Censorship

Azhria Lilu

Captain
I found this long but very scary website - I can't believe there are actually plans for this!

Overview:

In June 2002, Microsoft released information regarding its new "Palladium" initiative. Palladium is a system that combines software and hardware controls to create a "trusted" computing platform. In doing so, it would establish an unprecedented level of control over users and their computers.

Palladium could place Microsoft as the gatekeeper of identification and authentication. Additionally, systems embedded in both software and hardware would control access to content, thereby creating ubiquitous Digital Rights Management schemes that can track users and control use of media. Microsoft expects to have elements of the system in place by 2004.

One of the worries is censorship. First, some well-intentioned police force will get an order against a pornographic picture of a child, or a manual on how to sabotage railroad signals. All TCPA-compliant PCs will delete, or perhaps report, these bad documents. Then a litigant in a libel or copyright case will get a civil court order against an offending document; perhaps the Scientologists will seek to blacklist the famous Fishman Affidavit. Once lawyers and government censors realise the potential, the trickle will become a flood.

Now the modern age only started when Gutenberg invented movable type printing in Europe, which enabled information to be preserved and disseminated even if princes and bishops wanted to ban it. For example, when Wycliffe translated the Bible into English in 1380-1, the Lollard movement he started was suppressed easily; but when Tyndale translated the New Testament in 1524-5, he was able to print over 50,000 copies before they caught him and burned him at the stake. The old order in Europe collapsed, and the modern age began. Societies that tried to control information became uncompetitive, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union it seemed that democratic liberal capitalism had won. But now, TCPA and Palladium have placed at risk the priceless inheritance that Gutenberg left us. Electronic books, once published, will be vulnerable; the courts can order them to be unpublished and the TCPA infrastructure will do the dirty work.

So after the Soviet Union's attempts to register and control all typewriters and fax machines, TCPA attempts to register and control all computers. The implications for liberty, democracy and justice are worrying.


Much more:

Trusted Computing FAQ TC / TCG / LaGrande / NGSCB / Longhorn / Palladium
^^^ A MUST READ
 
From the FAQ:

20. But hang on, isn't TCPA illegal under antitrust law?

Intel has honed a `platform leadership' strategy, in which they lead industry efforts to develop technologies that will make the PC more useful, such as the PCI bus and USB. Their modus operandi is described in a book by Gawer and Cusumano. Intel sets up a consortium to share the development of the technology, has the founder members put some patents into the pot, publishes a standard, gets some momentum behind it, then licenses it to the industry on the condition that licensees in turn cross-license any interfering patents of their own, at zero cost, to all consortium members.

The positive view of this strategy was that Intel grew the overall market for PCs; the dark side was that they prevented any competitor achieving a dominant position in any technology that might have threatened their dominance of the PC hardware. Thus, Intel could not afford for IBM's microchannel bus to prevail, not just as a competing nexus of the PC platform but also because IBM had no interest in providing the bandwidth needed for the PC to compete with high-end systems. The effect in strategic terms is somewhat similar to the old Roman practice of demolishing all dwellings and cutting down all trees close to their roads or their castles. No competing structure may be allowed near Intel's platform; it must all be levelled into a commons. But a nice, orderly, well-regulated commons: interfaces should be `open but not free'.

The consortium approach has evolved into a highly effective way of skirting antitrust law. So far, the authories do not seem to have been worried about such consortia - so long as the standards are open and accessible to all companies. They may need to become slightly more sophisticated.

Of course, if Fritz Hollings manages to get his bill through Congress, then TCPA will become compulsory and the antitrust issue will fall away, at least in America. One may hope that European regulators will have more backbone.

Oh, BTW, the entire thing is called "Trusted Computing"

24. So why is this called `Trusted Computing'? I don't see why I should trust it at all!

It's almost an in-joke. In the US Department of Defense, a `trusted system or component' is defined as `one which can break the security policy'. This might seem counter-intuitive at first, but just stop to think about it. The mail guard or firewall that stands between a Secret and a Top Secret system can - if it fails - break the security policy that mail should only ever flow from Secret to Top Secret, but never in the other direction. It is therefore trusted to enforce the information flow policy.

