Topic: Slashdot Rant Inspires Discussion (Read 2256 times)

Crystalmonkey · « **on:** September 29, 2005, 12:54:57 AM »

Slashdot rants, I've found, can be a bit higher quality than LJ rants. Here is an example of it:

Quote from: Bananas

Has it occured to anyone here that over time, more and more OSS is going to become "borderline illegal"? That we may end up with VLC as a program that you can't import into the USA (because of its DVD capabilities); that Asterix will move out of the states (because it provides private communication without a corporate entity, and will eventually be "regulated" in such a way that only telcos could use it); that even simple tools like GNU shred will "disappear"? B.S. like the E911 service are merely thinly vieled threats against existing VoIP providers, by way of legislation from the dominate telcos to ensure that VoIP doesn't take off...without them leading the way, of course.

I'm beginning to think that I should hoard source code like never before...

Suddenly, that 15-CD debian distro looks better and better, provided the source code is provided.

RMS may sound like a crackpot to our facist overlords^W^Wcorporate lobby, but he's right on the money - if the source code to a program can be controlled (by hardware, software, or firmware, no difference) then you really don't have any freedom as to what you can do. And that kind of freedom scares some people, but not for the reasons that are presented in the nightly news; you have to remember, never in human history have you had a world-wide connected information network that spanned cultures, beliefs, and challenged the status quo in every case. What we are seeing is the slow relentless progress of those entities - governments, transnational corporations, and hyper-wealthy private interests - to "dumb down" or take away from that potential. If people woke up one day and realized that they didn't have to work for someone else to provide for themselves, well, they jig would be up and the few in privledge would find themselves fighting to maintain control, as they always have through the ages. This isn't about political spectrums such as right vs left, democracy vs communism; this is about power, and the maintenance of power. Money, which years ago used to actually have a value of some sort, has degenerated into just another form of power. In this case, CALEA is power applied for both the telcos (who suddenly are felling the heat from VoIP) and government interests (in this case, the existing regime^W administration wants to extend its powerbase).

(Yawn) enough ranting for today, go outside and play...

And, because of this, I would like to discuss some of the points he makes in it, but first it is time to go to sleep.

This was taken from a Slashdot news story: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/28/1930221&tid=158&tid=215

Demosthenes · « **Reply #1 on:** September 29, 2005, 08:59:35 AM »

I find that Slashdot really can be a source for some thought provoking discussion, if you bother to take the time to sift through the nonsense.

Even if you surf at +1 you still have to dig a bit to get to the better posts.

However, I still read it from time to time, and it's gotten me thinking in good directions when I have.

On the subject at hand, I can see where the poster was coming from; I've thought along those lines myself at times.

The way I see it, whether we like it or not, sooner or later the entertainment industry, proprietary software industry (primarily Apple and Microsoft... Yes, I said Apple), and the hardware industry are going to join forces completely.

And by "join forces", I mean go 100% cooperative where development of technology is concerned. That means everything will have DRM mechanisms built right into the core hardware, all proprietary operating systems will require that DRM hardware to run properly, and any and all intellectual property will be protected at that core level to make things as difficult as possible for ordinary users to use their computers.

That three-way business alliance will be powerful enough to lobby Congress to make stupid laws requiring such measures be included in any and all computer hardware, so if you don't like it, tough... any computer you buy or build will have that as a part of it in its most basic architecture.

And guess what... open source apps and operating systems won't work on such platforms because the architecture will be 100% proprietary and reverse engineering it enough to write something that would be released as open source would be in violation of the DMCA (which you may have noticed, is already in place, and is being used to prevent this kind of stuff already).

That means that Linux would not work on these new computers. And if Congress can make a law requiring all computers have this kind of architecture built into their processors, they can make a law making it illegal for you to obtain computers from other countries so you don't have to deal with that.

That would mean that you use only "approved" hardware, and the only software and operating systems that will work on that "approved" hardware will be those that are playing ball and were in with this system on the ground level.

Paranoia speaking? Yeah, most definitely.

But some of this is already happening. No, Congress hasn't made it a law requiring DRM in your processor's architecture yet.

Yet.

It has come up. Several times. And it will come up again.

Intel and AMD both have CPUs that do this. Microsoft's next generation OS (which Windows Vista was supposed to be, but isn't going to be in its first release, but will be eventually) is supposedly going to utilize these kinds of hardware features to utterly lock down your PC and make it nearly impossible to have full control of your own data, fair use rights or not.

And their lobby is powerful.

The next generation of products to replace CDs and DVDs are already planned out, and ready to go. And guess what? DRM is built right into the model, from the ground up.

Will that stop piracy? No, not at all. But it's an example of the lengths these assholes are going to go to to ensure that they have 100% control of everything they touch.

That makes open source users like me kind of scared. In 10 or 15 years, if I use a computer at all, I might very well be using Windows.

Because Linux will not be legal.

Crystalmonkey · « **Reply #2 on:** September 29, 2005, 10:21:27 AM »

I hate to scare you even more but:

Trusted Computing Platform Alliance

Demosthenes · « **Reply #3 on:** September 29, 2005, 10:24:47 AM »

No, I know... that's what I'm talking about.

All the stuff is there, in place. All they need to do now is make this stuff the law of the land.

pbsaurus · « **Reply #4 on:** September 29, 2005, 12:57:22 PM »

Oh and they're lobbying (bribing) for it big time. Declan McCullough's Politech is a good resource about the nefarious activities going on.

In other news, Google is building a research center at NASA's AMES center at Moffit Field, which will hopefully counteract a bunch of this.

Crystalmonkey · « **Reply #5 on:** September 29, 2005, 05:32:12 PM »

Google is great, for now, but as they say about "power" and "corrupting"...

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Author Topic: Slashdot Rant Inspires Discussion (Read 2256 times)

Crystalmonkey

Slashdot Rant Inspires Discussion

Demosthenes

Slashdot Rant Inspires Discussion

Crystalmonkey

Slashdot Rant Inspires Discussion

Demosthenes

Slashdot Rant Inspires Discussion

pbsaurus

Slashdot Rant Inspires Discussion

Crystalmonkey

Slashdot Rant Inspires Discussion