Comments on: Richard Stallman’s ‘Right To Read’ dystopia growing closer every day

By: Some links at fulminate // Architectures of Control

Some links at fulminate // Architectures of Control — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:57:25 +0000

[...] George Preston very kindly reminds me of the excellent Trusted Computing FAQ by Ross Anderson, a fantastic exposition of the arguments. For more on Vista’s ‘trusted’ computing issues, Peter Guttmann has some very clear explanations of how shocking far we are from anything sensible. See also Richard Stallman’s ‘Right to Read’. [...]

By: Architectures of Control in Design » Review: Everyware by Adam Greenfield

Architectures of Control in Design » Review: Everyware by Adam Greenfield — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 23:18:42 +0000

[...] It’s not hard to see that with this level of unknowingly/unwillingly active everyware in the environment, there could be a lot of ‘architectures of control’ consequences. For example, systems which constrain users’ behaviour based on some arbitrary profile: a vending machine may refuse to serve a high-fat snack to someone whose RFID pay-card identifies him/her as obese; or, more critically, only a censored version of the internet or a library catalogue may be available to someone whose profile identifies him/her as likely to be ‘unduly’ influenced by certain materials, according to some arbitrary definition. Yes, Richard Stallman’s Right To Read prophecy could well come to pass through individual profiling by networked ubiquitous computing power, in an even more sinister form than he anticipated. [...]

By: Architectures of Control in Design » Oh yeah, that Windows Kill Switch

Architectures of Control in Design » Oh yeah, that Windows Kill Switch — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 18:54:33 +0000

[...] I know the furore surrounding Microsoft’s ‘Windows Genuine Advantage’ is a few days old, and perhaps I should have blogged about it at the time, specifically the rumoured ‘Kill Switch’ which would remotely deactivate any PCs apparently running ‘non-genuine’ copies of XP. That’s certainly a candidate for my feature deletion/external control category, as well as treacherous computing, and ranks far more severely than, say, removing mp3 capability from a phone after a mandatory upgrade. [...]

By: Architectures of Control in Design » Philips: You MUST watch these adverts

Architectures of Control in Design » Philips: You MUST watch these adverts — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 11:25:24 +0000

[...] Now this really is a pretty daft proposition, at least as the consumer electronics market is now: Philips does not have a near-monopoly (unlike the companies behind ‘trusted’ computing) nor is there legislation to force new devices to use this technology (though who knows what’s over the horizon?). [...]