[GTALUG] Chromebook death dates

[Stewart Russell]

On Sun, May 28, 2023 at 10:25 PM James Knott via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
wrote:

>
> Do they actually "brick"?



On Mon, May 29, 2023 at 11:20 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <
talk at gtalug.org> wrote:

>
> So: I would think that this is stupid reporting but a useful but partial
> Public Service Announcement.
>
>
So I did a bit more digging. In summary, for us, as Linux users,
Chromebooks don't hard-"brick", as I suggested they might. But it seems
that, in a school exam situation, Chromebooks without the latest security
patches cannot access certain required examination sites used in some
(many? all?) US states. A Chromebook that can't access these sites may as
well be a brick for the school districts that bought them.

The source of the article's claims are from a report by the Public Interest
Research Group, "Chromebook Churn" (report link:
https://publicinterestnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/PIRG-Chromebook-Churn-Full-Report-May-1.pdf
  , intro blurb:
https://pirg.org/colorado/foundation/resources/chromebook-churn-report-highlights-problems-of-short-lived-laptops-in-schools/
  ). PIRG is deeply involved in the Right to Repair movement. The most
direct citation to a "these Chromebooks won't work"-type statement is
from “SKSD
Needs $2.8 Million in 2026 to Replace Chromebooks,” Kitsap Daily News,
January 25, 2023,
https://www.kitsapdailynews.com/news/sksd-needs-2-8-million-in-2026-to-replace-chromebooks/

... [director of information technology services] Lyons said the state
schools chief office claims that unsupported Chromebooks will not work for
tests such as the Smarter Balanced Assessments.

That's not the strongest source one could have, but at least one could
follow through a paper trail by querying the named parties. The other claim
that the report makes ("Chromebooks can no longer access services which
require the device to
pass a security check") cites a WSJ article --- Nicole Nguyen, “Before You
Buy a Chromebook, Check the Expiration Date,” Wall Street Journal, March 6,
2022, sec. Tech,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/before-you-buy-a-chromebook-check-the-expiration-date-11646538322
--- which doesn't seem to support PIRG's assertion.

The report also seems to claim that many school boards panicked into buying
refurbished Chromebooks when lockdown hit. These devices may already have
been 3-4 years old when they were bought in 2020, so might only have a
short time left before they AUE. Because they were bought with local tax
money, this is a big fighty topic in much of the USA. Another point that
the report makes, in line with PIRG's sustainability/right to repair goal,
is that many Chromebooks are not designed for repairability, with the basic
computing hardware staying much the same but spares changing with every
year of release.

The thing about networked computing devices in the K12 environment is that
you have a huge cohort of (bored) students willing to try security exploits
for fun and peer kudos. We* might've thought it pretty cool to get a copy
of Drug Wars on our TI-83 calculators from a friend who got it from their
older brother, but today's inventive high school student can offer a much
larger threat with shared documents of attack/gaming scripts spread
internationally. I wouldn't want to be the tech support on the end of that
mess.

 Stewart

---
*: I am too old for calculators that could play games. The most competitive
thing we could do was racing to 100 against a friend: enter "1 ++" then hit
the = key really fast until the display showed 100. The Casio FX-82 was the
fastest at this, and a couple of friends had to beg their parents for new
ones when they wrecked their calculators through over-zealous racing.
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