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Doctorow on the War on General Purpose Computing
Cory Doctorow has posted the content of his talk delivered at Google this month on what he calls the coming civil war over general purpose computing. He neatly crystallizes the problem with certain types of (widely called-for) regulation of devices and the software they run — and they all run software. The ability to stop a general purpose computer from doing nearly anything (running code without permission from the mothership, or requiring an authorities-only engine kill switch, or preventing a car from speeding away), he says boils down to a demand: "Make me a general-purpose computer that runs all programs except for one program that freaks me out."
"But there's a problem. We don't know how to make a computer that can run all the programs we can compile except for whichever one pisses off a regulator, or disrupts a business model, or abets a criminal. The closest approximation we have for such a device is a computer with spyware on it— a computer that, if you do the wrong thing, can intercede and say, 'I can't let you do that, Dave.'"
... have long taken advantage of public disinterest, ignorance and general stupidity. The trend will continue. One only has to look at the clusterfuck that is copyright and patents. It's too bad we can't go back and time and kill it. It's become a monster. We alright have outright criminal laws that limit the rights of the public at large to own software. The game industry has become more and more corrupt and criminal as time has gone on and its going to get worse.
The worst thing about it is the millions of mouthbreathing morons who just eat it right up. Diablo 3 had 6Million+ morons buy it. There are days I just want to chuck an asteroid at earth and be dumb with the millions of dumb shits who feed this in the first place.