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Bob Barr Weighs In On Trusted Computing Group
bearwayne writes "Former representative Bob Barr (R-GA), a conservative and non-technophile, who has now has teamed up with the ACLU to fight growth of the Federal government's infringements on Civil Liberties ala the Patriot Act, weighs in on the Trusted Computing Group/Alliance in this article at Creative Loafing. Among other things, he expresses concerns about censorship, loss of control over one's PC, and other corporate/government abuses."
*snort*
Libertarian groupthink exists, and is no different than liberal and conservative groupthink.
Wherever you have groups, you have groupthink, regardless of how many people bother to 'think on their own' in any given group.
The problem with most "trusted computing" proposals so far is that "trusted" is an accurate description of them. It's just an imcomplete description. They aren't about insuring that you, the owner of the computer, can trust the computer or the software on it. They're about insuring that third parties can trust your computer to do what they tell it to do. The proponents omit that part because they know all too well that if they did say all of what they meant that Joe Sixpack would scream bloody murder and refuse to have anything to do with it.
Just to make a point, imagine a virus that couldn't be removed from a computer. Under the "trusted computing" proposals someone could do exactly that by tagging the virus as "user does not have permission to delete" and the computer itself would prevent the AV software from removing the virus.
Well, it's good to see that someone who's kinda involved in government is going against the idea of making the Hollings Bill law, but I don't really see what the big deal about this article is otherwise. Barr is no longer in the House of Representatives, so he probably has little ability to directly do anything to stop the bill. The article - although an easy read for non-technophiles, which is good - really doesn't say anything we don't already know, and Bob Barr doesn't sound like he has much political clout.
I don't mean to rag on the editors or the person who submitted it, but I don't see how this is news. It would be nice if this article (or something similar) was published in a widely-read newspaper, but I think we've heard this story a few times before.
By the way, even if whatever law Hollings wants passed doesn't make it, what's to stop the TCPA's system from becoming a de facto standard? If most of the computers and content out there use it, you're stuck either keeping your old computer and hoarding old CD's and DVD's, or breaking down and using computers and content that are "protected" by the TCPA's technologies.
I produce electronic music and write little games. Have a look.
Go ahead, try to deny it. You can't.
I have never, ever met a libertarian who was at all interested in the welfare and happiness of anyone but himself. That's really what the whole philosophy boils down to - abandonment of the greater good.
Bob Barr, when in office, was one of those insane neocons ranting about gays and hell all the time. But since he left office, it's clear that he's been treated by a good psychiatrist, and when he opens his mouth these days, good things tend to come out. He was on Bill Maher's show on HBO a few weeks ago and made a really good impression. Very anti-Ashcroft/Orwell. Good for him, and good for modern medicine.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
So choosy with their freedoms
Can carry guns
Can't smoke dope, gamble, lap dance, be gay
State right's good when pro gun anti-abortion
State's rights bad medical marijuana gay rights, and physician assisted suicide
"Hmm so geeks are supposed to automatically distrust anything conservative?"
Hollings is a Democrat (who fortunatly is not running for reelection). I think the point is we should be distrustful of people who make rules without a proper understanding of their effects.
Conservatism and liberalism are ideals too. And the idea that an "ideal" can't be groupthink is laughable.
Don't assume Bob Barr is wholy a man of principle with no ulterior political motives! Remember the impeachment of Clinton? He proudly stood there with his Republican colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee and engaged in one of the most partisan assaults on rationality and abuses of the constitutional processes in the history of the U.S. In fact, Barr tried numerous times to have Clinton impeached before Lewinsky's name was ever heard. I guarantee you that his motives were not solely because of the nature of Clinton's alleged transgressions - he would not have been nearly so dedicated if a powerful Republican President had been the culprit. He was most definitely concerned to take out Clinton as part of a broader agenda to counter the growing social liberalism of the time.
So Bob Barr may be saying the right things, but (and it is unfortunate that this has to be the case in politics) you cannot separate the message from the messenger; and I do not trust Bob Barr's ideas about how America ought to be in general.
There are plenty of single-chip MCUs, from Atmel AVRs on 8-bit scale to ARM on 32-bit, and everything else as well. Some of those chips are plenty powerful; for example, Netwinder was based on StrongARM, and Intel now moved onto even better architecture. I have PC/104 card in front of me, it runs Linux on XScale CPU as I type this.
So the question is, will it be mandated that every little chip must have this nefarious "secure core" or whatever they call it today?
It is plain impossible, price-wise, to embed this technology into every CPU manufactured. Most of those CPUs cost about $10, and they are self-sufficient; only add power. Even worse, there are soft implementations of many popular CPUs, MIPS/ARM being the prime example. These can be embedded into any blank FPGA just by pasting the code... and the FPGA definitely won't have the security required for the TCPA.
So where does it leave us? Will only PC platforms be affected by the law? Or maybe all Linksys routers (with Linux inside) will have to be reworked? And all Tivos? And all PDAs? This is getting ridiculous fast.
I work with embedded systems most of the time, and I tell you, this law simply can't go anywhere. We are immersed into a sea of computers, most of which are faster and more powerful than your average desktop. There are DSPs that, despite being poor in some operations, will encode your DivX movie faster than the best Pentium. Your cell phone has a few CPUs in it, as well as your TV and your car. Where this law is going to stop?
I also guess that if s/w vendors can raise the prices, they will. Cost of traditional s/w will shoot through the roof, now that you *must* pay for every copy. This will create a unique combination - a TCPA-free hardware and free software, and there will be a market hungry for both of the above simply because they can't afford to be robbed by ISVs, they just don't have the money. People who hold onto their olden Win95 boxes will have to either give up computing, or to switch to TCPA-free hardware and free software. The industry digs its own grave, as it seems.