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Doctorow: the Coming War On General-Purpose Computing
GuerillaRadio writes "Cory Doctorow's keynote at 28C3 was about the upcoming war on general-purpose computing driven by increasingly futile regulation to appease big content. 'The last 20 years of Internet policy have been dominated by the copyright war, but the war turns out only to have been a skirmish. The coming century will be dominated by war against the general purpose computer, and the stakes are the freedom, fortune and privacy of the entire human race.'"
If you don't have time for the entire 55-minute video, a transcript is available that you can probably finish more quickly.
Depends on what you're arguing. If you mean that consumers prefer to buy walled-garden devices like iPads versus programmable computers, I agree that's something we have to fix ourselves, through outreach, PR, making better programming environments, whatever. But another angle is the government passing laws that make it increasingly difficult to offer unrestricted general-purpose computers. That I think is much more clearly a civil-liberties issue than just an issue of consumer preference.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
That was a long piece of flamebait, so you'll excuse me if I only take part of it.
"Don't tell me what to do!" is one thing from a child to a parent, another from a slave to his master, a third from a man to his government, and yet a fourth from a purchaser of a product to its seller. Unless you feel all purchasers are children, the demand is not necessarily children.
Alarmism? Yes, they've been circumvented. Illegally in many cases. Which is only resulting in the other side tightening the screws more. And do you think those restrictions could have been circumvented if the most open computer anyone could get was an iPad?
Claiming this is alarmist with SOPA still on the table is sticking your head in the sand.
That's because most users care about personal freedom -- where they're the only person that matters. Insular thinking is way too common and is way too corrosive. However, it does go a little bit beyond that. Metronets almost don't exist except in a few more enlightened places, because people were conned into thinking of it as a tax. They would be paying for someone else's Internet access. Well, no. What they'd be paying for is the freedom to choose your Internet access. Most places, the ISP is nothing more than a shell company that "provides" access to a single actual Internet provider - your "choice" is what illusion you want. It's not a real choice, which means that if the real provider decides to implement a specific restriction then ALL your "choices" implement that specific restriction.
In short, Joe Public is easily tricked into giving up real freedoms because real freedom means someone else gets that freedom too and Joe Public would go through hell or high water before contributing to someone else's freedom. Real freedom is never individualistic, it's binary. It's there or it isn't. By deceiving people into thinking that they're gaining by inhibiting the freedom of "others", freedom becomes impossible. There is no gain in loss. Ever.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I'm inclined to agree with him rather more, because I recently had to root my tablet. During the last routine system update, mysterious new crap appeared: Something called Layar. It was impossible to uninstall without rooting, and the marketplace page for it is just page after page of people giving it one-star reviews and complaining that it was installed without their consent. I think it's some type of augmented-reality program.
I spent a lot of money on that tablet so I can read books in the bath and watch FiM on the train. I don't need the problems of it updating itsself to install new junk I don't want.
I think Mr. Doctorow errs in assuming two things: 1) that there's an intrinsic value in the total openness of programmable electronic devices, and 2) that the new "walled garden" approach adopted by Apple, Microsoft et al. is somehow being done to benefit the estate of Jack Valenti (thank God the Supreme Court couldn't extend his lifetime).
Before you mod me into oblivion, hear me out.
Most people do not give a good goddamn about having control over the code execution path. In fact they don't want control because they can get confused into letting viruses and other malware execute. They want their devices to make life easier, whether that means keeping track of information or playing games to pass the time or some other convenience, and given a two-dimensional optimization choice over the convenience/freedom axis they'll pick convenience every time. And they're not wrong or stupid or evil to do so. They just don't agree with your set of principles.
And thank God for that, because I for one would not want to witness the consequences of a Melissa or Slammer-type worm infecting every Android or iOS device in the United States. We would just stop.
There will always be vigorous and enthusiastic communities centered around truly general purpose devices. You need only look to the many devices other posters here have mentioned, such as the Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and dozens of other hackables. Hell, through Amazon you can rent time on an infinite mountain of general-purpose computing if you're interested.
