who knew that an impossibly cheap computer was harvesting your data with a butchered open source operating system with a lot of closed-source stuff added to it?
sounds familiar…
OEM Androids?
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It’s called old people in charge who don’t understand how modern shit works. Have no understanding of why privacy is worth fighting for.
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Give it a few years in Chromebooks are going to be ecosystems that are filled with advertisements.
So many teachers use ad block and YouTube to teach students things in classes.
YouTube does a really bad job regulating what ads get served to what users.
I think we’ve got a few hilarious PR nightmares looming.
Our district distributes the Chromebooks with ublock origin pre installed.
My district blocks installing uBlock Origin lol
same
they are allowlist (not blacklist) and block nearly every extension
except fire extensions like:
1.) cisco umbrella
2.) epub reader
3.) stop motion thingy
etc etc
google should not be allowed anywhere in healthcare. OR strict restrictions and full tansparency of the company should be required.
Poor Datatilsynet, becoming a “sysnet” all through the article.
Doooooooooo iiiiiiittttttttttt
Honestly if you’re a caring parent, don’t let your child come near a chromebook.
I can tell you’re not a parent. School systems choose these things without consulting us. Parents don’t have much say in it. There isnt an opt-out.
So by your statement, because I can’t afford to send my kid to private school, I must not be a caring parent.
god i hate using these things for school
Something that starts with L and can be 100% customized by the school or government for their exact wishes
Think it ends with X. Can’t quite remember.
ChromeOS is L***x :p
Just the bad estranged cousin nobody talks about.That’s my point. They’re choosing to use a distro that collects all of this data instead of setting up their own system.
Chromebooks are “cheap” because you pay in part with your data.
Now i don’t know too much about them. But I assume they are BIOS locked or something so you can’t just install your own distro on them?
The firmware is locked down with typically either a screw (older devices) or a CR50 security chip (newer devices): https://wiki.mrchromebox.tech/Firmware_Write_Protect#How_Does_Firmware_Write_Protect_Work.3F
The problems with loading a different distro on them would be:
- Cost to go through the process of installing alternate firmware and a new distro on hundreds of devices
- Cost to setup an alternate system to manage/track the devices
- Cost to deal with students who can now more easily re-flash the devices to run other things
- Loss of the fairly extensive management capabilities that ChromeOS provides that allows a school/government to lock the devices down, monitor them, etc
If you know you will reconfigure devices. You set up a system to make it easy for yourself.
There are already so many systems one can employ to track devices that doesn’t rely on google.
Non issue. You already have costs for the students current machines when things go wrong, including IT. And you can also BIOS lock the hardware to prevent alternative boot methods. Which will stop most students.
There are PLENTY of other software to externally manage computers.
We’re talking about a government here. They have resources to create it. It’s a high initial cost. Like everything. And then it shifts into maintenance.
Normal companies already do this. It’s nothing new. Just a question of infrastructure.
There’s still a lot of labor costs to reconfigure the Chromebooks into something else. Or to just set up a computer with Linux, even with imaging. ChromeOS is fast to wipe back to a usable state.
True, but it’s another system to setup and manage instead of the one that’s integrated into the ChromeOS tooling.
I’m not sure you can BIOS lock a Chromebook that has been reflashed with one of those alternate firmwares that allow it to boot another OS. I believe they tend to be all about freedom and not restricting the user.
Governments, especially education, can be quite underfunded. I am doubtful they will be able to set up the same level of monitoring and management at a similar cost, even if that cost is high initially and lower over time.
The danish government is not underfunded.
It’s a a question of will and wants. They don’t HAVE to buy chromebooks. They can buy hardware like everyone else. It’s a government so they probably have to open it up for all suppliersto bid. But it can still be done.
And a lot of the cost will go back into their people and create jobs.
And price isn’t even the main question. It’s the fact that Googles data collection on students might make their chromebooks illegal to use.
Doesn’t matter if it’s free. It’s not legal.
https://mrchromebox.tech/ you can unlock it
I teach technology in Denmark. I am so glad I convinced the school administrators to let me buy a bunch of refurbished Thinkpads and throw Linux on them, instead of being roped into either Google or Microsoft hell like so many other schools. The students seem to enjoy using the machines too (especially after they discovered Minetest).
Good lad. Thinkpads are the best. 👍
I’m sorry about your Danish speech disability though. My condolences.
