[fsfc-discuss] the sky is falling!

[David C Dawson]

Is the sky falling?  It depends on the perspective, but the infosec
community has had a number of dreadful shocks lately.  

Anyway, I just
wanted to say that the "War on general purpose computing." has been going
on longer than I knew. I think that the community to which we belong
should consider that the "fight" will not be "won" or "lost", but will
continue into the future and long past our short lives.  

Does anyone know
about Fred Saberhagen's stories of the Berserker Wars? I only mention him,
to make the point that freedom has to be defended constantly, or it's
gone. 

Therefore, the methods to defend freedom are more important than
the specifics. 

People suffer; 'content', code, and hardware do not.

It needs to be drilled into the heads of politicians,
that software and hardware and *ware are not magic, that once an idea is
thought up, it isn't feasible, nor desireable to suppress it, as the
suppression causes far more damage than the idea can.

Bad ideas die a natural death, so to speak --- or should, and keeping
bad ideas (like DMCA, DRM, TPM, and the like), on life support, is to
prolong the agony, and defer the inevitable.

(If I (mis)quoted anyone without attibution, then *please* let me know!)

Comments?

-- 
David Dawson VE7HP VE7HDC 
IRC: (Freenode) VE7HP