Real shame since cortex has a admin TrustZone processor that is licensed to special interests only. For the educational market, this "security" is a selling point. It guarantees that a student isn't running unauthorized code or "cheating" apps. It also likely allows OTA auditing of the classroom's state.
There’s a discussion to be had on the absolutism of technology for decisions or security, and the slow erosion of a certain intangible “discretionary” element in day-to-day life.
Any secure boot design can achieve that, you don't need TrustZone to do that
What prevents a motivated cheater from swapping out the processor entirely?
> Real shame since cortex has a admin TrustZone processor that is licensed to special interests only.
This is substantially inaccurate.
1) Not all ARM Cortex series CPUs have TrustZone. It is absent on many Cortex-M microcontrollers, for example.
2) TrustZone is an operating mode of the CPU, not an "admin processor". Depending on the part, it is often made accessible to developers. (Whether that includes third-party software developers is, of course, up to the device manufacturer.)
For more information, see:
https://developer.arm.com/documentation/100690/0200/ARM-Trus...