Not Scared? TC *Will* Make You Scared

Not even Orwell in "1984" dared imagine such a bleak dystopic future.
I'd rather keep piracy, spam and hackers than get total control and potential censorship.
The question is: do we still have enough time to prevent this from happening ?

 

Well this is quite alarming and sickening as well. But nothing surprises me anymore.

Just 3 days ago I had an issue with Gateway (to remove the passthison.com page from my homepage). The tech asked if he could take control of my computer to try to "fix" the homepage. Like an idiot, I agreed. He took control of my mouse and manually set my homepage to msn.com (Gateway is a partner of MSN and has agreements with them). I said "no".. I want comcast.net as my homepage. He changed it. We finished up the session and that was that. Well, this morning when I booted up, I first noticed that msn.com was reset to my homepage, which I DID NOT DO. Then I happened to run Ad Aware and lo and behold, it discovered what it called 2 "hijacking" registry keys that were on my PC and classified as "critical". Coincidence? No way in hell.

 

No, no and no. It's an invasion of privacy.

Idiots.

 

If most people agree with us, though, Microsoft and the others may have just signed their death warrants.

Competitors will still be releasing software that isn't TC if there is a demand for it, and if enough people switch to that over the TC stuff, then we don't have much to worry about.

Historically, though, the masses tend to be stupid, so yeah, we're in trouble from this.

 

This is VERY troubling -- yet a part of me feels that intelligent hackers and the like everywhere will be able to find a loophole of some sort. That cheers me somewhat.

Nevertheless, this concept is not one that should be allowed -- protecting copyright is one thing, fooling around with peoples' systems is something else. It's not like these companies are suffering financially.

 

I agree with Rastor and Depaara.

Its sick.. like we havent got enough privacy invaders!

 

I'm not going to go into some big rant on this one.

But I'll say this:

When it comes to pass, I *will* have two computers. One connected to the internet, and one that is not. The one that's connected I will treat like some kind of public computer. It'll have a GF2MX card and onboard sound. I'll put a burner on it, so when I download game patches, I can transfer them to my other computer.


Need to know?

I decide. Not you, not your company.

 

Well, let me just say that having worked on the retail side of the PC business for years, the one thing I learned during that time is that customers don't put up with a whole hell of a lot. Customers, to whom I would sell the latest and greatest hardware and software would constantly come back with stuff like this: "I just bought this new PC with Win XP and I have this program that I do all my address files on and it won't work. I've been running this program for five years and I ain't about to change it now."

Really, the biggest issue for a lot of retail family type buyers is how well it works with what they have been using. And they think nothing of bringing back and dropping a $1500.00 computer system on your counter and asking for their money back. Something like this can be a nightmare at the retail level.

People who build and sell this hardware and software had better think long and hard about how compatible this type of platform will be with what customers have been running in the past. Or consider expanding the size of their factory loading docks. And not for all the PCs they will be moving off of them, but for all the ones that will be coming back.

 

I'm going to go up in the hills and buy a cabin. No phone, no address, no internet and lots of privacy.

One thing that does hearten me, and Depaara already said this, is that a hacker in Japan will break it in a couple of days. It happens every time the "industry" gets a brand spankin' new way to make the public conform to their ideals. The companies say they need to hike prices to compensate for piracy, but even if piracy suddenly vanished they would still saw your arm off. I really think that $400 dollars for a inferior product is ludicris.

Microsoft is on MY blacklist.

 

From the article:

I'm too pretty to go to jail


We will be drip fed the new technology. No one will feel anything on the way in, but MS is hoping that most people won't be able to get back out.

From the article:

What sort of sick and evil minds would decide to inflict such wanton suffering on mankind? Ohh! The humanity!

Seriously though, when machines are given the ability to enforce copyright legislation (as opposed to the current 'hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil' reality), then it is time to change the legislation that the machines enforce.


I acknowledge that computers are still too complicated. The TC technology will attempt to make their use intuitive by restricting the way the computer can operate. A lot of people would happily swap functionality for the promised stability and security. Schools and universities are prime examples were operating systems have to be constantly reinstalled because of the downloading and installation of damaging software by students. Eventually Gamers will have to accept the new technology when the Games Industry incorporates it into their software. (At around the same time that MS support for XP is discontinued).

It won't hurt a bit. It won't hurt the ordinary computer user that is. But it will be a devastating (possibly fatal) blow to open-source GPL software like Linux. Eventually MS will be free to exploit the monopoly it has desired all along.

Did you know that SCO Group, inheritor of the intellectual property for the Unix operating system, is suing IBM for more than $1 billion, alleging Big Blue(IBM) misappropriated SCO's Unix technology and built it into Linux? It is also claiming the right to charge people running Linux servers and workstations a license fee for doing so.

SCO as a company was always unprofitable and was almost dead. A mysterious backer has appeared from the shadows (Tavern of Infinity TM) that has allowed them to mount this lawsuit. No doubt if their claim over Linux is successful the mysteriuous backer will step in to purchase SCO and bury Linux forever.

