"Richard Erlacher" <richard_at_idcomm.com> wrote:
> Since there's a strong push in the direction of a hermetically-sealed
> internet-PC, with no options, it makes me shudder to think there may be a
> time, soon, when we have to buy software by the drink, downloading it each
> time from the net and for a fee, as the Oracle folks would like us to do. I
> see no effort from anyone else to dispell the notion that that's a good
> thing.
A lot of people don't seem to recognize this threat, and some people
refuse to believe it even when it's pointed out.
This is what Intel's processor serial number was about. Intel tried
to represent that the serial number would provide some sort of benefit
to the user, but in reality it was not the end user whose interests
they were trying to serve. One of Intel's architects was publicly quoted
as saying "The actual user of the PC -- someone who can do anything they
want -- is the enemy." Intel lost that particular battle, but the war is
far from over.
There's now a think called the "Trusted Computing Platform Alliance.":
http://www.trustedpc.org/
Such a pleasant-sounding, reassuring name. Until you think about one
little detail. Trusted by *whom*?
What the software companies, record companies, and movie studios want
is a world in which they have complete control over what you can and
can't do with their content, and TCPA is chartered with developing the
technical infrastructure and standards to make it happen.
However, they won't try to ram this down our throats all at once. They'll
push it in small increments, and try to make us believe that each little
piece is actually a good thing, or at least that it's not significant
enough that we should worry about it.
But if we allow them to do this, eventually we'll have computers with:
* processors that compute a digital signature of the platform BIOS, and
refuse to execute "unauthorized" code.
* BIOSes that compute a digital signature of the operating system.
* Operating systems that compute a digital signature of the BIOS
(necessary to make sure that the OS isn't running on an unauthorized
platform).
And so on.
Some cite free software as a force to prevent this kind of madness. Right
now we can run both free operating systems and commercial operating systems
on the same inexpensive commodity hardware (with the exception of certain
peripheral devices whose manufacturers won't release hardware specifications).
But eventually we might have a situation where commodity hardware can only
run officially sanctioned operating systems, and hardware that is capable
of running free software can't run the official stuff.
As I see it, the only way this is likely to be averted is if free software
develops a sufficiently broad deployment that the market for computers
that can't run it is insufficient to satisfy the vendors.
You probably don't want to read more of my ranting about this, but it's
at
http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/editorials/trusted_computing.html
Eric
Received on Tue May 16 2000 - 18:20:48 BST