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Palladium's Power To Deny
BrianWCarver writes "The Chronicle of Higher Education has the most detailed article I've yet seen on Microsoft's Palladium architecture. The article discusses the potential Palladium has to give publishers power to eliminate fair use and the potential for software manufacturers to use Palladium to enforce shrink-wrap licenses. Comments from several great sources including, Ed Felten (Freedom to Tinker), Eben Moglen (pro-bono counsel for the Free Software Foundation and recent Slashdot interviewee), and Seth Schoen (Electronic Frontier Foundation) among many others. Key quotations from article: Palladium could create 'a closed system, in which each piece of knowledge in the world is identified with a particular owner, and that owner has a right to resist its copying, modification, and redistribution. In such a scenario the very concept of fair use has been lost.' 'Palladium will "turn the clock back" to the days before online information was widely available.' and 'Microsoft could decide to lock everything up.'"
Software companies will still have to sell software to survive. If people don't like the restrictions - they will shop elsewhere. I see this as nothing but a replacement for the dongle.
This isn't where the fight should be. Instead, we should be avoiding the products of the companies that would use such technology for purposes of controlling what we can do with what we own.
'Microsoft could decide to lock everything up'
Isn't the reality that the content creators would be the ones locking everything up? Who says MS is going to for them?
Another stupid poke at MS I assume? Damn that's getting old.
Uncrackable encryption on sofware has its appeal
Maybe by buying the patent or suing the owner of that patent until he/she is forced to sell it or capitulate. Sound familiar? It takes money to use a patent as leverage.
Well, perhaps they are just more concerned about the potential loss of life, than some computing thing that they've never heard of?
Palladium may well be very news worthy in the industry press, but trust me, almost no-one outside of the IT industry is going to have heard of it. *Everyone* has heard about Iraq.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
do not upgrade?
A lot of people use windows out there, A LOT. Open-source software et al. need to get their software to these users.
Go to the register and read many stories about just how hard it is to stay out of the upgrade-cycle-of-death that is windows software licensing
Johns: Well, how does it look now? Riddick: Looks clear.
Lies are truth and the truth are lies.
The oldest trick in the book is to identify that aspect of your product that is going to be most harmful to your customers and spin it as a plus.
Nobody advertises 40 room mansions on 1000 acres as "spacious." That epithet is reserved for studio apartments in a "bee hive."
KFG
Yeesh. The way people respond to this stuff is so predictable. "OMG, Microsoft is trying to control every bit on earth!"
/. don't want to believe this, but Microsoft is a market-driven company -- at least to some exent. If the market doesn't embrace something they drop it (Microsoft Bob). If they aren't sure how the market will respond they will float trial balloons for months or even years before shipping it; and then drop it before it even launches if appropriate (Hailstorm).
Let's step back a minute and actually think about Palladium as it currently stands, shall we? Can we?
To start with; I know lots of people on
Right now Palladium is just a flag flying. They know that the entertainment industry and the politicians in the entertainment industry's pocket will salute. But they aren't sure about everyone else. I will admit that breathless scare mongering is one reaction they will pay attention to, but a more rational approach is to simply point out clearly (and without running in circles decrying the evil-that-is-Microsoft) that there are alternatives (Linux).
Personally I think the latter is a tactic Microsoft will pay more attention to. That, and supporting the EFF as they fight against technology like Palladium being required.
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
Bullshit. I bought those albums, so it is most certainly fair use. If I started sharing them with someone else, then it would not be. Just because I carry 10GBs of mp3/ogg on my laptop does NOT mean I have violated any law, civil or criminal.
Similarly, how is having a divx copy of LotR illegal if I bought the dvd and ripped it myself?
I can only assume you're referring to people who illegally download mp3s or make divx copies of illegally recorded theatrical showings of movies, but you need to be specific! The lack of specificity insinuates that we're all rampant filesharers, or that the only use of MPEG compression technology is piracy. Keep it up and the next thing you know, the MPEG consortium will have to disband or be incarcerated...
Let's suppose a new audio codec came out that prevented users from sending the file onward. Sure, people could just take the audio feed and pipe it back into their machine - catching it and encoding into mp3 or perhaps just run a script on the file that would de-donkeyfy it but how many people will have the patience and/or know how to do that? This type of security is going to really reduce how many people have control over the content on their machines. For instance, how many people on Kazaa can encode an mp3? I'd bet that it's less than 30%.
