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