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

Start with copyright

[sinij]

Start with copyright and patents - these are by far most harmful regulatory areas that hold back our progress.

Still, not all regulation is bad. We could use more rules safeguarding our privacy. Presently, it is 'loot and pillage' with every Dick, Tom, and Harry from the Silicon Valley trying to insert themselves in the middle and start tracking you.

Re:Start with copyright

[some old guy]

We had such rules once. I think we called them the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

They used to work pretty good, until we started allowing the will of the Military Industrial Complex and Wall Street to supplant the will of the people.

Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end.

Re:Not hard to fix... just up the ante...

[oodaloop]

Unlike making your own money, it is perfectly legal (in the US anyway) to make your own gun, 3d printed or otherwise. Selling it may be illegal, but it's not like there's gangs toting 3d printed guns roaming the streets just yet.

That's pretty much the idea

[Opportunist]

You're not supposed to control your appliance! If you would, you could not only fix them instead of replacing them, you could find new applications for them instead of buying another, specialized, one. And the maker could not at will end its life so you'd be buying the next one, bigger and better than your old 6 month old ancient garbage.

It's not a bug. It's a feature.

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.

Re:bill of rights restricts GOVERNMENT

[khallow]

I think this assertion is silly just at first glance. Most of people involved in the development of the US Constitution were not of a "ruling class" (except in the weak sense of the role they happened to be in). And their selection was by their peers, often for things such as brvery or performance in the Revolutionary War or respect.

Further, where are the chartered corporations that these power seekers made?

It's worth noting that we can actually look at what the founding fathers wrote and said, rather than just accepting your bit of historical revisionism. For example, Madison said of the charters of the day (in debate on whether to create a public charter, the Bank of the US:

He waved a reply to Mr. Vining's observations on the common law, (in which that gentleman had been lengthy and minute, in order to invalidate Mr. Madison's objection to the power proposed to be given to the Bank, to make rules and regulations, not contrary to law). Mr. Madison said the question would involve a very lengthy discussion - and other objects more intimately connected with the subject, remained to be considered.

The power of granting Charters, he observed, is a great and important power, and ought not to be exercised, without we find ourselves expressly authorised to grant them: Here he dilated on the great and extensive influence that incorporated societies had on public affairs in Europe: They are a powerful machine, which have always been found competent to effect objects on principles, in a great measure independent of the people.

He argued against the influence of the precedent to be established by the bill - for tho it has been said that the charter is to be granted only for a term of years, yet he contended, that granting the powers on any principle, is granting them in perpetuum - and assuming this right on the part of the government involves the assumption of every power whatever.

So there's an example of one of the most important of the founders eschewing the corporation of that time. While I imagine Madison would be dubious of today's legal fiction of "corporate personhood", he would have also resisted the formation of many of the US's current public institutions. And in the few cases where those institutions met his approval, he'd probably disapprove of their considerably enlarged scope.

And on other end of this spectrum was Alexander Hamilton who supported a strong central government and probably wouldn't have had a major problem with much of what has been done since.

Just like now, there was a mix of the many human opinions, vices, and virtues. To say that the founding fathers meant that or this, especially when what they supposedly meant is just a blatantly fantastical reinterpretation of their times through a modern ideological filter, is to lose understanding of them or of their times.

Finally, though I don't see the indication that the times of the late 18th century are sufficiently different from today that we can safely ignore the purpose of the Constitution or the various dangers it was designed to forestall or mitigate.

Racket

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right.

If we don't control the software, then at some point, we won't control parts of our homes and our selves.

"Dear Customer:

We are now charging a small monthly fee for the use of your Home Software. It will be due in 30 days otherwise your heat and hot water will be turned to default levels and your air conditioning will no longer function.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Your Home Automation company."

And you can bet your ass that they'll have lobbied Congress to make that completely legal.

Cory Doctorow

[oldmac31310]

He's the sort of mega-evolved Bennett Haselton. Or Bennet on steroids if you prefer. A lot of obvious waffle and no real clue about anything.

Re:Not hard to fix... just up the ante...

[mlts]

All and all, it is interesting watching the 3D printer market evolve. Other than the issue of currency copying when color inkjets became cheap, there has been no DRM or demand for it linked to documents. Ink cartridges, yes, but not actual preventing of documents being copied.

Other markets, not so lucky. For example, all the fighting and wrangling about MP3s, which resulted in casualties (for example, Diamond won... but that was a Pyrrhic victory.) Video pretty much was a victory for the DRM brigade [1].

3D printing looks like it is going the way of 2D printing, except for this "OMG, GUNS!" drivel [2]. I don't see an RIAA-like entity pushing a SDMI initiative for 3D printing, nor do I see an interest by the Powers That Be in forcing signed documents (which is actually astounding... I would have been almost certain that there would be some type of standardized DRM system by now, similar to how CarveWright DRM protects their software from computer to encrypted memory cartridge to the actual device.)

Now, when 3D metal printing gets widespread and inexpensive, the ability to make sintered Iconel items will be quite useful, as opposed to plastic pieces which have limited uses. For example, one make of RV door handle has had issues with breaking. If just the part that breaks is replaced with a high grade sintered Iconel, it would help immensely.

[1]: A victory as in one in the US either has DRM encumbered tracks, DRM encumbered media, or technically violates the DMCA in de-DRMing stuff like DVDs.

[2]: I have never understood the insane overreaction about 3D printed guns. One could carve out the same thing out of a chunk of plastic, mold something out of clay and fire it in a kiln, whittle it out of wood, or many other ways to make a unsafe, unstable zip-gun, that it is pointless. In countries where guns are banned, ammo is banned as well, so making a .22 LR firearm in Japan or England is pointless... because there are no .22 rounds to be found in that neck of the woods [3]. Of course, there is the fact that in other areas of the world, real guns are likely less trouble to find and procure than a computer, a 3D printer, a good amount of filament, and trying to cobble together a prototype which likely will go kaboom in the hand, rather than bang, out the barrel.

[3]: Technically, there are no .22 rounds to be found in this part of Texas either... but that is due to the insatiable demand, not a ban.