So, in answer to your question - plenty of people already know that but plenty of people will never know it. We have to watch out for their rights.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
>>Those mp3s on your hard drive aren't fair use. Those divx copies of lord of the rings aren't fair use either.
I thought if we owned the CDs or DVDs, it would in fact be fair use?
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
Two thought come to mind on this one:
First: "If you hack it, they will crack it." Go right ahead and give us DRM, because one way or another someone will find a way to circumvent it.
Second: These kinds of moves are exactly what undermine the power of the content holders. The more tightly the MPAA and RIAA squeeze content up their asses, the more energy, resources and popular attention that will go to the small-time independents who are actually doing something creative, and the more fragmented the audience will become. Fair use is what makes the world go round..
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
Ah, but few people are seeing it because it's not happening all at once.
Things like this, the general population won't know about until it's implemented and is being sold to them, and then, they'll only have the positive marketing spin (and perhaps a little bit of nay-saying in the general press, but nothing technical or deep).
Things like the laws passed in the wake of the WTC attack get through, becuase
a) it makes people feel safe, and as though people are doig soemthing about it
b) "I have nothing to hide"
I do agree with you, and take some solace from the fact that I'm in (and from) the UK. Of course, where the US leads, we (blindly) follow...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
But as far as your comment goes :
WTF?A. It is hardly saddening, that the people are concerned about their gov't jumping into war.
B. Isn't smarter to protest before a war happens, than after?
Congratulations! Now we are the Evil Empire
Like the article mentions, if the content provider, i.e. Word. Decides that only Word can read the article you just wrote. It means that OpenOffice can't open it (or any other competitor).
If I want to add a plugin to a program. The program, might just say: no! you need to be a plugin approved by my company, not some random plugin. You thief!
In other words, my beef with Paladium is that the security control is set at the level of the creator and not of the user. That in itself is not a problem until you realise that the control given to the creator is a lot more then simply "the right to copy and distribute" it affects the righ to interoperate between programs (in the name of being virus free).
The software industry does not have a history of being open minded, I'd suspsect that by default interoperability would be set to off.
Sad.
"I have been wondering what the issue is. If this is such a bad product, don't buy it. "
What's the problem, you say?
Microsoft==Monopoly.
Don't like the price you pay for electic power? If this is such a bad product, don't buy it.
Are you dis-satisfied with your telephone service? If this is such a bad product, don't buy it.
Are you unhappy with the performance of the latest Ford auto? If this is such a bad product, don't buy it.
Notice that this last one is much more feasible than the previous two!
Microsoft is in that position. Because of the proven anti-competitive practices of a convicted monopolist, I don't really have that choice. As a software developer, I have to account for Windows as a platform or stop making money.
And, if Microsoft decides that they EOL any non-Palladium O/S, millions will be forced to buy it, simply because they have no effective choice.
Linux (Hooray!) is becoming an option, and I'll do everything I can to get it in use, but it's not there yet. I can't yet readily make a living producing software unless I at least allow accessability to Windows users.
And Microsoft still has the power to potentially stonewall Linux adoption for a long time, and it's my feeling that Palladium is how they'll try do it.
Only time will tell...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
If all that content owners were doing is "attempting to enforce their rights", then we wouldn't be having this discussion.
It's really about content owners claiming more rights than they currently have. If I buy a dead-tree book, I can't make copies and sell or distribute them. But I can still make a copy of a page for my own use, or lend or give away the original to a friend. I still control the one physical copy that I have bought. DRM takes these rights away from the consumer. It takes control away from the consumer.
I agree with you that all the people who are mooching need to stop! But I contend that DRM advocates are using the cause of preventing piracy as a smokescreen. Their real goal is to control our behavior to a much higher extent, so that they can separate us from our money quicker. Even if there were no piracy, the push for DRM will not go away, as you suggest. Because Piracy is not the reason for it, it's just the excuse.
What they want to stop is sharing that collection with the world via Kazaa, Gnutella, WinMX, or what not. Palladium will make it far more feasible for content manufacturers to allow you to have a copy of the music on your computer, and to burn a cd for yourself without allowing you to give it away to millions of people.
After all, nobody cares about people giving music to friends, even the record company executives realize that's a sales booster. However, Giving music to millions of people needs to become socially and technologically unacceptable.
