Re: Part 1: Ownership and Contracts

[Marcus Brinkmann]

At Thu, 4 May 2006 19:07:41 +0200,
Pierre THIERRY <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> Scribit Marcus Brinkmann dies 04/05/2006 hora 15:34:
> > I am not saying that they in fact, do have that control.  I am only
> > saying that they are the ones that could have that control.  This
> > makes them nominally, the one in control, even if they do not make use
> > of that.  Even if they _can not_ make use of it, because they took
> > precautions to make it impossible for them to exercise that control.
> > The reason is that you have no guarantee that they in fact, took these
> > precautions, and in fact, do not exercise that control.
> 
> I'm pretty sure your text about DRM is written with the strong
> assumption that would use this control. At least that is how I've
> understood your text.

Let me assure you that there is no such assumption.  If you read my
text carefully, nothing in it depends on the answer to the question if
they exercise this control or not.  If on second reading you think
that I made that assumption somewhere in support of my argument,
please point out to me where you think that is the case, so that we
can discuss it.

Establishing the identity of the actual holder of your property during
the course of the contract is just part of the analysis to understand
the roles of the agents, and to be able to apply the terminology of
"ownership" and "contracts" to the specific application.

If you do not accept this position, then I think you would have a very
difficult time to explain how the "trusted computing component" can
actually implement the common will of the participating agents.  I can
only imagine one way to do that: Both participating agents would have
to inspect the "trusted computing component" (and I am talking about
the actual physical chip), and decide that this chip is functioning
according to their expectations.  This is practically impossible, and
in fact, the chip is likely to be designed to make it impossible (by
making the chip tamper-resistant).

[...]

> But the stuff about TC companies controling your computer are, as I
> understand now how it works, a bit too much. Just a bit, note.

Well, as I said, this is the one step that requires personal
judgement.  If you say that your personal judgement differs, then that
is OK.  We both place a bet on the future.  It's not possible to say
with absolute certainty who is right.

Thanks,
Marcus