Busted Computing

Folks like Larry Lessig have bee warning for years about the shared interest of government and corporations in altering the architecture of the internet to facilitate top-down control and curtail its intrinsic openness. Now in Newsweek, Steven Levy looks at how it may happen.

Comments

[Rick Barton]

John Walker said:
?I?ve spent hundreds of hours talking to people about this,?... ?And I can?t think of a single person who is actually going to do something about it.?

Steven Levy wrote:
Unfortunately, our increasingly Internet-based society will get only the freedom it fights for.

Looks like Jefferson was right. The price of liberty is ETERNAL VIGILANCE.

If readers of Reason Online won't fight for internet freedom; who will?

We can contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation and ask how we can help. http://www.eff.org/

Steven Levy wrote:
A few legislators like Sens. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Norm Coleman of Minnesota are beginning to look upon digital rights management schemes with skepticism.

http://coleman.senate.gov/

http://brownback.senate.gov/

[notJoe]

Nonsense.

Look, I enjoy a nice conspiracy theory as much as the next tinfoil-hat type, but this article is over the top. "...make sure that no one can access or, potentially, even post anything without permission": WTF? This is rediculous.

My respect Steven Levy just dropped several notches because of this silly hash.

[Rick Barton]

notJoe,
Even if you're right, and it doesn't go that far, what else is described would be a hideous restriction on internet liberty.

"Freedom is rarely lost all at once."
Thomas Jefferson

[notJoe]

Rick,

Sorry, I just noticed that my original posted looked like I was rebutting you...just so's you know, the "Nonsense" was directed at the article, not your post.

Anyways, as a sometime CS grad. student, I can tell you with some assurance that the article is pop-science scaremongering, *unless* some 21'st century version of the DMCA is passed. A la Fritz Holling's (D - Disney) proposal to mandate copyprotection in *every* device capable of recording anything. This just isn't going to happen.

Levy's just pulling wild assumptions out of his ass .

[Rick Barton]

notJoe,

No offence taken but thank you for your consideration. Anyway, "nonsense" seems like a fair comment if you don't think some one is making any.

What about John Walker's "Digital Imprimatur"?

In September Walker posted his fears in a 28,000-word Web document called the Digital Imprimatur. The name refers to his belief that it?s possible that nothing would be allowed to even appear on the Internet without having a proper technical authorization.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Have these guys been smoking THX-1138 or something?

[notJoe]

Rick,

Haven't read Digital Imprimatur. Should get off my ass & do so: after reading Walker's "Autodesk File", I'm a fan. He does Good Stuff.