khillo, interesting sumary.
It would be possible to construct software whitelists and blacklists under the control of someone other than the person who owns the computer. TCP is essentially a rootkit you can't uninstall. That scares me.
If I may, to look at the opposite effect, the effect without such "restrictions" to create safe flying...
If one were to "time warp" an early 20th century aerospace engineer to today's world, would they be disappointed as you say? Today, flying is safer than driving. The reason it costs $100M to develop and build a new plane today is that without rules, every yahoo would be building a flying machine that would crash into someone's home and kill them, and the unsuspecting family in their living room. Did you see the movie about Howard Hughes? He crashed into suburbia because he was unsafe. How about air traffic control today? Without it, without rules, everyone would be landing whenever they pleased, getting into other's wakes, and crashing regularly. The reason there is control and regulation is that there is a a NEED for it. Today, jet fuel is one of the most volatile substance in regular use. I think the world would be a disaster without such regulations and you miss the entire point. Think not only airline, think automobile, airline, space, internet, appliance, power tool, etc etc etc. From microwaves that explode to Ford Explorers that flip or have exploding tires, sure, progress was impeded, but at the cost of saving probably thousands, or millions, of lives.
Same with computers and security. You obviously have missed the upteen thousand presentations and articles about rampant forgery, identity theft, financial scandals, and intellectual property misuse. Today, in America (to use one example), more entertainment, business software, systems control, etc etc etc Inetllectual Property exists than in any other country. As America moves forward in innovative thinking and forward-leading progress to create systems that are intelligent, and movies that entertain, it is increasingly crucial for America to control their IP and not have it stolen. America is losing manufacturing jobs and many other industries to the third world. Beyond this, Americans are becoming victims of net abuse. Banks, Mortgage Houses, Credit Card mining companies, mass vendors, etc are all victimized weekly. One of my own websites was just hacked last week and the entire database was destroyed!
You state, "That scares me."
I'll tell you what scares me...
A world with a billion devices without any method of trust and security!
AI
