Re: Trusted Computing (was Bad ideas...)

From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Wed Apr 09 2003 - 14:59:13 MDT

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    > (Hal Finney <hal@finney.org>):
    >
    > I don't understand why my reading of the technology's properties
    > and capabilities is so different from everyone else's. It's
    > possible that there are non-public documents which paint a much
    > more sinister picture. All I can say is that based on the public
    > information, TC works as I have described it here.

    First of all, thank you, Hal, for explaining your understanding of
    this technology and standing up for your perception of it against
    vocal opposition. There aren't many people whose knowledge and
    experience on computer matters I admire enough that I am forced to
    rethink my own positions in light of theirs; you are one of them.
    Harvey Newstrom is probably the only other.

    Today, David Rocci was convicted and sentenced to five months in
    jail and a hefty fine for selling Xbox mod chips, which are used to
    circumvent the encryption technology that makes them only run
    approved games. You need such a chip to install Linux on your
    Xbox, for example. This is exactly the kind of world I fear, where
    laws intended "to promote the progress of science and the useful
    arts" are in fact used to physically seize and imprison prople for
    inventing and selling a device that makes the hardware you paid for
    more useful. This action, and others like it (such as the arrest of
    Dmitri Sklyarov) are utterly unconcionable in a free society, and
    will ultimately retard the very progress they claim to promote.

    My question is simple: how will TC technology fit into a world
    alongside what I consider to be basic, fundamental human rights:
    namely, the right to use, modify, combine, destroy, and otherwise
    tinker with anything you own and any knowledge in your head for
    any purpose you desire?

    In the examples you've given, trusted machines send encrypted IDs
    and hashes of code back to servers. What would prevent someone
    from building a machine to falsify those reports so that he could
    run something the third party didn't want him to (but presumably
    legally acquired)? Nothing technical that I can see; even if they
    took the strongest precautions (which it doesn't appear they are),
    it might still involve only cracking some encryption, which is
    certainly feasible. The only thing to prevent this, then, is law.
    Force. TC will be utterly useless without laws to enforce the idea
    that a creator of content has the right to control what you can do
    with /your/ legally-purchased machine and /your/ legally-acquired
    information, just because he's the one who found or created that
    information first.

    Sure, there are probably some useful things enabled by TC. But if
    they require abandoning basic human rights, they're not worth it.
    As they say, Mussolini made the trains run on time. OK, so TCPA
    might get me more music or movies than I might otherwise. But if
    the price is paying tribute to Disney for the privilege to show
    my movie on my machine only on /their/ terms, I'll pass.

    -- 
    Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
    "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
    are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
    for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
    


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