Re: Sysadmins

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Sat, 2005-11-05 at 19:17 +0100, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:

> There are no socially positive uses of something that limits someones
> freedom.

So you advocate that there should be no law or mechanism that should
limit my ability to murder you, for example?

Please stay right where you are. I will arrive shortly. :-)

I am prepared to believe that a more refined version of your statement
might hold up under examination, but this one doesn't. I welcome a joint
attempt at refinement -- this is a tricky issue, and I think it is an
important one.

>   Treacherous computing is no way near `value-neutral', it
> lets another entity control what someones machine does without their
> consent.

You are confusing several different technologies into one. Your
statement about DRM is close to true (I actually do not agree, but I
think this is because we are proceeding from different principles where
DRM is concerned), but your statement about Trusted Computing is, to my
knowledge, widely promulgated but entirely wrong.

Can you please give an example of the type of third-party entity control
that you believe is made possible by the presence on the motherboard of
a TPM chip?


shap