How Laws Restricting Tech Actually Expose Us To Greater Harm

An anonymous reader writes: Cory Doctorow has an article in Wired explaining why crafting laws to restrict software is going to hurt us in the long run. The reason? Because we're on an irreversible trajectory toward integrating technology with our cars and houses, bodies and brains. If we don't control the software, then at some point, we won't control parts of our homes and our selves. Doctorow writes, "Any law or regulation that undermines computers' utility or security also ripples through all the systems that have been colonized by the general-purpose computer. And therein lies the potential for untold trouble and mischief.

Code always has flaws, and those flaws are easy for bad guys to find. But if your computer has deliberately been designed with a blind spot, the bad guys will use it to evade detection by you and your antivirus software. That's why a 3-D printer with anti-gun-printing code isn't a 3-D printer that won't print guns—the bad guys will quickly find a way around that. It's a 3-D printer that is vulnerable to hacking by malware creeps who can use your printer's 'security' against you: from bricking your printer to screwing up your prints to introducing subtle structural flaws to simply hijacking the operating system and using it to stage attacks on your whole network."

Comments

bill of rights restricts GOVERNMENT

[raymorris]

The Bill of Rights is a list of things the federal government isn't allowed to do. It doesn't put any limitations on you, me or Dice. You and I can do bad things, but we can't violate the Bill of Rights because the B of R is a set of restrictions on the feds.

Therefore, ONLY big government can violate your Constitutional rights. Businesses can make you mad, they can provide'poor customer service, but only government can violate your Constitutional rights. The reason for this? Because only government can send men with guns to enforce their will upon. Comcast you can simply cancel, and get Dish or Verizon instead.

Re:bill of rights restricts GOVERNMENT

[ShanghaiBill]

The East India Company was founded in 1600. They ruled an entire subcontinent. They raised armies and waged war in their own name. The authors of the bill of rights knew about the power of corporations.

Re:bill of rights restricts GOVERNMENT

[jythie]

Yes and no. The East India Company was a very real thing of course, but it was run by people like them to the detriment of 'not people'. Remember that most of the 'founding fathers' came from the american ruling class and wished more power. While they knew 'oppression', they knew it in the same way middle management knows it, unhappy there are people above them but still comfortably in better shape than. So when they pictured things like the East India Corp, it was a model of what people like them could do with their freedom, not something they had to fear being used against them. At most it was competition, something on their level that they would need to counter.