I guess all this will do is make it so the most widespread works out there are the ones people publish free to copy and distribute. I mean, who is going to pay the kinds of prices that they are going to want to charge you once they know you can't get it elsewhere.
As an aspiring author (as a hobby, not for a living) of a fantasy novel, I have been looking at publishing recently and have decided to self publish my work and allow people to freely distribute it. Why? Well, I have a day job, and while extra money is nice, I don't really need to make money off of my novel and I don't really expect to make a living off of it either. Instead it is a hobby for me, my art if you will and I am more interested in getting it wide exposure than on some best seller list somewhere.
If my work is good, word of mouth will push it around and people will load it off my website to read. If not, it flops but I'm not really out a cent, just whatever time I put into it, which is no big loss because that time would like as not been spent playing computer games anyway.
But the advantages are, I can get widespread coverage to a large and diverse audience. I retain full rights so that if the story is considered movie material, I get to keep all of what the studio doesn't take. I can publish it anywhere at any time, for money or for free. So in a way, I don't need to worry about Palladium. If someone releases a work, no matter how good, which is locked up and expensive and pay by the bloody minute spent watching, I won't waste my time or money on it and I'm willing to bet a lot of you won't either.
As an aside to this, I wonder if a "free publishing" community will start up where people donate time and experience to writing material which goes straight into the public domain instead of locked up in copyright for life + forever. Schools, libraries and teachers would likely be happy to have such work available royalty free and aspiring writers can practice on free stuff the way coders do on open source software. After all, look what Open Source is doing to Microsoft. If the publishers get nasty, then we should be able to take them on in a similar way and have similar success. It would be great to have a library of the people, of free and public domain works which can be freely read, copied and sited without having to hunt someone down to ask permission. This isn't the same as current libraries, most works in current libraries are illegal to copy (though most people do it anyway) and sometimes you can't even site without permission. So we could use a nice library of *only* free and public domain works which can be used for whatever you wish. Better yet, it could be online and fully unlocked so Palladium be damned you could still read, copy and use such works in your own endeavors. In the end, I think everyone might benefit from such a movement.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Here's the real problem: There is no doubt in my mind experienced computer users will find a way to work around Palladium schemes. But we are only a small segment of computer users. The reality is that this technology will restrict those who aren't computer savvy. The result still will be that the computer becomes far less egalitarian. And this is the real problem. This is a very basic argument about who controls information, who creates it and who uses it. While there will be exceptions, with Palladium shifts this troika decidedly towards big business and away from consumers. That is scary, and to my mind, downright Orwellian.
Frankly, I find that hard to believe. If you've been following the DRM, you'd have to take into account that every DRM scheme to date has been aimed at preventing users from making any copies whatsoever, which I would say, is a pretty clear violation of fair use. CSS was created to stop you from making any copy of a DVD. CD copy protection schemes (music) are even more horrendous, often times preventing the *original* from working properly in some people's players. Now, given MS's own attempts at DRM along with the history of DRM in general, don't you think MS would just love to have a way to make the previous generation of Windows simply cease working at an arbitrary date, forcing users to buy a new lisence every n months?
When has the law meant anything to Microsoft? They do what they want and when they get caught they just tie it up in the courts for years until the technology is no longer useful to them, or they have found a way to purchase it.
Word Axis
I thought if you had the Palladium hardware the computer wouldn't work without a Palladium aware OS?
Palladium is a technology. It's designed to restrict what can be done with information, in useful ways. Maybe it's really clever, maybe it's clunky and unworkable, I don't know, but either way, it's a bit of technology that someone developed and therefore I'm inclined to like it.
Now, if people *had* to use it, that'd be a bad thing. If people were *punished* for certain actions, using Palladium as a tool, and those actions weren't really evil, that'd be a bad thing. Those are legal issues, and I'd be inclined to resist them.
IMHO it is never a good thing to try and suppress, a technology just because you are afraid of what someone might decide to use it for. This is exactly the kind of thinking behind the DMCA, which tries to suppress a vast class of technologies because they could theoretically be used to break other laws.
You can hate the control freak attitude of many IP holders, you can hate the ubiquity of MS, you can hate the increasingly wacky commercial laws of our nations. Heck, I know I do. But I don't start trying to suppress particular innovations just because they can be used for purposes I don't agree with. I'm generally against nuclear war but I'm sure glad they developed the internet.