Let's face it -- hackers, by which I mean the folks who want to push devices to do things they were neither designed nor intended to do, are a teensy minority in the world of users.
Not really. Appliances usually won't have the RAM, GPU, storage, etc that a general purpose will have.
Way back in the way back, I had a computer upon which I had a development system and a web browser. It had a 16 MHz SPARC processor and 24 MB of RAM, a luxury back then. When the average cellphone of today is more powerful than the most powerful computers of then, this argument is beyond ridiculous.
Furthermore the "spyware" characterization is erroneous.
No, it really is not. Most network-connected devices will, at minimum, connect for update checks. Any television appliance that depends on remote servers for information is by definition tattling on you.
The less nerdy are making rational intelligent decisions. Locked down helps avoid malware and other maintenance issues.
[citation needed]
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's not the computer they're trying to control, it's the communications. And they are most definitely winning right now. It amazes me that a tiny minority can run the world so completely.
Devices like the Raspberry Pi prove him wrong.
As long as they are legal. That was the point of the speech.
You must be new here.
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"General purpose computing" is just a synonym for power, in the same way as violence, money, and land are.
When you had land, you could do whatever you wanted on your land, even if it was criminal. When you had money, you could get whatever goods or services money could buy, even if it was criminal. When you had violence, you could take others' land and money, even if it is criminal (it isn't always; Police, in principle, "claim" land and money using violence, but not criminally). Naturally, government came in to regulate all three.
When you have general purpose computing, you can have whatever the peripherals of your computer allow you to have, even if it's criminal. Such peripherals include, but are not limited to, recording devices and displays, CNC machines (fab), and telecom (the internet, VOIP, etc).
The funny thing about computing though, is that it is not consumed in the process the way money and land are. Those have to be invested, because you really can't build a factory on a plot today, and then change it to apartments for a few hours to meet demand. You can't have your paycheck pay for food today, and then have the same money pay for rent tomorrow.
So now users have this virtual land that isn't dedicated to a single purpose and can change at the drop of a hat from producing (or consuming) kitten videos to committing virtual crimes to emailing your mom and back again. It defies the concept of specialization of labor. It defies the concept of investment, because once you pay the overhead and produce something for that virtual land (software), everyone can use it without investing in it themselves.
In other words, it defies the models of money and land. It is its own kind of beast, and computing is our window into that world. What computers we use are our "avatars," to use a tired term, and GP computing is the only avatar that isn't artificially hindered. But an avatar that is unhindered is (for the purposes of law enforcement) no different from allowing all citizens access to weaponry, without even background checks. Maybe it will take care of itself, maybe it won't; the arguments could go on forever.
I would say that the argument for GP computing is more akin to the right to bear arms than the right to free speech. It's individually empowering, to the point of threatening other people. Either you respect that people will someday need it, or you get in the path of that train. Maybe you can derail it with your corpse, maybe not, I don't know, but there are a LOT of people who won't sit idly by as you take their (metaphorical) guns away.
Doctorow is making the argument that stuff like that is being proposed and fought for in the current copyright war. Desire for it may spread to other developed sectors of the economy.
If it's Intel v everyone else and they do it on an international basis as part of a treaty, it could happen. The argument being made is that we should be aware of and prepared for this kind of thing because if other sectors of the economy start to get as annoyed by general purpose computers as the *AA have then there would be a serious fight.
Nick
Most processors sold today (by individual units shipped) aren't used in a general purpose computer or even an appliance that would be considered one. They're used in embedded applications, but it's the same processor (or very closely related) to the ones that are used for general purposes.
Most of those embedded users are squeezing every dime they can out of component costs, and those companies put together are far bigger than big content is. Nobody, including the chip fabs themselves, would stand for adding features to anything that looks like a CPU that would get in the way and drive up prices for the majority of their consumers. The latest x86-64 is used fairly heavily by embedded systems these days, plus the millions of them churning away in data centers around the globe on general purpose servers running every flavor of OS ever ported to it, making billions for their owners.
