Physical theft of the OLPC XO is a worry for everyone involved in the OLPC "$100" laptop project. While Ivan Krstić is focused on a firmware solution, Bitfrost, this weekend, Walter Bender announced a more obvious solution: the physical form factor of the Children's Machine XO symbol:

A method for creating 400 different colors of XOs on the back cover of the laptop was decided: multi-color XO pieces of plastic will be attached via heat stake to the back cover of the laptop. 20 colors will be used for the X and the O, creating 400 unique combinations, enough for each child in a small school to have their own colors.

While XO color variations an interesting idea, and a start at personalization, might Jonah Bossewitch have more cost effective anti-theft solution? Stickers!

I recently had a chance to see the laptops in person at the UN CTAUN Info fair. The experience and this series got me thinking... All of these laptops really do look identical - maybe OLPC could encourage owners to attach stickers and decals to increase personalization and differentiation.

I think kids personalizing their laptops with stickers will be a great way for them to assert ownership, differentiate, and personalize... maybe even fetishize their laptop.

Another added benefit of this practice would be to actually devalue the resell value of the laptops, while leaving them functionally identical. From what I understand, purposefully lowering their perceived resale value would be great for the laptops.

Think about it. An assortment of fun stickers, from the One Encyclopedia Per Child say, could be shipped with One Laptop Per Child computers. Or as Jonah follows up with:

Yeah, but stickers are fun ;-) dinosaur laptops, heart laptops, glitter laptops, music bands, social movements, seems like an easy win.

Sure it doesn't solve the security issue in an ironclad way, but neither does the stigma of carrying around a kid's toy. Really what this is partially about is the psychological willingness to treat this like a personal possession, instead of a sacred object. Like a well-worn baseball glove, that is lovingly broken in.

How true is that - it hard to steal a treasured & personalized baseball glove, especially if you live in a small town where everyone knows you have the glove with glitter. Or as Xavier Alvarez explains:

I remember talking about a similar issue but in the urban planning domain dealing with state financed housing projects and similar.

The bottom line was that urban planners could tell the general health of a project by the level of 'appropriation' done on the houses. They didn't need to enter the houses, the external appearance would provide plenty information.

Only when people changed the 'pristine' facade of their dwellings was a sign that the community thrived. Investing time and resources to change the color of doors, blinds and other external fixtures of the houses was a sign that a community building process was taking place.

The community was adapting their environment to their liking, not someone else's. They were building *their* neighbourhood.

And isn't that a goal of One Laptop Per Child: One Educational Neighbourhood Per Country? A neighbourhood of personalized spaces - physical and electronic - where children have ownership, have control, have a personalized theft-proof educational tool.

Covered in stickers!