This has been kind of a long, structureless post, but I'm going to post it anyway cause I really believe I have a message buried in there
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
This is what I understood of Paladium, and why it IS scary:
In a Paladium box, the DRM starts with the hardware. Thus, uninstalling MS-WinPaladium and trying to install Linux/Win2K/other is not possible because the hardware will not allow you to run the 'unsigned' installer. Once Paladium, always Paladium.
Even if someone finds a hack/crack around this, installing an alternative OS on a Paladium box will probably not become widely excepted because this is illegal according to the DMCA.
So, let's fight the battle now. Why is or isn't Paladium good for 'the people'.
Sorry, you don't own anything anymore, you license it.
While I agree with you in principle, I know that it won't work. Old saying - an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The average person, which BTW outnumbers the "in-the-know" crowd by about a million to 1, will not care. If the only thing that Dell sold was Palladium computers, the public would buy them. They won't go out of their way to avoid it, they will fork over their cash because as far as they are concerned, it isn't a big deal.
Our duties as the technically literate is to make sure that things like Palladium do not happen. The (potential) cost far outweighs the (potential) benefits.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I hate to be the one to site pornography and other questionable material as the driving factor in most of humanity's entertainment expression mediums (with the exception of Videogames, oddly), but with a real lockdown of media and information on the Windows platform, won't that encourage more people to transition to alternatives such as Linux and Macintosh? Considering the BSA's estimates that 2/3rds of all software is pirated, and if this turns out to be a truly effective way to stop the piracy of not just programs but also video and audio data, it seems like TCO arguments by otherwise law abiding citizens will sway towards mediums that are easier to pirate on. The Playstation, for example, was notoriously easy to pirate, and that helped drive sales as a platform. Pirating Playstations doesn't help Sony persay (although late in the life of the platform hardware sales were profitable for Sony), but a preponderance of available software does help Microsoft retain their leveraging points (and I don't mean the quality of their software).
Now, perhaps some sort of middle ground will finally be reached, between overbroad click-through agreements and overly cheap end consumers. Or perhaps many people will make a move to a system where, for example, Kazaa will still work. Or perhaps Microsoft will take the intelligent (from their business standpoint) road and setup a system which allows piracy to flourish but can protect studio-released content from seeping into that region.
Either way, this looks great for that other OS, OpenBEOS. I mean, Linux.
The ______ Agenda
How can you publish freely if you have to pay Microsoft a fee to "verify" your work?
Even if it's just a document, it would have to have something so that those who charge for their documents can be assured of copyprotection.
Thus, one way or another you will have to pay microsoft to publish anything, free users or not.
(Note: not posted anonymously - some things are more important than being "offtopic" in an /. discussion)...
These war protesters are mere sheep
At what point did a dissenting opinion indicate someone was a "sheep?" Even as anti-war sentiment grows, those willing to march are still far outnumbered by ho-hum lackwits. Who's the real sheep?
CNN shows some woman that claims that she is protesting because her son joined the marines to get a education and not to fight a war.
You're right. That is pretty stupid. But guess what? It's not representative of the anti-war movement. And you know what else? You can protest a war because you have loved ones in the armed services, and not be a hypocrite. There are such things as just and unjust wars.
freedom did not come for free in the US and it will not come for free for the Iraqi people
Blech. At what point did it become our duty to give Iraq freedom? If, as you surmise, this war is about some sort of higher purpose, let's reign it in for awhile, and focus on some places like, oh, let's see - North Korea and Saudi Arabia, maybe? Things ain't too free over there either.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
And yet your chances of being killed by iraq are nill. You have a better chance of winning the lottery then being killed by iraq. Your chances of being effected by palladium OTOH is almost 100%.
"they" are worrying about the wrong thing. "They" are also incapable of worrying about more then one thing at a time. "They" worry about whatever the media tells them to worry about.
War is necrophilia.
Is to educate the massess. Sorry but you aren't going to legsliate something like this out of existance. Even if you could, it would kind of be a strongarm tactic on par with what the RIAA does in reverse. However the public can be convinced it's a bad thing and told not to buy it. Happened with Divx. Hollywood had decided they liked the Divx pay-to-play model and it, not DVD (it was a DVD extension) would be the next big thing. Most studios were doing Divx-first releases and some were doing no DVD releases at all.
