BigBrotherWare

[Tim May]

I just noticed a disclaimer in a t.v. ad for H-P computers.

"Intended only for lawful uses." at the bottom of the screen towards the end of the commercial.

Strange. Why would H-P or any other computer company feel the need to include this warning/disclaimer? Worries about legal actions against the company should one or more of its millions of customers download or generate illegal words or images? Worries about General Jack D. Valenti coming after Carly for making DVD burning a possibility on H-P computers?

A concerned person might also think that computer companies will in fact be deploying BigBrotherWare to monitor usages, to disable usages on some ban list (modulo Internet connectivity), even to disable the entire OS. The Microsoft and Intel initiatives, with other companies signing on. Apple taking steps to stop uses of non-Apple DVD burners with its software, as Declan reported on last summer: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-955805.html

Speculation: I expect the battles over cyberspace to shift to the OS, with the leading private (non open source) OS makers "enlisted" in the War Against Illegal Thoughts. The easiest initial front in this war, one the OS companies like Apple and Microsoft have a corporate interest in, is for the OS to more aggressively check for hacks or products not approved. Software registration and signatures will of course not be granted to DVD hacks.

(Much has been made of how the Microsoft- and Intel-backed security regimes will be "opt in" or "voluntary." This seems dubious. It is precisely the non-volunteers who these companies, and Hollywood, and the Nation States, will be most concerned about. So I would expect this "opt in" approach to not be the full picture.)



--Tim May, Occupied America
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.