Does anyone really think Intel would stand by and watch 75% of their market get either obliterated overnight or priced out the market, that Amazon would let AWS become illegal, that any congressman on the planet wouldn't have hundreds of constituents explaining how they built businesses around writing software?
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Only in the short term. In the long term devices such as this, and the tools needed to work with them will be strictly controlled and only licensed individuals will get access
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You couldn't even get MS and Apple to back that bill.
The app store did at least $2 Billion in direct revenue for Apple this year, and that's not including $80 Billion for the devices it actually sold. Is anyone really going to argue they wouldn't understand that destroying the hobbyiest programmer wouldn't be slitting their own throat? Without guys willing to write apps, none of these guys make any money, and if you kill the garage hacker, you kill most of the software engineering profession. There aren't going to be that many kids going into CS if the first time they touch a compiler is when they're 19 in CS 103 after a government background check and a license, and the ones that do, probably aren't going to be any good.
Dumb as most congressional representatives are, there can't be that many that wouldn't understand any bill like that would be economic suicide.
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There is a love affair with being an outlaw. The outsider, the whole hacker manifesto.
Growing up as kid I was the stereotypical nerd/geek that would take things apart, hack into them, re-purpose them, etc.
With technology becoming so fundamental to our way of life, children don't see using smart phones, tablets, computers as geeky anymore. The person that can "rootkit" a device, really own it, etc. has become the new cool.
Locking down the tools and the equipment? That will only put gasoline on a fire. Best way to encourage youth to break the law is to make something popular and fun illegal.
The War on Drugs, cigarettes, and liquor has sure kept kids from using it huh?
Sometimes I think the best way to get kids to read would be to outlaw the books.
I had mod points, and I was planning on use them all on this discussion, but as no one said what I wish to say, I'll spend them elsewhere. Here it goes.
You claim that the Raspberry Pi proves Doctorow wrong. Well, tablet computers prove him right. And smartphones, too. These are the two personal computer forms which dominate today's market, and will continue to dominate in the future. The market for laptops is shrinking while the market for tablets has increased 42%, according to some estimates Apple is becoming the world's dominant computer platform, with the dominant product being a closed, locked-down, walled garden of a personal computer.
And what about your home router? It's also a general purpose computer, which has been locked down hard to force you to not fiddle with it. The same applies to NAS and even some external HDs.
If that isn't enough, take a look at every chinese trinket toy which is sold on ebay. I'm referring to stuff such as MP3 players, media players, tablets, video game consoles and all of the sort. You can't fiddle with their software, you can't tweak their OS, you can only use them until it gets bricked. I personally have purchased a cheap, 20 dollar MP3 player with a neat color display which, at the time, put my cellphone to shame, and the damned thing could only be used to display song names and play tetris. And it was a full blown computer, which had a SD card reader.
My media player is also a general purpose computer, which has been castrated by my cable provider. My TV is also a general purpose computer, complete with HDMI input plugs, SD card reader and USB plug. It runs linux, too. But I can't do shit with it. It's from Sony, which also sells other personal computers, such as the Playstation line, playstation portable and playstation vita. And you can't do shit with them, either.
This is what Doctorow is warning about. And you said he has been proven wrong? How?
So no, Raspberry Pi does not prove him wrong. No matter how cool it is or how open it has been designed, it is a very specific product for a very specific market. There is a risk it will be put in the same category as a multitester, oscilloscopes and pulse generators: technical tools which only the technically literate are interested in using. That is, true general purpose computers are being relegated to something that only the fools at the local modern incantation of the homebrew computer club are even interested with, and this is very dangerous.
This artificial limitation already plagues the software development world, where compilers are seen as scary stuff which only technical people care to have. I've seen police reports where they claimed that the target of the raid was somehow a hacker and a pirate because he had linux on his computer, as a dual boot. People already accept these absurd views on computers. They perceive locked down computers as something which is desirable and here to stay, and the hardware vendors are already taking advantage of that ignorance and lack of insight.
