[liberationtech] Chromebooks for Risky Situations?

[micah anderson]

Tom Ritter <tom at ritter.vg> writes:

> On 6 February 2013 07:12, Andreas Bader <noergelpizza at 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.
>
> - The architecture of ChromeOS is different from Linux - process
> separation through SOP, as opposed to no process separation at all

Can you say what you mean here? What is SOP in this context?

> - ChromeOS's update mechanism is automatic, transparent, and basically
> foolproof.  Having bricked Ubuntu and Gentoo systems, the same is not
> true of Linux.

I would be surprised if you actually 'bricked' these systems, since
neither operating system you mention involves a procedure that has the
risk of bricking a device. I suspect this is hyperbole?

> - Verified Boot, automatic FDE, tamper-resistant hardware

All of this reminds me of this post:
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/22465.html

which concludes:

"Some people don't like Secure Boot because they don't trust
Microsoft. If you trust Google more, then a Chromebook is a reasonable
choice. But some people don't like Secure Boot because they see it as an
attack on user freedom, and those people should be willing to criticise
Google's stance. Unlike Microsoft, Chromebooks force the user to choose
between security and freedom. Nobody should be forced to make that
choice."