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Palladium, 'Trusted PCs' in the News
Reuters is carrying a fairly lengthy article on Palladium and 'Trusted Computing'. Worth reading - remember that what the Reuters/AP wires carry is all that most people will ever know about any particular issue.
I'd say that its a pretty good article. I'm not an extremely savvy computer user, especially compared to the typical /. reader. I do know more than my parents and wife, undoubtedly, and think that the article is a fine synopsis of the two sides. It also seemed to give a bit more column space to the critics and talked more about control of your computer and restriction of fair use than the 'advantages' of virus control. It would have been nice to see a link to the Palladium FAQ and perhaps a comment from a critic pointing out that Microsoft's inherent software inadequacies are the root of the problem.
All in all a good article for the masses. Just needs more followup for those interested.
Etc, etc, ad nauseam, and so on and so forth.
could be either the salvation of electronic commerce or the bane of consumers, who view the Internet as their digital information playground.
*emphasis mine
I think the implicit meaning here is that consumers think the internet is theirs. when in fact it is not.
What will happen when corporate america convinces the world that it owns the internet?
And to most people, it makes total sense then to ban those anonymous, crime-friendly pc's. I suppose the silver lining is, we could at least free ourselves of spammers. So it's a tough call ;-)
In 1998 during an interview with Money Magazine, Bill Gates said, "Althought three million computers are sold in China each year, people don't pay for their software. They will soon though. They will get sort of adicted to it and we will have to find a way to collect in the next decade."
Needless to say, this is extremely offensive to the Chinese for historical reasons (think Opium War). Lol, between Gates and "Our products just aren't engineered for security" Valentine, I wonder how Microsoft stays in business...
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Excuse me, but this "Chinese" that Bill wants to pay for his stuff, does that include the Taiwanese who manufacture half the hardware used to run his stuff?
And what happens when America locks down its computers? Does Taiwan sit back and say, "Yeah, okay" - or do they start building boxes without the Palladium hardware and maybe even their own CPUs and start selling them worldwide (and smuggling them into America will be the next big "Drug War" issue!) and take over the computer industry from Intel? While Linux is taking over the software market from Windows by ignoring the issue?
Go ahead, Bill! Feel free! Don't let the door hit your butt on the way to the poor house!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
If entertainment is the killer application, and DRM is going to be the critical enabling technology, then the PC has to do DRM or risk being displaced in the home market.
You know what I say? LET IT. Let's face the facts:
PC sales have leveled off. The market is at saturation. There is no "killer app" that will make anyone who does not presently own a PC go out and get one. If they don't own a PC by now, they DON'T want one and nothing will change that. The majority of PC sales are now replacements for existing obsolete/older machines and machines for new population members. It's the same situation the car manufacturers face, and they're used to it. The IT companies are just freaked because it's no longer a growth market and they're having to adjust.
Interactive TV, network appliances, video phones and flying cars. All ideas that sound good and futuristc, all without mainstream acceptance. It is quite possible "The PC as an entertainment appliance" is just as doomed to becoming a niche market as any other anticipated "killer app" that awaits over the horizon.
Tivos aren't exactly flying off the shelves. Yes the Tivo is a neat geek toy. The public at large doesn't care. They already own a VCR.
I don't want to wait for a movie to download that I can only watch on one PC. I want the DVD that I can play in my DVD player, my friend's DVD player or bring it with me and watch it on the TV in my boat.
I don't want to wait for an entire album to download that I can only listen to on one PC. Just like DVDs, I want the actual disc.
There is a place I can already get what I want, and it's nearby where I shop for food and they also sell clothes - it's very convienent, it's called the local department store. If the digital intellectual property the media companies are so interested in protecting was only less expensive, they wouldn't have to worry about protecting it. I'd much rather buy it.
How many people are actively boycotting the MPAA/RIAA because of this shit?
Taken a step further, how many people actually feel good starting up the ol' P2P client and ripping the media companies a new one?
