instead of an SD card, go with a USB key so the children
won't be encouraged to leave it in the laptop. Dunno how cheap one
could find couple-of-GB USB sticks if you are in a position to order
in bulk.

Shouldn't XOs sync to individual directories on the school server?

Post by Bennett Todd
-Bennett
[1] <URL:http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Bitfrost>
[2] <URL:http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Correlating_Bitfrost_and_threats>
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[Ivan Krstić]

Post by Bennett Todd
The problem of avoiding all the issues raised in "Correlating
Bitfrost and threats"[2] in the "No permanent data loss" section
seems worrisome to me.

It's really a lot less worrisome than it appears, in my professionally
paranoid opinion. Backups will be stored unencrypted, but not at all
easily accessible to teachers or other students, on the primary school
server by default. I plan to get P_PASSWORD implemented not too long
from now, which will allow those kids that care about extra privacy to
simply choose a password for their machine and get fully encrypted
backups as a bonus.

Post by Bennett Todd
Might it be easiest to go with a dodge and
ship a cheap 2GB SD card in every laptop, with periodic software to
sync to it?

Shipping any additional storage with each machine is financially
infeasible at the moment. Cheers,

--
Ivan Krsti? <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | http://radian.org