Well people got together and educated the average joe on why Divx sucked and why they should not buy it. The acerage joe listened, Divx sold for shit, and Circut City took a bath to the tune of $100 million.
That's the real way to beat Pallidium: Convince the public it's bad and that they don't want it. Companies go where the money is, and if people won't buy Pallidium stuff, they'll stop selling it.
Also, even if you use an "alternative" OS, you will probably still have to buy Palladium-ready hardware, which may or may not play nicely with your non-subscribed OS. And guess who might just be deciding whether it plays nicely or not...
Congratulations! Now we are the Evil Empire
Palladium lets me control how my software will run on your computer. I should consider that a good thing.
However, what isn't stated is that Palladium lets you control how I use my computer. That I do not like.
Thus, Palladium is equal and symmetric, except for one thing. Given the power relationship between me and (say) a typical software company, Palladium will only be used to maintain and strengthen their power over me through abuse and control.
Thus, although it nominally gives me the ability to control others, that control will be useless to me in practice. This is much like how copyright supposedly gives band's the control over the music industry. *laugh*
Pretty convenient for Microsoft that everyone's distracted.
Still the bad press must be having some effect, else they wouldn't have changed the name from Palladium.
I think that Microsoft has realised that they can sidestep a lot of flack just by making the issue more complicated than most people are capable of understanding.
Both these issues, Iraq and Palladium will change the world. Best to make use of an internet that encourages free speech while we still have it.
Dave.
Linux (Hooray!) is becoming an option, and I'll do everything I can to get it in use, but it's not there yet. I can't yet readily make a living producing software unless I at least allow accessability to Windows users.
Guy, you are so way behind the times it's embarrassing. For all the worrying you have here, why don't you see what you can sell with the Linux distros. I'm sure you'll be delightfully surprised. Perhaps you've just signed in, but people are making a living with non-MS solutions. Become a part of it.
I know I wouldn't advise anyone to buy such a system, much less buy one myself. Would you?
The strategies of Microsoft and Intel into controling how I use my computer doesn't worry me overly much yet. I have yet to hear anything on MS and Intel *requiring* me to buy such technology and install it into my computer. Im sure that there are some users out there who could care less about their hardware/software specifics, but people who depend on their computers tend to be very picky. Picky users generally don't buy shoddy hardware, limited hardware, or software that will make their life miserable. Therefore, unless MS is VERY clever there isn't much chance of Palladium getting installed in the computers that matter most, the experts, power-users, developers, and hackers computers.
In addition I don't see how MS can force the issue. I suppose they will bundle it with Internet Explorer. I can switch to Netscape or stay at IE6. It will be in the next Windows OS, but I use Win2k, and have no plans to upgrade. If MS does figure out a way to get it installed on my computer, I maintain good backups and am willing to spend an afternoon reformating and reinstalling.
Sorry MS, resistance is *not* futile.
Might not cost anything to defend yourself, but to defend yourself SUCCESSFULLY? That's a different kettle of fish.
Even if I were a legal genius, if I have a day job, and I spend my time in court rather than working, that costs me. Sure, you might argue that if that were so, I might be well advised to make a living practicing law, but there is an opportunity cost related to being in court rather than doing something else with your time.
So, yes, justice costs. As long as people (and judges) think that expensive suits mean credible arguments, justice costs.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
And, when (not if) Microsoft's super-de-dooper Hardware security gets exploited, who 0wnz? Could you imagine that? A compromised system could lock out the rightful owners and Microsofts OS, but let anyone else in. Gee, and then what do you do to patch hardware? Buy new systems all over again, every few days/weeks when there is a security patch?
Fsck Microsoft and all it is/stands for.
For those who describe their systems as 'boxen', do you order multiple 'boxen' of corn flakes also?
I'm not pro-war. But I'm 100% anti-peaceniks.
Then I guess it's not completely evil for me to hope that, by some strange science fiction manifestation of karma, you find yourself fleeing across the desert, dodging angry Iraqui bullets.
Here's my story. See if you can figure out why I find it annoying that people who have never sacrificed anything for their "beliefs" can judge the motivations of others in so shallow a manner.