It is claimed that the lawsuit is malicious and is intended soley to scare Network Admistrators away from using the popular Linux/Apache Servers and kill Linux in the process.

Official sources cannot say for legal reasons who this mysterious backer is. But today I can confirm that the true aggressor in this OS battle-by-proxy is...Hold on, there is someone at the doorhksdhfsdkghvp

 

I think that is exactly what he said in the book. Total and absolute control by the Big Brother. And i am scared to see that he is coming true.

For Palladium if it is asoftware maybe but for this one

I fear that things are pretty bad because it is a hardware not software. And furthermore if you meddle with this it may not allow you to open the pc. The only possible way to crack this may be an oscilloscope to findout his waveforms and the creation of a programm that resembles these waveforms as it is done to crack open the playstation. But then one must take out the original chip and replace it with the replication which is for a motherboard a very difficult near to impossible task.
But these kinds of moves makes me sick and tired of the current system. I believe that a worldwide revolution is what these guys need to remember we are humans too and we need freedom not chains.

 

Well yes, but Orwell was demonizing TV, which has a much lower interactive value. If the Big Brother can enter your file, who will need the Thought Police anymore ?

Sadly I believe that reaction by human beings won't do much good (unless it happens at a much bigger scale I can think of). Once major companies and governmental agencies will have implemented this TC system (and I believe they will), what other option will one have ?
I sure hope someone will come up with something, and fast.

 

Cue the Imperial March .

Why direct your anger towards the companies only? The pirates helped bring this on us by giving the companies an excuse to do this.

 

@BTA
SCO's purpose is not to win, it is simply to de-stabalise Linux's future by throwing mud around.

If SCO is counter sued by IBM, then no harm will have been done to their Mysterious Stranger, who will walk away with clean hands.

SCO, in its present inflexible incarnation, was on the way out anyway. In the short term there is even profit to be made by SCO's share price increase because some people are willing to believe that the Patent Office will not understand the illogical, not-for-profit basis of Linux's existance.

The case is only about hurting Linux, in the same way that TC will be abused to hurt Linux, everthing else is just smoke and mirrors.

The most sickening way that Linux will be hurt is by stopping people freely contibuting their time and effort to Linux until SCO's claims are proven groundless. The Mysterious Stranger is counting on the programmers' sense of betrayal and sense of being swindled to stop all ultruistic communal software projects in their tracks.

Most people think that Linux is some obscure free Geek operating system, not realising that they use it every day (on hidden servers) when they use the internet. If it dies then the cost of the internet goes way up.

@Big_B

Windows is using the existance of pirates and hackers to feul its own agenda, the extermination of all possible competition, now and forever, ^Z.

If pirates hadn't existed as an excuse, and hacking had been properly dealt with (rather than having had the door to XP left wide open for them), then another excuse would have been found. An excuse like the need to control dissenting voices, with strange ideas about right and wrong would be a good one that many governments would support.

Like the original 'Roman Empire Vs. JC' case, the Empire would quash its so-called enemies, and then claim its enemies' ideas as their own.

*Bluin turns the Imperial March music up loud enough to annoy the neighbours*

[ September 18, 2003, 21:13: Message edited by: Bluin ]

 

Oh well. At least than I can be sure that when I get a nuke from the black market and blow off some big city, I'll be doing the world a favor. No way in heck would I ever view such a future as a good one. Any death there would be a blessing.

We've had the means to completely eliminate most crimes for some time already. The reason it hasn't happened is because people like their freedom even at the expense of a few problems on the way. I can see that it is possible to force people out of this path in the future though, as even several smaller groups and individuals can't have much say in global decisions powered by 'multibillion corporations' and powerful people who are seemingly above the law. Better to die with personal honour than live with personal shame, I say.

Not that I think any of this is going to happen any time too soon, of course.

Edit: Problem with modern science and computer technology is that it enables once again what was possible in middle-ages. Basically what I mean is that while the world is now far too big and complex to be controlled by powerhungry people as it is, physically, this can be done through other means. The net connects everyone around the world to the same place, so anyone who can influence that place, can influence everyone else. It's as if you took the people of a continent and managed to put them all into a small village. One village is easy to manage and control, by force if necessary. I like the net as it is, a place of freedom and some irresponsibility. And this is truly one case where I hope there are enough geeks around the world who will show their appreciation of human life if such a living hell would come true. Ignoring a random camera out in the streets is easy, doing the same to a camera that's in your bathroom, in your bedroom, or like this could be compared with, in your very head and accessible to any "authorized person" at will, is completely another. I realise I'm just one of many other units working to upkeep the society, but I'd at least appreciate the attempt to treat me like an individual with some personal value and meaning.

[ September 18, 2003, 21:43: Message edited by: Foradasthar ]

 

Uhm? What is the fuzz People? This is a service that allows you to rent software for a period of time for less money. Just don't use the service if you don't like it, and how can hackers take more advantage of this than something else? What am I missing?