Wave Systems Corp. (fka WAVXQ)

[1stnflight]

Opposition to Trusted Computing and the next Internet

Mine: Funny read from an author weary of big brother gov't and MSFT. This author thinks trusted computing will stop open source development as all users must be TPM identified with their devices 2048 bit RSA certificate as paid up Microsoft OS users to get thru routers, etc. Funny, since I saw a post today and others recently about IBM working on TPM soluitons for Linux, open source. His website merits further browsing.

http://www.goingware.com/tips/future-internet.html

I Don't Know What This New Internet Will Look Like
... but I am as confident as I am that the Sun will rise tomorrow that it will be safe from terrorists. After all, we have the children to think about.

Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc.
[e-mail]
July 12, 2005

Copyright © 2005 Michael David Crawford.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

It seems that David Clark, who led the development of the Internet way back in the '70's - did you know there even was a '70's? - wants to create a whole new Internet that will fix many of the problems the current Internet is plagued with. The New Internet's engineers will be much more careful this time around to make sure it works better than the first one did.

I'm afraid, though, that the engineers are not the only ones who will be deciding how our New Internet will work.

If one is able to find any privacy or anonymity in this New Internet, it will be because of some undiscovered security hole, which will be quickly repaired, rather than any kind of conscious design decision. Probably one reason they are accepting proposals before rolling it out is to avoid the sort of accidental security holes that enable pr0n, peer-to-peer filesharing and left-wing political activism.

Microsoft, a leading contributor both to this nation's technology base and to the campaign coffers of its leaders, will embrace this new technology and extend it in such a way that the development and dissemination of Open Source software will be, if not mathematically and physically impossible, at least as intractible as factoring a 2048-bit public key.

Imagine, if you will, Trusted Computing implemented at the router level, in such a way that any packets that go farther than one hop are certified not only to support protocols whose patent licenses are fully paid-up and on file with the legal department in Redmond, but whose content is compliant with the Windows standard. The faintest whisp of a Public License, GNU or otherwise, will result in the dropping not only of the individual packet, not only in the cancellation of the entire file transmission, but, within microseconds, the reporting of the physical location of the offending server to responsible law enforcement personnel. The identities of its rogue administrators will be fetched instantly from the database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. (You will have to submit fingerprints and DNA samples to obtain a Windows server license, as after all, Internet servers can be used to disseminate explosives recipes or the formulas for nerve gases.) The supercomputers that constantly monitor the cameras mounted on every lampost in the United States of ( God Bless It!) America will be ordered to recognize the criminals' faces, and when they are spotted trying to flee to the Amazon jungle, orbiting lasers will vaporize their bodies, leaving nary but a whisp of smoke.

When a close family friend tries to comfort one of the grieving mothers for the loss of her son, she will desperately proclaim "No, I have no children! You must have mistaken me for someone else. Please leave me alone!" as she scurries rapidly away.

National firewalls such as those employed by The People's Republic of China are expensive and difficult to maintain. They are notoriously leaky, and easy to circumvent by anyone determined enough to find out how. But worse, they impede the economic potential of emerging economies such as China, which necessarily bottleneck technical data and eCommerce in order to have a single chokepoint for their Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse (Taiwan, Tibet, Dissidents and Pornography).

Imagine, if you will, the potential of our New Internet: not only by technical design, but by international treaty (enforced by the threat of military intervention on the part of the UN Security Council), each nation will have a national firewall which is as transparent to the air to fully-licensed Windows Media Video files of Barney the Dinosaur and paid-up Wal-Mart orders, yet absolutely impenetrable to content not sanctioned by Homeland Security, the Republican Party, the 700 Club and the Boy Scouts.

I, for one, am weary of our present Internet, cesspool that it is of moral depravity and copyright infringement. I long for the days of yore, when men were men, women wore hoopskirts, and racial minorities were separate but equal. And so, I raise my right hand and shout with an enthusiastic "Heil!":

I welcome my new Internet overlords!

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