Trusted Or Treacherous Computing?

theodp writes "Just because Richard Stallman is paranoid doesn't mean Microsoft's not out to get you. For a hint about the possible end-game of Microsoft's Trusted Computing Initiative, check out the patent application published Thanksgiving Day for Trusted License Removal, in which Microsoft describes how to revoke rights to render based on 'who the user is, where the user is located, what type of computing device or other playback device the user is using, what rendering application is calling the copy protection system, the date, the time, etc.' So much for Microsoft's you-should-have-control assurances."

Comments

Re:Hands up, everyone who DIDN'T see this coming..

[El Cubano]

Oh man, you were doing great right up until this part.

You really need to study American history again if you don't get this @#$% by now. Our founding fathers understood this stuff, and that's why "checks and balances" are a part of our government

Then you finish up with this:

(2000-2006 excepted).

You seriously think that getting around checks and balances is a new occurrence in the last six years? Let me say that you need to go back and study your American history.

Let me refresh your memory on a few things:

• A little program called Carnivore was setup to basically allow wholesale wiretapping of email conversations. This program began in 1997, under the watch of the ultra-right wing fascist Clinton (being facetious). It was abandoned in 2001 in favor of commercial tools that do the same thing.
• Back in 1998, President Clinton ordered missile strikes on a phramaceutical factory as part of Operation Infinite Reach. This was in retaliation for attacks on US embassies. Later, it came out that the evidence to support the attack was basically false. Hmmm, a commander in chief orders military action where people get killed, all based on bad intelligence. I'm certain he was lying to the American people about it so that he could help bring about a fascist police state where everyone feared the boogey-man. Or maybe he was trying to get people's attention off of the Lewinski scandal.
• Another beauty from Clinton administration is the sale of satellite and ballistic missile technology to the Chinese. There is a picture of how checks and balances should work.
• Of course, if we look further back in history, we see that President Kennedy was so concerned about checks and balances that he unilaterally ordered a military blockade and risked nuclear war with the USSR during the Cuban Missile Crisis

There are dozens of other examples in just the last fifty years, including the secret overflights of Soviet territory by US reconnaissance aircraft, CIA testing of drugs (LSD, IIRC) on members of the populations of several metropolitan areas.