When I was a young man, the "peaceniks" tried to talk me out of going to Vietnam. I went anyway. A year in that sunny clime convinced me that while some wars might be morally justified, that one sure as hell wasn't. With less than a year to go on my hitch, I was ordered back to SE Asia with my squadron. I refused to go. There was great puzzlement among my squadron officers, since I had been ordered to Bangkok, Thailand, which at that time was the land of milk and honeys, the favored destination for GIs leaving Vietnam for R&R. There didn't appear to be any explanation for my bizarre behavior, other than a genuine belief that dropping bombs on the Vietnamese was immoral. However, as was their duty, my officers busted me out with a bad discharge, I lost my various GI entitlements, and here I am, just a few years short of my retirement move to a cardboard box.
Now, strangely enough, I'm not bitter. I knew what I was doing and what I would lose, and I know I was lucky not to spend time in Leavenworth for my beliefs. But it does piss me off to hear shallow real-politik arguments bereft of any moral component used against people who are doing what they think is right. Hey, maybe if I hadn't refused to go hang bombs on F-111s in Bangkok, maybe we'd have "won" the war in Vietnam. You think? Naw, probably not. It was late 1972, the war was lost, and the F-111s were broke most of time they were over there. I think it's a shame that I and the other "peaceniks" didn't quit fighting a few years earlier. Might have saved a few hundred thousand lives, American and Vietnamese.
The point is that the "peaceniks" are making a moral choice. Even if you don't agree with their choice, they deserve more admiration and consideration than a gaggle of grasping pinhead politicians who are making the decision for purely utilitarian purposes.
Finally, a little quote from a speech last fall by Sen. Byrd: "Representative Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to William H. Herndon, stated: 'Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose - - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.'"
Don't answer me. Answer Abraham.
Apples and Oranges...
You are correct, but the arguments are not entirely the same. While Elcomsoft's software is simply a tool, it is available for end users. Some users will use it for fair use, and others will inevitably use it in an illegal fashion.
However, Palladium is a tool that will likely remain in the hands of Microsoft. Sure, the "content owners" will be given limited toolkits that allow them to make Palladium-friendly software, but it will be Microsoft who says what is trusted or not.
That said, if Elcomsoft was (a) a US-based company and (b) required the users of its tools to seek approval from Elcomsoft for each and every use, then Elcomsoft SHOULD be held accountable for misuse of its tools, because they would know of specific violations.
Now the question here is this: "Will Microsoft use Palladium for illegal purposes?" Judging by Microsoft's past record... well... you be the judge.
- Twilight1Without any actual agreement, I'm restricted from running certain programs on my computer (servers) to serve up certain data that I have (movies, songss, etc).
No, you're not. If your data is data that you can legally distribute, you can distribute it however you want.
However, if you "data" is someone else's meal ticket/unfinished art, you are restrained from "serving" it just as you're restrained from making a million copies and giving them away.
If Palladium can be so easily circumvented the only reason to spend money developing, pushing, and deploying it is to prepare for the day when it *does* become mandatory. Is that too hard to figure out?
Palladium is a classic "opt in" system.
If I were to make CDs that could only be played in, oh, Sony CD-players, and they were clearly labeled as such, no one could complain or bitch--even if those CD players didn't have any audio-out jacks.
Palladium is purported to work just like this. If you don't want your MP3s to work under Palladium, buy the CDs, rip them yourself, and play them on the same programs you're playing now.
The whole "trusted computing" idea will make it viable to sell content wholly over the 'net with little to no fear of immediate file-sharing. It won't be a risky gamble against probability that relies on the goodwill and generosity of the masses--it'll be enforced at a technical level beyond the capabilities of most computer professionals to subvert.
The 2nd amendment people fight mandatory gun registrations on the same grounds. After the 10th or 15th country that went from registration to confiscation and full bans you draw the line further out where it's still politically viable to resist. The same logic holds true for the banning of the open system general purpose computer.
I hate people who play politics like that.
Pick what's right, and fight for that. Don't pick what's best for your side and scream and hope that you get what's right. Fight what's right and never, ever, EVER change that.
Guns should be tax-deductable, registered, and a free ticket to militia training at the local guard base. There should be no loopholes in the system, no exceptions for dealers or diabilities, no excuses for "losing" a gun--and no one should lose their guns for anything short of gross misuse of firearms.
--so OK, the "peaceniks" are wrong and will "cost lives". That's an opinion, it has to my mind a certain amount of validity, but I'd like to expand on it more. I have an additional opinion, but I'll phrase it in the form of some questions at first.
