[Sugar-devel] Device's Universally Unique Identifier

[Samuel Greenfeld]

Just be careful with what you do with unique identifiers.  Having a unique
identifier for a device is often considered the same as uniquely
identifying a child.

Many countries have laws about what can be collected from younger children
without permission from their parent or school.  This permission has to be
given in a manner that children cannot intentionally or accidentally do
themselves.

This is why many websites including Google (in most cases) and Facebook do
not allow children under 13 to have accounts, and do not let parents create
accounts for them.

So while using a unique identifier may be safe within a local system,
centrally collecting information about Sugar users by default may not be.

---
SJG
On Jul 24, 2014 9:59 AM, "Puneet Kaur" <puneet.gkaur at gmail.com> wrote:

> also targeting the xo's right now, so the serial number should suffice :-)
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 7:28 PM, Puneet Kaur <puneet.gkaur at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Gonzalo,
>>
>> will use serial number as pointed by you.
>>
>>
>> and with reference to the points raised by James, we'll assume that we
>> are running a single instance of sugar on a xo. ( we can surely make it
>> better once the basic flow is there :-) )
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 5:37 PM, Gonzalo Odiard <godiard at sugarlabs.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> If Sugar is used in a XO, there are a unique id and you can get it as
>>> here:
>>>
>>>
>>> https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar/blob/master/extensions/cpsection/aboutcomputer/model.py#L52
>>>
>>> Maybe in the case of non xos, you can use the mac address of the active
>>> network interface?
>>>
>>> Gonzalo
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 4:56 AM, James Cameron <quozl at laptop.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 01:15:28PM +0530, Puneet Kaur wrote:
>>>> > Can someone please tell that which number out of serial_number,
>>>> > build_number and firmware_number would correspond to the Device's
>>>> > Universally Unique Identifier ?
>>>> >
>>>> > I need a number which is unique to each device, need it to implement
>>>> > the cordova device plugin for sugar - subpart of the sugar cordova
>>>> > project these 3 numbers (serial_number, build_number and
>>>> > firmware_number) can be retrieved from
>>>> > sugar/extensions/cpsection/aboutcomputer/mode.py , but which out of
>>>> > these correspond to the unique number of each device ?
>>>>
>>>> None of them do, because Sugar can be used on hardware which does not
>>>> provide a serial number, and more than one instance of Sugar can be
>>>> used on devices that do provide a serial number.  You must find
>>>> another way to ensure uniqueness, such as registration to a central
>>>> authority database.
>>>>
>>>> The aboutcomputer control panel section contains legacy code specific
>>>> to the OLPC XO laptop.  You should not design on that basis alone.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> James Cameron
>>>> http://quozl.linux.org.au/
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>>>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Gonzalo Odiard
>>>
>>> SugarLabs - Software for children learning
>>>
>>
>>
>
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