The path to a computing world where all computers are tight-down walled gardens is already set, and if we don't acknowledge it and do something prevent this disaster to happen then it will happen. And it will happen in the near future.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Let us not forget what is REALLY gonna drive this, which is families with kids. i have several customers that have gone HTPC and put little Nbox players in the kid's bedroom, why? Because DVD rippers have gotten to the point it is "Push button to output .AVI" which is beyond easy peasy and NOBODY wants to deal with little Annie crying because her little sister managed to scratch her favorite Dora video. With a 200Gb hard drive and a $30 Nbox you have a system that is simple enough a 6 year old can work it (no exaggeration there, I've actually watched a 6 year old work an nbox) with NO discs to scratch and NO boxes to deal with or to get lost, you can just store them into the closet and if the HDD dies whip another .AVI off or do as my customers do and just back up 4 or 5 onto a blank DVD and call it a day.
Then you have the parents which after seeing how easy it works for the kiddies goes "Hey how come I can't have it that easy?" and end up looking at one of my customer's HTPCs and have me build them one. the new remotes are beyond simple for those that are used to texting (I recommend the Lenovo HTPC remote, fits the hand nicely) and then they can plug in wireless gaming controllers or a full wireless keyboard and mouse when they need to do some real work on the thing. The prices are frankly INSANELY cheap if you stick with AMD, which since i'm an AMD only shop isn't a problem, and you can get an E-350 based setup dirt cheap if all you want is a media center, but most of my customers end up kicking the the few extra bucks to get a triple core that will let them game as well. Before the flood you could build a frankly crazy powerful HTPC that would game for around $500 and that box will last you probably a good decade by simply changing out the GPU occasionally, hell even after the flood if you shop around you can build a 1Tb system for around $600 that will play just about any game in 1080p. you wanna talk about an easy sale, just show them how easy Windows media Center makes dealing with a library of media and then fire up batman:AA or Just Cause II and let them drool on the graphics, cha ching!
So ultimately its families and word of mouth which i think will kill all this BS, just as it did with music. Folks want easy, simple, and cheap and HTPCs frankly fit all three of those conditions now, its the MPAA dragging their heels and making us feed discs like it was 1988 with VCRs. But there are plenty of people with more growing everyday that are tired of feeding discs and just want to "push a button and its all there" and little shops like mine are happy to oblige. All it takes is ONE person in a neighborhood getting an HTPC and soon the word is out and all those around them are going "Hey can you get me a thing like what he's got?" and there it goes.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
That space is dominated by ARM chips, and there's no general-purpose PCs made with ARM CPUs.
That's what the Raspberry Pi is. The whole point is we're at the point now you can grab an "embedded" chip off the shelf and make a half decent general purpose Linux box out of it now. ARM is finally to the point where it's got the horsepower to run some GP workloads comparable to what you had on the desktop from Intel a few years ago.
I've never seen an x86-64 used in an embedded system; they're too power-hungry and expensive for anything other than things like >$100k test instruments.
You aren't looking in the right markets. It's nowhere near the volume of ARM and PPC, but there are companies that need x86 power for appliance workloads that aren't "General Purpose" in the sense that they run customer code, generally running BSD derivatives. My employer is one of them.
And the computers used in data centers aren't "embedded", they're servers.
Didn't say they were. They are largely running custom enterprise code to support a business, or somebody's SaaS code on the web. It's a market that's not going to take kindly to any apocalyptic scenario being discussed here.
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It's not just legislation, but also closed door trade agreements. Look at the way currency detection algorithms were inserted into color scanner, copier, and printer technology. Regardless of what we think about currency counterfeiters, that's a very clear example of how technology can become limited as per Doctorow's warning.
While all the hacker-ethic people keep looking for the next Gutenberg press to democratize information and technology, those in power are of course going to be concerned with controlling it, to protect their power hierarchies.
Personally, I have mixed feelings. Should we ever obtain an unfettered, consumer-controlled production capacity, we may all be buried in a pile of bread and circuses...
Same video on YouTube, in case you don't want to go to an ad and javascript infested online mag.
I doubt China or Russia would follow suit, and this kind of stupidity is just what will give them the lead in computer tech.
