On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Nomen Nescio wrote: > Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 01:25:01 +0100 (CET) > From: Nomen Nescio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RIAA turns against Hollings bill > > The New York Times is reporting at > http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/14/technology/14CND-PIRACY.html that > the Recording Industry Association of America, along with two computer > and technology industry trade groups, has agreed not to seek new > government regulations to mandate technological controls for copyright > protection. This appears to refer primarily to the Hollings bill, > the CBDTPA, which had already been struck a blow when Hollings lost his > committee chairmanship due to the Democrats losing Senate leadership. > Most observers see this latest step as being the last nail in the coffin > for the CBDTPA. > > Some months ago there were those who were predicting that Trusted > Computing technology, as embodied in the TCPA and Palladium proposals, > would be mandated by the Hollings bill. They said that all this talk of > "voluntary" implementations was just a smoke screen while the players > worked behind the scenes to pass laws that would mandate TCPA and > Palladium in their most restrictive forms. It was said that Linux would > be banned, that computers would no longer be able to run software that > we can use today. We would cease to be the real owners of our computers, > others would be "root" on them. A whole host of calamaties were forecast. If a simple UNIX command like # cp file1 file2 requires the invocation of a network protocol in order to check whether file1 is blacklisted, what's wrong with the observation that the issuer of the cp command isn't omnipotent root anymore? He rather shares his root privileges with the peer instance of the network protocol.
> > How does this latest development change the picture? Not much. The laws are only part of the problem. The problem is that there is a business case for the big players in software and hardware industry. See Anderson's TCPA/Pd-FAQ, question 23, "[...]classic definition of an exploitative cartel - an industry agreement that changes the terms of trade so as to diminish consumer surplus." at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html > If there is no > Hollings bill, does this mean that Trusted Computing will be voluntary, > as its proponents have always claimed? And if we no longer have such > a threat of a mandated Trusted Computing technology, how bad is it for > the system to be offered in a free market? And how bad is it for the public to be told about possible consequences? > > Let technology companies decide whether to offer Palladium technology > on their computers or not. Let content producers decide whether to use > Palladium to protect their content or not. Let consumers decide whether > to purchase and enable Palladium on their systems or not. Agreed. But the consumer should make an informed choice. How many consumers of a certain IBM ThinkPad knew it came with a TCPA-installed motherboard? How many knew what TCPA actually means? How many bought it just because in bold letters there was "security" written on the poster. How many did know an answer to the question "security for whom?". > > Why is it so bad for people to freely make their own decisions about > how best to live their lives? Seems to be a purely rhetorical question. > Cypherpunks of all people should be the > last to advocate limiting the choices of others. Thankfully, it looks > like freedom may win this round, despite the efforts of cypherpunks and > "online freedom" advocates to eliminate this new technology option. If the "exploitative cartel" becomes a reality, the choices of others will be limited, too. This would then be a direct consequence of the TCPA/Pd-advocacy. Are you trying to suggest to question advocacy in general or only advocacy against TCPA/Pd? Regards Damian Weber
