Defective by Design?
Defective by Design? |
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| Written by Xanadu |
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I recently exited my lair to check out a lecture by the guru of GNU, Professor Richard Stallman. Now this is a rare person, someone who is so clearly beyond caring what people think of him that he can stand perfectly true to his principles. As an introduction to who he is, and what I’m talking about here, this is the main author of the GNU General Public License and the Hacker’s Dictionary, the developer of the original Emacs editor, an innovator in AI truth maintenance, and the president of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Hearing him talk, I was impressed. He cut his critics to shreds, invoking very sharp logic to make semantic points that on the face of it were subtle but entail implicit consequences that are less than desirable. For example, he refuses to use the term Open Source Software because it does not carry the sense of “free”. No matter that this intransigence may alienate members of the Open Source community even! Without meaning to oversimplify his platform, it is fair to say that Dr. Stallman rejects the notion of digital rights management (DRM) and the restriction of freedom by political agenda like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This was the subject of his lecture—and there is a lot to be gained by an investigation of how our rights are being taken away by Congress and large corporations. Look at so-called “trusted computing”, where proprietary encryption systems are used by companies like Microsoft (so that they can get your computer to report all its software installed on it) or Apple (so that it can prevent downloaded music files from playing on other computers). No longer are you even in control of your computer… Or AACS technology designed for Blu-ray or HD DVD players, so that manufacturers must cease creating analog outputs—the “analog hole” being a means for consumers to escape their control. For me, Dr. Stallman’s ideas got even scarier when I started extending them to mind control. Things are clearly going the way of digitization. That’s cool. But if information—functional and creative—goes under the jurisdiction of governmental and corporate bodies, are we prepared to “trust” their agenda? What happens when technology for enlightenment is censored? When it becomes illegal to use certain types of software? When protection schemes are effectively used as tools for mind control? Clearly these types of issues need to be talked about and understood. To this end, I highly recommend that you visit this week’s Spider Clan links and educate yourself. As Dr. Stallman puts it, “happy hacking”… |