Re: Bad ideas from Microsoft et al

From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Mon Apr 07 2003 - 17:58:54 MDT

  • Next message: Lee Corbin: "RE: Help with a Minimum Wage Model"

    Lee Crocker writes:

    > The only way this stuff
    > will ever be jammed down consumer's throats is by force--i.e., if
    > they manage to lobby congress to mandate it. Even then, I and
    > millions of others will still revolt and kill it.
    >
    > They're too late--computers available now are already many times
    > more capable than needed to run all the killer applications for
    > which a consumer needs one, so why on Earth would anyone buy a
    > crippled machine when he can do everything he wants to do on a
    > free one?

    BTW the original version of the TCPA FAQ is at
    http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html and includes some extra
    links at the bottom.

    As far as whether computers today are capable enough to run all the
    killer apps, that is a pretty static view of things. Five, ten years
    from now computers will undoubtedly be far more powerful than the ones
    we have today, and I strongly suspect that new applications will have
    been developed which will use that extra power. I don't see any reason
    why progress will suddenly stop, with a ca 2003 computer providing all
    the capbility anyone will ever need.

    In terms of TCPA/Palladium being crippled, the inventors of these
    systems claim the opposite. They argue that trusted computing adds
    functionality while retaining backwards compatibility. You can still
    run all the apps you want from today, plus you can now run a whole
    new class of applications, so-called trusted applications. These have
    access to a new type of functionality that lets them prove to remote
    systems that they can be trusted to handle data in a specified manner.
    This can be used to improve the security of many applications, including
    digital rights management.

    In a few years, it might be that content companies will sell you legal
    music and movies over the net, but only if you are running a trusted
    computing system. Those systems will let you run an app which can prove
    to the remote server that it will follow the DRM rules, it will encrypt
    the data that has been downloaded so that other programs can't get access
    to it, and it will limit copying of the data.

    No one is forcing you to run such an app, and no one is forcing the
    content companies to download the data to you. The trusted computing
    technology makes possible a new kind of transaction which cannot occur
    today. Consumers may choose to adopt this technology in order to take
    part in these kinds of transactions. There is no need for coercion
    or a legal mandate.

    Why would you revolt and attempt to kill this technology? What gives
    you the wisdom to intervene in a free choice by another person to
    decide what technology to use? You would not object if a person tried
    to use cryptography to cloak his communications with someone else. What
    is wrong with someone using technology that lets him make a kind of
    commitment that is not possible today?

    It frankly astonishes me that libertarians oppose trusted computing
    technology. I seem to be the only one who sees things differently.
    I believe in freedom. That means I accept that other people may make
    decisions differently than I would. Their decisions may even have
    an indirectly negative impact on me. But I would not say that I was
    justified in trying to take options away from them, to prevent them from
    using a technology like this. I would really appreciate a libertarian
    and freedom oriented explanation of why voluntarily-adopted trusted
    computing technology should be fought.

    Hal



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Apr 07 2003 - 18:07:11 MDT