-- The Grand Teddy Bear has Spoken: "Windows 8 Source Code Available NOW! more disgusting than your pr..."
There's always going to be someone starting the next big thing in their garage, but setting that argument aside, "garage hackers" are also important because kids that get exposed to STEM in their childhood, including computers, turn into people who pursue those fields as an adult.
The whole information economy is intertwined. All those big shops still need developers from somewhere, and most of them know their own roots enough to know any proposal along those lines would devastate the pipeline of computer science graduates in this country, and everyone's got to hire new talent from somewhere from time to time.
On top of that, most of the people working as software developers in the US aren't writing commercial apps, they're writing and maintaining in-house business applications for the company they work for; the corollary is that almost every company of more than a few hundred employees has some amount of internal software they depend on, even when software or SaaS isn't their actual product. Restricting the ability of anyone to maintain or run in-house code would kill most companies overnight, let alone the damage it would do to all the IT vendors who sell general purpose hardware. IBM / HP / Dell etc. make way too much money selling computers to run their customer's workloads to ever allow that market to get closed off.
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No, it doesn't prove his point. What would prove his point is someone proposing legislation that made manufacturing, selling, or owning a device that allowed the user to compile and run their own code illegal.
Apparently there already is such legislation. You see, it's called the DMCA. Gun's don't kill people, people kill people. Software doesn't defeat DRM, people defeat DRM with software. We've been given VERY LIMITED exemptions to manufacture, sell, own or run software capable of cracking DRM, or Jailbreaking phones, but it's still illegal for me to crack my XBox or Playstation3, or ANY OTHER DRM DEVICE not on the magical white list.
You're wasting your time if you're on the watch for legislation that prevents you from running any code you want. It already exists; It just depends on YOUR definition of "any". Furthermore, as long as EULAs allow MFGs to instant click-wrap legislation into being, you're looking in the wrong place, and you're even looking in the wrong direction!
What we need now is the right to bear technology; I've been saying this for years, and am glad to see the sentiment being finally adopted. When my first 128bit public key encryption program was basically classified as "munitions" and prevented from exportation in the early 1990s I REJOICED! I actually danced a little jig! I foolishly believed that this meant my 2nd amendment rights, "The right to bear arms, lawfully", would come into effect and I'd be able to wield any computing technology just as I can legally wield a gun: If its self defense and/or I'm not physically harming anyone, what I'm doing shouldn't be illegal. To my dismay our Constitutional rights have not been interpreted in this way.
The definition of what is "lawful" has become: That which the EULA allows. The definition of what is "causing harm" has become: That which we can not measure or prove, but suspect.
It would have been as RIDICULOUS to outlaw guns in the pioneer era as it would have been to outlaw possessing ANY stone tool in the Stone age, or for using an iron tool on your own possessions in the Iron age. Yet, here we are in the INFORMATION AGE, and we've got laws against using particular information processing tools...
Some would say that I do not own some of the information that I possess. To them I would ask: "Do you own the memories in your head?" Can I not read 1s and 0s and then use my mind to break encryptions? Can I not use the information in my own mind? I can use external tools such as graph paper and pencil to help me perform my mathematic algorithms too. However, If I use a GENERAL PURPOSE COMPUTER to help me do certain tasks with the INFORMATION that can be or has been absorbed and then extracted from MY OWN MIND -- Then I can be found guilty of violating existing legislation.
Perhaps you're saying that as long as they don't outlaw all programs and general purpose computers, we've nothing to fear. I put it to you that standing buy while our 1st AND 2nd amendment rights are being restricted in any fashion is OUTRAGEOUS, has already occurred, and continues to occur each time you click the [_] Accept button on a restrictive EULA.
What we need is the right to use our computers. The right to possess and use technology. You wouldn't stand a chance taking ancestors' stone or iron tools, or guns from them. I'll be damned if I'll stand idly by and let ANYONE take my INFORMATION tools from me.
Those stone age peoples who opposed iron tools quickly became extinct: Welcome to the Information Age.