Subject: Re: tcpa/palladium
From: civileme (civileme@mandrakesoft.com)
Date: Thu Jun 27 2002 - 02:31:14 AKDT
On Wednesday 26 June 2002 11:52 pm, Andy Firman wrote:
> This seems to be really scary stuff.
> (and a little over my head)
>
> But wanted to post as Linux is part of this issue.
>
> I will be interested to hear comments
> from the Alaska community.....
>
> http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
>
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This is yet another attempt to lock out the competition. It is akin to the
other "copy-protection" moves but this time features a hardware/software
partnership with a united front--you MUST use all of it or be locked from the
community of users. Naturally, the hardware would carry licenses from the
MPAA and the RIAA for your software to handle DVDs and Audio files, so no
legal worries. Since the cost of the hardware and software is totally
integrated, the buyer will be unaware of the actual prices for all the
licensing which may be supplied in a
"one-size-fits-all-unless-you-want-extras" fashion so that a visually
impaired person will have the DVD license and a deaf person will get the same
privileges to play audio as a hearing person.
They won't have to make napster or gnutella illegal, they'll just brand it
untrusted and their whole locked-in community will be unable to use it.
The potential for abuse is _VERY_HIGH_. With Microsoft the guardian and
gatekeeper to protect you from untrustworthy software, it might be that if
you decide to use your Microsoft-supplied software on a Microsoft - approved
web site to criticize Microsoft, YOU would be considerd untrustworthy and
banned from the community. Read the FrontPage 2000 EULA and the conditions
about making a web site critical of Microsoft and ... fear ...
No doubt about who owns your computer... it certainly isn't you. And would
linux install and run on these machines? Not until the ingenuity of the
linux community takes full sway to circumvent the hardware hooks that are
likely to be strictly Microsoft. By then, of course, since this is an
all-out frontal assault, new laws may exist to prevent such circumvention or
to make it a felony to own a device that permits circumvention. Whatever the
public will bear will certainly be purchased from legislators.
Chances for success? Moderate to low. They would have to get beyond the
corporate knee-jerk upgrades into the computer-buying public, which hasn't
been upgrading at expected paces for a while. Obviously, it will NOT work
with today's hardware.
Moreover, who is really going to trust the company most responsible for
exploits and worms and viruses to solve all those problems at a stroke?
Useful opposition may possibly come from MacAfee and Norton, and Symantec,
who would be _really_ out of a job if it works as advertised.
We tend to forget the extremely puffed value of Microsoft stock. When the
chicanery becomes apparent... The whole operation could collapse in a week.
Woe to all the retirement funds across the US and the world which have been
plundered by the decision to buy that stock.
But the bottom line is that anyone who values liberty had best examine all of
this with a jaundiced eye. It would be a disaster if it was not taken as a
serious effort to eliminate freedoms.
Civileme
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