Stopping Palladium?

jbwiv asks: "I've seen many articles/posts/opinions stating that Microsoft's Palladium could put an end to Open Source as we know it, thereby stealing away most of what I enjoy and appreciate about computers. With the big two (Intel, AMD) actively developing Palladium architectures, I'd like to get involved in the effort to combat it. However, I haven't found any person or group actively working to stop Palladium; plenty people are bitching, but no one seems to be doing much about it. Who can one contact regarding this, and are there any groups already involved? What other steps might be taken? It would seem that such an affront to our way of life would be met with more vocal and mobile opposition."

Comments

Liberty Alliance Project

[argel]

You want theLiberty Alliance Project.

And here's a recent Slashdot article:
Sun Releases Open Source Tool for Project Liberty

First useful post?

Re:Liberty Alliance Project

[Ogerman]

You want theLiberty Alliance Project

Frankly, the Liberty Alliance Project, open or not, sounds like it'll do about as much for my privacy and security as the Patriot Act. Why would I want all commercial services I use to have the same login? It makes for a central point of failure (or security breach.. or gov't intrusion..). I certainly don't want Palladium, but I don't know that I really care for LAP either. We don't need universal logins. We need more intelligent browsers, smart cards, and people who know how to make decent passwords. (-:

Plans and Countermeasures

[bwt]

This is the method that the opposition will try:
1) Make some CPUs implement opt-in DRM
2) Make all CPUs implement opt-in DRM
3) Make some CPUs implement opt-out DRM
4) Make all CPUs implement opt-out DRM
5) Make some CPUs implement mandatory DRM
6) Make all CPUs implement mandatory DRM

We have to fight at every step. The key to fighting during the "some" steps will be economic and technical (early adopters must be punished) and the key to avoiding the all steps will be political.

I believe that our best opportunity is during step one. We need to be prepared to make END USERS who accept DRM suffer. This may be somewhat unnatural for us to do, but if we do that, the market will take care of the rest.

Here are a couple of ideas:
A) Open source licences should actively exclude installation on DRM *capable* hardware.
B) Open source tools must inhibit interoperability with DRM enabled hardware. "I'm sorry, but your machine does not meet the minimum requirements to view this web page"
C) At work, try to influence procurement policy:
- "DRM is for playing games and watching movies, do we really want our employees doing that?"
- "Some software breaks when you use that - let's keep our options open"
- "Palladium will worsen our lock-in to MS products, do we want that?"
- "When somebody cracks it, and they will, we'll get viruses we can't remove"

Re:Stop it *how*, exactly?

[Monkelectric]

All you can do is not buy it, and exercise your free speech to try to convince as many other people as possible to not buy into either.

You've got it man :) As an "independent artist" I cant *WAIT* for Paladium -- when the new Brittany album won't play in your daughters CD player, when you cant load your tunes onto your mp3 player to exercise, I'll be there giving away mp3s and selling cheap unprotected cds :)

If the music industry screws up this DRM stuff, they really will deal customers right into the arms of independents (mostly smaller labels). Here's how I see the breakdown:

DRM albums start coming out that have to be used on the PC, they can't be used on MP3 players (maybe secure ones), or on regular CD players (because if they could, we could rip the data). (Possibly they release a new format entirely). RIAA dangles some new format cookie in front of consumers "New music format delivers extra fidelity, new unreleased Beetles tracks in this format only!" (Really, they want you to buy all your old albums again)

People realize it doesn't matter how many times you buy the white album, it was still recorded on analog equipment and 70db DNR sounds just as shitty at 32 bits as it does at 16 (DNR of a 16 bit cd is 96db). Same goes for even newly recorded albums, because the most accurate A/D converter on the market riight now and for the forseable future is ~120db (and just try to get 120db DNR out of a mic, its not possible). Consumers go FUCK THIS, meanwhile some "hackers" (good guys) figure out how to kill the watermark in the data, they release watermark tools, we have another DECSS on our hands, but the cat is out of the bag.

Audio warez groups start to form using the illicit tools. They beg/borrow/steal albums, rip them and release mp3s or Oggs. Pirated mp3s start to have *MORE* value then actual cds, you can play them wherever you want, load them onto an mp3 player; you don't have to hassle with restrictions. RIAA tries to halt this by getting a few people sent to jail. Various free so and so campaigns pop up, further polarizing the community. RIAA tries some kind of attack on the internet itself it buys legislation to allow it to install filtering routers, live monitoring of ISPs. Government supports this because they want draconian control over the internet... for awhile P2P becomes a whack-a-mole game, but people become fed up with the instability this causes and the fact that legitimate transfers are being killed, and the RIAA gives up, leaving just the various 3 letter agencies using the equipment.

RIAA persists and albums sales grind to a halt. RIAA blames this on music pirates, but the hassle over DRM forced consumers to find music elsewhere. Consumers find they are paying less money for [independent] music with more content and a wider variety. Independent labels and artists flourish. The giant media corporations are severely damaged and the glory days for the media industry are over. Some big stars persist but music becomes fragmented. New internet businesses pop up which help artists distribute and sell their music by producing professional cds and helping artists promote (like mp3.com but less bastardly). As these companies flourish all but a few are put out of business by consolidation and they BECOME just as bastardly as the current crop of mega-corps, and in 30 years our kids are having this same discussion.

(and HOPEFULLY rap turns out to be just a fad) :D