About my contention that IBM's increasing intrusiveness is not malicious, that
it is instead a byproduct of its attempts at mainframe market segmentation,
Tony Harminc writes:
| I agree. Nonetheless I find the increasing intrusiveness
| annoying and fear the inevitable second order effects.
This "concession" brings us into all but complete substantive agreement. This
intrusiveness is annoying, not least because it will will not achieve its
objective.
Our agreement does not, however, encompass some of Tony's terminology. I do
not really think it is appropriate to describe IBM as psychopathic, i.e., as
exhibiting psychological pathology. It is a corporation not a person; and it
is seldom helpful to apply terminology devised to describe human behavior to
corporate behavior. (The fiction that corporations are "legal persons" has had
many unfortunate consequences, not least the recent Supreme Court decision that
their freedom of speech is abridged when their [election] campaign
contributions are regulated.)
Tony's other point, that litigation is no proper remedy for technical
inadequacy, is a very important one. If IBM wishes to pursue some
market-segmentation objective by limiting the classes of work that can be done
by a Ziip or Zaap, let it do so using the technical means at its disposal.
Even more important, let it seek further technical remedies for the exposed
inadequacies of these technical means.
In particular, to sue a small organization that succeeds in circumventing these
means--assuming always that no breach of trust, violation of an NDA or the
like, is involved---is unworthy, even ridiculous.
It should have been obvious at the outset that such attempts would be made, and
a scheme or schemes that lent themselves to penetration should have been
rejected out of hand and/or replaced once it had been penetrated.
An encryption scheme is an obvious and appropriate analogue. One that does not
provide secure communications is replaced by a better one; and the alternatiive
of attempting to protect, i.e., avoid replacing, a blown one using lawsuits or
prosecutions would be ludicrously misconceived.
John Gilmore Ashland, MA 01721-1817 USA
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