Re: awareness + flexibility + security

[Jun Inoue]

On Fri, 11 Nov 2005 01:14:59 +0100
Marcus Brinkmann <address@hidden> wrote:

> Also, I think it makes a lot of sense to look at TC and DRM
> separately.  TC does effectively support as simple operations as
> harddrive encryption on laptops.  Yes, these can be added in software
> as well.  But I think this is undoubtly a positive use, not a negative
> one.  Don't you agree?

I do agree that it's a positive use, but I don't think that the
possibility or impossibility of good and bad uses is the issue here.
Anything can be abused just as well as being used.  The problem is that
the bad uses can effectively kill the good uses.  To "kill" here doesn't
mean to cancel out the advantages, but to wipe them out of sight.

The hardware-enforced verification mechanism is very well suited for
anticompetitive mechanisms.  Disallowing competitors to open
proprietary file formats is one example.  Refusing to respond to a
non-(your *un*favorite brand here) browser is another.  Having the
right to refuse to respond does little good, because users are forced
to enable attestation to get service.  Even worse, many will likely
adopt that as a habit.

As Bas pointed out, very few people care about free-as-in-speech
software, much less the freedom that it brings.  Letting TC creep into
this picture at present doesn't look very good to me.  I fear that
proprietary software wins big, and free software loses competitiveness
and momentum.

Users will get their privacy and security, at the cost of freedom.
Jonathan says unfair uses of TC should be faught against in Congress
(or parliament or some such), but odds of getting politicians to vote
right and settle it for good seems too bad to me to put free software at
stake.

BTW, I just wanted to talk about "TC pros and cons" sort of stuff.
Making TC hard or easy to support on the Hurd, I think, won't make a
lot of difference.  But as a GNU project, the pristine Hurd source
should elide code for remote attestation (without owner override).



PS: Sorry Marcus, the empty email I sent you a while ago was a mistake.
Please ignore it.

-- 
Jun Inoue
address@hidden