I'm not advocating piracy, what I'm merely pointing out is that maybe the increase in piracy is due to the fact that all this digital rights stuff is making people feel a little bit better about not paying for music and movies. Instead of decreasing piracy, all they (the media companies) might really cause is MORE rampant piracy and the rise of prices of "open" hardware on eBay.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"If we're going to get content on the 'Net, somehow we're going to have to reward the people who put it on there," said Dave Farber
Yeah, this is such a problem. I mean, right now, the Internet contains more content than me or even a large group of people could possibly hope to consume in a lifetime. And don't even start to say that most of the content now is garbage. That's (one) very much a matter of personal taste and (two) ignoring the fact that an essentially infinite amount of good information plus an essentially infinite amount of garbage still supplies you with plenty of good content...and search engines help us tune out the garbage.
media companies complained they wouldn't release high-quality versions of their published content to personal computers because of piracy concerns
Books and movies are available from libraries. I'm sure they hate that too. But I think the reason they complain about the Internet so much is it's an unbelievably large library without even so much as a librarian to regulate the usage of anything. Corporations want to start commercializing the information content of the Internet, instead of settling for selling physical products online. They are blinded by the opinion that if there is a way they can make money, then they have a right to make money that way. Thus they feel we must start to regulate all the information on the Internet. Bastards.
"I like to call this controlled computing rather than trusted computing," said Chris Hoofnagle
I like to call this crippled computing rather than controlled computing.
What may be perceived as minor intrusions in a Western corporate setting might have Big Brother consequences for computer users in countries with more controlled environments like China and Saudi Arabia.
Huh? WTF does this mean? That we can trust the Western corporations not to abuse power? That Western citizens are apathetic to the notion of a Big Brother? Any way that I read this it makes no sense.
"[DRM is] not something that really is part and parcel of what Palladium is," Biddle says, adding that it is related to optional add-on features that customers could elect to use.
This is tantamount to saying here is our new computer product, which you can use with this set of optional handcuffs. Go ahead, try them on, you'll like them. What? You don't want to use them? Hmm. Okay guys, bring in the service pack! Now it's mandatory.
"Security is more social than technical," Schneier said. "There are a lot of good technical controls in Palladium, but it's unclear whether they'll be used to protect personal privacy or limit personal freedom.
Finally someone with a clue. I might add that convincing the general public that the Internet lacks content, that they need Palladium, that they should use the "optional" features -- is all social engineering. There is no technical justification for any of it, but since the gap between someone who understands the true potential of a computer and someone who just uses email is so huge, it may not be that difficult for them to convince Joe User that his computer should be "secured" for his own protection. If people are ignorant of what they're losing, they won't cry foul when they lose it.
*Sigh* Back to searching for the scarce crumbs of useful content on the Internet...
Trying to impose digital rights management through a consortium is bound to fail
If you mean that other alternatives will always be available (ignoring absurd legislation) then you're right, it will fail - but if you mean that people will reject the DRM-ized technology and shift wholesale to Linux or BSD, that ain't going to happen.
Its already been demonstrated that the bulk of the world will happily continue using the monopoly OS even after years of blue screens of death and countless security exposures trumpeted loudly. Why should they switch to a better solution just because of some (to them) obscure argument about privacy ??
Then again, when they find they can't rip their buddy's CDs maybe that will start to focus their minds...
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I don't see what the big deal with palladium is. Maybe I haven't become as scared[dual meaning, rule] as your typical /. reader over the years, but I personally have the following view: If MS seeks to control every aspect of the desktop, the masses will rebel. Unless, of course they do it in such a way that a great majority are happy with it. In which case it comes down to best tool for the job. If that's MS, use MS, if that's linux, use linux. If more people just thought that way, instead of MS is evil, Linux is great, or MS is good, Linux is too hard to use... etc. etc. then I think we could put all these wars to rest. It all comes down to that... best tool for the job.
Then again, *nix is an OS by developers, for developers, so I'm just a weee bit biased towards those variants...
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."