Or take a civilian example: suppose you trust your doctor to keep your medical records private. This means that he has access to your records, so he could leak them to the press if he were careless or malicious. You don't trust me to keep your medical records, because I don't have them; regardless of whether I like you or hate you, I can't do anything to affect your policy that your medical records should be confidential. Your doctor can, though; and the fact that he is in a position to harm you is really what is meant (at a system level) when you say that you trust him. You may have a warm feeling about him, or you may just have to trust him because he is the only doctor on the island where you live; no matter, the DoD definition strips away these fuzzy, emotional aspects of `trust' (that can confuse people).

Remember during the late 1990s, as people debated government control over cryptography, Al Gore proposed a `Trusted Third Party' - a service that would keep a copy of your decryption key safe, just in case you (or the FBI, or the NSA) ever needed it. The name was derided as the sort of marketing exercise that saw the Russian colony of East Germany called a `Democratic Republic'. But it really does chime with DoD thinking. A Trusted Third Party is a third party that can break your security policy.

25. So a `Trusted Computer' is one that can break my security?

Now you've got it.
 
That was somewhat disconcerting. At first it sounded like it came from Alias (hey ican't help but refer to the show, i luv it) But daing, i have windows media player, like i said somewhat disconcerting :|
 
:thinking: i just read the second part to that, itz just wrong. no kidding when some people say "Computers can be the most unreliable appliances" freaky stuff.
 
Couple that with the impending Total Information Awarnss act.....in there is big trouble....in the form of big brother.

For those of you that do not know, the TIA will give the government the right to read you e-mail, log which sites you visit, and use that information to jail you or worse. So if you jest in you your personal e-mail about some worldly event ot happen to research say biological weapons for shcool the goevernment could use that against you and jail you with out telling you why....which is all thanks to the Patriot Act.

The Patriot Act in a nutshell allows the goverment to jail someone with out charges, indefinatly if they are seen as threat to national security.

Yes Big Brother is here.
S.
 
MrVesham told me about Palladium months ago...and it still scares me.The scariest part is, there's no real way to prevent getting it except not using a computer :(
 
funny that we're all so scared of the government setting up laws "allowing" them to censor and be big-brother-like.

do you really think the government doesn't already do this?

seems to me like someone is catching on to the fact that they already did this, and so they are passing laws to do it more "constitutionally" to cover their butts.
if the government learned one thing from the nixon administration, it's that they better act fast and cover tracks before they get caught. it's easier than 'fessing up.

yet again i say "ohhhhh canadaaaaaaaa"
 
indeed. dissertations could be written about this. and how this has been a plan in the making for yeaaaaaars now.
(i mean, the office of homeland security was alllll ready to go before the 9/11 attacks. and lo-and-behold. that gave it a reason to come out in the open. curious.....)
 
i heard something about that. wasn't sure what exactly it was but now i know... do you think microsoft accepts threatening petitions?
 
ready_steady_go said:
indeed. dissertations could be written about this. and how this has been a plan in the making for yeaaaaaars now.
(i mean, the office of homeland security was alllll ready to go before the 9/11 attacks. and lo-and-behold. that gave it a reason to come out in the open. curious.....)
Yes it also paved the way for the office of stratigic influence.....which was also in the works for a while, came out, and then was supposedly disbanded. Yes propaganda has never exsisted...that's right.
S.
 
It's like Echelon!!! If I have a Mac, will I been safe from censorship. I mean I don't look up things that would be censored (I think?), but still. If the goverment has no substanstionary evedince that someone is doing illegal things they shouldn't be watching over them. But, thousands, upon thousands of people (including poeple that are in my family) burn CDs. And that's illegal. SO, where do you draw the line between illegal. And VERY illegal.
 
i think technically it's illegal to burn CDs if you intend to sell them. for private use, it's ok.

it's really technically the same as "taping" something (Remember cassettes?)

but oh, now that CDs can be burned with the same quality as the recorded music in the first place...everyone is getting all uptight.. i'm an artist and have conflicting opinions about the rights of owning a particular order of sounds (which is all music is really, anyway). it's sort of this weird gray area for me.

oh my sydbristow201717, you've opened up a whole new can of conversation worms. (we'll see if this continues, and if so we'll open the "music piracy" thread)

Most likely if you have a Mac, you'll just be _Told_ you are not being censored. they'll find a way to censor you anyway, legally or not.

sigh.

when will the republican administration end?
 
Well this is all proactive censorship, people will be firghtened into not doing things because they are told they are being watched.....that does not mean they ARE being watched. It is the same principle as following laws because you will told you be caught. Although laws are not heeded by everyone I am sure they would be if they were told they were being watched all the time.
S.
 
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