How many people will die because others refuse to accept the evidence that high level "leaders" in various western nations created, sponsored, armed, equipped and encouraged saddam hussein, al queda, and etc, and are currently conveniently "forgetting" those facts? What are we to do with people who refuse to learn from history, and can't see the hegelian dialectic at work, when crises are manufatured on purpose in order to garrer power and profits for high level "connected ones"? When does it become politically correct to notice exact parallels with events such as the reichstagg fire,where a retarded man was setup to commit a crime of such size as to influence public opinion so that "drastic security measures' were "needed", and 9-11, where obvious brainwashed goat herders were used in a similar fashion, and where the linkages up stream go directly not only to far off afghanistan, but to western intelligence services, large corporations, and various stock brokerages, and this information was "overlooked" or dismissed as "intelligence failures", when it obviously wasn't? Why is it that international financiers who always seem to be quite willing to finance all the sides in various conflicts are given a "get out of jail free pass" on their actions? When will all the connections between "serious bad stuff happening" and extremely rich and powerful western white guys in suits be "fashionably correct" to note?
You see, it works on several levels. I have noticed that for a lot of people, stopping the data input at the 'comfort level' based on a prior "belief" system seems to be the norm. If any data is presented that doesn't fit someone's pre conceived belief of what political reality is, then such data gets rejected out of hand, based not on cold clinical analysis and a sense of honesty and fair play, which should be an intelligent response and is an accepted scientifc model, but rejected and denied based on just a partisan sense of belonging to some group who "can do no wrong, it's those other guys fault, all of it". That is an absurd "belief" system that can be classed as almost cultish, and as such should be avoided, one would think.
Now, to switch to just general commentary on iraq, if it was my call, this is what I would like to see. I would like to see the high level US leaders (other nations in the west need a similar action to take place) who decided to fund and bankroll that goon saddam exposed, and busted. Busted, exposed, prosecuted. I think the United States should FIRST show the world we are willing to clean up our own messes, that we did in fact break international law and common sense by supplying him with poison gasses and active alive biowarfare germs that were produced and stockpiled in direct avoidance of treaties we have signed, that the materials shipped over there were not "samples" but actual production runs of size, and that we as a nation screwed up. I would also contend that this goes across the two major political parties leadership levels, and into various places inside our own military establishment and inside various private corporations, and has been an ongoing criminal enterprise of monumental and sinister proportions. And that we did this partly to counter iran, but that the iraninan problem itself was AGAIN partly our fault as we had our intelligence services help to overthrow the previous elected government of iran, put into power this royal "shah" monster, who went about so abusing his people that radical islamicists were able to easily recruit converts, leading to the mullah khomeni taking over with his gang of despots. You see, there's connections. You can't stop at one point and say "here is where it started and it's all these other guy's fault!" And that all of this was done on purpose for the reasons of power accumulation and "making money" into the obscene levels. ONCE we do that,clean up our own mess, and regain the moral high ground we have lost on the international levels you can plainly see, THEN proceed to deal with creatures of our creation like saddam the dictator, and if we have to, to do it legally according to our constitution which insists on congress and not some tin pot dictator to decide about such a heavy event as 'war'.
There are literally dozens more examples I can cite to reinforce this position, completely outside of just iraq. In other words, our hands are not clean either and it's well past time we as a nation have the courage to admit it and deal with it.
And this is not a "leftist"or "rightist" viewpoint, millions share it, it goes across the political spectrum. I doubt were you to poll any of the protesters across the world from this weekend you would find many "saddam" supporters. What some folks are uncomfortable with is the notion that the protesters were also protesting the "why did this happen" position which points pretty clearly towards "us" as having some serious involvement, and unfortunately, a lot of the high level people involved in creating this saddam problem are now offering their latest "solutions"..
Personally, I think none of these gents we have who are connected to saddam and to bin laden and al queda, etc, should be in ANY position of power, and in fact need to be pulling some hard time at club fed, and that their public personas are a sham,a shame, and a lie, a very, very big lie. It is embarrasing, so a lot of folks go into denial over it.
I can put this even simpler. If I as an individual do business with the crackhouse and gang up the street, if I sell them arms, supply them with support,make sure their car runs, loan them various burglary and mugging tools, etc, then later on they go on a crime rampage around the neighborhood, would I be guilty or innocent of being "wrong"? Would I have any claim to moral superiority, would I have any rational basis to claim I had no hand in the crimes committed? Or would the local prosecutor say I was in fact a part of this gang?
