Computers
A bunch of things happened in the computer world while I was away. Rather than providing links, I'm just going to post this entry and hope that you've followed the news for yourself over the weekend.
I do want to mention that Annalee was critical of us for being too ambivalent about trusted computing:
Even the EFF's resident geek, Seth Schoen, admits the Palladium technology is appealing in certain ways.
Annalee's concern here, I think, is that my writing about Palladium so far has shown a technologist's aesthetic, so that I admire Palladium's technical cleverness (especially the elegance of sealed storage, which I realize is a concept shared with TCPA), and have yet to focus on the possible risks to the public's rights in copyright, etc. (I've taken to saying "public's rights in copyright" in preference to "fair use", because the public has dozens of rights in copyright, and fair use is only one part of those. Other people find that phrase clunky or awkward.) And I am preparing some analysis for EFF about all that, and trying to be fair to everybody, but in the meantime, I've supposedly said mainly that the Palladium technology is neat.
I do say so. I hadn't expected to be seen as too soft on Microsoft, but I can understand why Annalee is concerned. I will say that Microsoft has been very helpful to us in letting us know how this technology works, sharing technical details, answering our questions, and not requiring an NDA.
What would be most impressive, if Microsoft wanted to show off its benign intentions, would be some further public statements against the CBDTPA and DRM mandates, as well as a show of agreement with Gary Shapiro's admission that "The DMCA was a very flawed law. We signed off on it, and it was a huge mistake." (This is actually mostly orthogonal to whether Palladium is a good idea. But many people I've spoken to have worried about what may happen to people who discover and publish Palladium security vulnerabilities. This is especially of concern in light of Scott Culp's "it's time to end information anarchy" essay and the reports that Microsoft is supporting the legislative end of the "responsible disclosure" movement.)
Also, send somebody to LinuxWorld who can talk about Palladium there.
(Thanks to Riana for finding the Guardian article.)