When it's on that level it's easy to see, when a nation and it's so called "elected" leaders and it's "pillars of society" business people do it, then this situation is supposed to change, morally and legally? Uhh, why is this?
A lot of the people around the world don't see much difference, and frankly, I share that view. The scale is different with the examples of the crackhouse gang and it's crimes, but the crimes committed certainly aren't, and ALL the criminals involved need to be dealt with in a legal fashion, no matter their skin tone, what they wear for clothing, what country they currently reside in, or what temporary 'title' they enjoy, or what current economic level they happen to be at..
This picking and choosing just "some" of the gang members to "prosecute", while completely ignoring the other gang members is just intellectually and ethically and morally bankrupt, IMO. And that's what's going on with the current "protest" activity, millions of other people can see that.
Some really great points above on college texts. One thing that is missing is what happens when people keep their books as reference materials for life? As much as the publishers would love to destroy the used-book market, how can they just give away the content of the book in some form that can be easily mutilated, and used by someone else?
/.
It's also an interesting issue for code books (building, electrical, etc.). It would be great to have a single CD (or network appliance) that lets the user track the changes in a section over the past 50 years.
Basically, we need a way for authors and publishers to be compensated for their efforts in a manner that does not reduce the usefullness of the product. With college texts, there is a set number of copies that can be sold each semester. Anything that eats into that number forces the cost to rise.
I still have most of my engineering books. As much as they weigh, and despite the effort involved in moving them several times, I am happy to have them. Would a CD retain that same useful life?
Should organize the thoughts better, but... what the hell, this is
Absolutely. The DMCA is something that never ever should have been passed, and is an example of what can happen if tech people don't keep their eyes and ears open. I think it was a wake-up call to that effect, and makes us realize that Palladium needs to be fought against, and fought hard. Don't let the market decide, help the market decide. I think people have the right idea that we need to educate ourselves, and educate others. Like I said:
We need to do whatever it takes to prevent things like this from getting off the ground. "The market" needs to have a bigger voice up front, especially when it comes to someone like Microsoft who has the power to essentially disregard what the market thinks. It needs to be prevented from happening, rather than let it get created and then rally against it.
Unfortunately, most people aren't aware of the DMCA, and won't care about it until it affects them personally, and in a significant way. By then, it may be too late.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
No, such are the wonders of STATE capitalism.
In a free market, you wouldn't have IP laws - and probably you wouldn't have companies the size of Microsoft either - in fact, since corporations are state creations, you might not have that form of company at all - nor could they sue small companies for frivolous patent infringements...
OTOH, they could copy small companies technology and use their marketing clout to beat them - except that usually small companies are much more adept at that than big ones...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I can still buy the newest althon CPU and MB along with RAM, put linux, win2k, bsd, whatever on it, without worring about palladum.
Nope, buy a palladiam motherboard it won't let you load a non-Palladiam OS.
Sooner or later everyone will have to upgrade, because parts malfunction. Whether one will be able to purchase an Athlon without DRM at that point is an open question. I don't feel confident that the majority won't upgrade, because "the majority" is comprised of non-technical people who respond well to marketing buzzwords. If there is a good time for those aware of the issue to try to educate that majority by loud, vocal, repeated means, now is certainly it.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Thank god it's not the other way around; think gun control. And no, this isn't offtopic. Whatever your opinion is on the matter, it is certainly a perfect example of a constitutional right being taken away a little at a time on the basis of emotional arguments and debatable statistics. Maybe fair use (not saying it's a constitutional right, but it certainly is well enshrined in U.S. law) is the next to go the way of the dodo bird. Sure looks that way to me... emotional arguments, few alternatives to "banning" presented by the RIAA and their ilk, statistics on "lost revenue" that may or may not show cause and effect, and a steady chipping away of our rights. However, there is a lot more money involved here, at least when you compare the tech industry/media industry to the amounts that the gun companies/anti-gun groups pull in. And yeah, I left out the citizens that are effected by these laws. Unless you have a group with a name, a letterhead, and some money to spend on campaign contributions your voice will only be noted, not heard. I say slashdotters need some airtime. Something like a slashdot PAC might generate enough interest (and be unusual enough) to at least get a soundbite on CNN or Fox News. Anyone up for it? Or are we all going to sit here and wait for the chiseling away at our rights turn into sound of large jackhammers?