Archive
July, 2006 Monthly archive

DRM now the ‘biggest issue’ in preserving information for the future

By: Dan
11-07-2006
Analog hole, Bad design, Bureaucracy, Censorship, Circumvention, Consumer rights, Control, Copyfight, Copyright, Creeping erosion of norms, Design, Design philosophy, Design with Intent, Designers, Digital rights, Discriminatory Architecture, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, DRM, Dystopia, Education, Erosion of liberty, Greasing palms, Hidden persuaders, Indoctrination, Intellectual property, Interaction design, Intrusive technology, Killjoy technology, Law, Legislation, Liberty, London, Monopoly, Nonsense, Norms, Philosophy of control, Political design, Propaganda, Public money, Rent-seeking, Restriction, Software, Stifling innovation, Technical protection measures, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Treacherous computing, University, User experience, Vague rhetoric, Worldwide, Your property

A model of a library, in a library (Shoreditch College/Brunel University, Runnymede)

The Guardian has an interview with Richard Masters, of the British Library’s digital objects management programme looking at the impact of technology on archiving. The usual worries about file formats, media incompatability and how to select what to preserve and what not to are discussed, but:

“The biggest issue is digital rights management. At the moment, acting as an honest broker between the public interest and the individual rights holders is incredibly difficult. Much more so than with printed material that is physically deposited on your site. Many electronic property holders lease material and specifically prohibit copying for preservation purposes.

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Oh yeah, that Windows Kill Switch

By: Dan
10-07-2006
1984, Arbitrary, Bad design, Broadcast flag, Business model, Circumvention, Civil rights, Consumer rights, Control, Copyright, Creeping erosion of norms, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Design with Intent, Designed to be unpleasant, Digital rights, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, DRM, Dystopia, Embedding code, Engineering, Entropy, Erosion of liberty, External Control, Feature deletion, Firmware, Future, Gadgets, Gravy train, Greasing palms, Hidden persuaders, Indoctrination, Interaction design, Internet economics, Intrusive technology, Killjoy technology, Liberty, Monopoly, Nonsense, Norms, Open source, Oppression, Orwellian, Panopticon, Philosophy of control, Political design, Privacy, Propaganda, Prophecy, Protest, Rent-seeking, Restriction, Sneaky, Software, Specious arguments, Stifling innovation, Surveillance, Technical protection measures, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Technology policy, Treacherous computing, Trusted Computing, User experience, User Psychology, Worldwide, Your property

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.

Nevertheless, if WGA does have a kill switch, and does remotely kill off 50% of Windows’ user base over night, that’s just going to be good news for GNU/Linux adoption, and Apple. There’s not going to be any perfect substitution, that every copied installation of Windows has lost Microsoft $xxx therefore by preventing those installations from working, Microsoft will recover $xxx from each user. Sure, they’ll make some more money, but the loss in goodwill will more than offset that. Vastly more than offset it.

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Embedding control in society: the end of freedom

By: Dan
09-07-2006
1984, Arbitrary, Architecture & urbanism, Articles, Bad design, Britain, Bureaucracy, Cargo cult, Censorship, Civil rights, Control, Corruption, Creeping erosion of norms, Crime, Deleuze, Design, Design philosophy, Design with Intent, Designed to be unpleasant, Designed to injure, Discrimination, Discriminatory Architecture, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, Dystopia, Embedding code, Engineering, Erosion of liberty, Europe, Exclusion, External Control, Foucault, Future, Gravy train, Greasing palms, Hidden persuaders, Indoctrination, Intrusive technology, Killjoy technology, Law, Legislation, Liberty, Lobbying, London, Monopoly, Norms, Observation, Oppression, Orwellian, Panopticon, Philosophy of control, Political design, Privacy, Propaganda, Prophecy, Protest, Public money, Punishment, Regulation, Restriction, Security, Sneaky, Social engineering, Spatial, Specious arguments, Stallman, Stifling innovation, Surveillance, Technical protection measures, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Technology policy, Technology underclass, Treacherous computing, Underclass, Urban, US, User Psychology, Worldwide, Your property

Bye bye debate.

Henry Porter’s chilling Blair Laid Bare – which I implore you to read if you have the slightest interest in your future – contains an equally worrying quote from the LSE’s Simon Davies noting the encroachment of architectures of control in society itself:

“The second invisible change that has occurred in Britain is best expressed by Simon Davies, a fellow at the London School of Economics, who did pioneering work on the ID card scheme and then suffered a wounding onslaught from the Government when it did not agree with his findings. The worrying thing, he suggests, is that the instinctive sense of personal liberty has been lost in the British people.

“We have reached that stage now where we have gone almost as far as it is possible to go in establishing the infrastructures of control and surveillance within an open and free environment,” he says. “That architecture only has to work and the citizens only have to become compliant for the Government to have control.

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Forcing functions designed to increase product consumption

By: Dan
09-07-2006
Bad design, Branding, Britain, Business model, Cartridges, Consumer rights, Control, Creeping erosion of norms, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Design with Intent, Designers, Do artifacts have politics?, DRM, Dystopia, eBooks, Embedding code, Engineering, Engineering design, Entropy, Erosion of liberty, Feature deletion, Forcing functions, Future, Good design, Graphic design, Health and safety, Hidden persuaders, Indoctrination, Ink cartridges, Innovation, Interaction design, Intrusive technology, Invention, Japan, Killjoy technology, Liberty, Marketing, Mistake-proofing, Mobile phones, Monopoly, Norms, Observation, Philosophy of control, Poka-yoke, Political design, Printers, Product design, Propaganda, Razor blade model, Retail, Ringtones, Shopping, Sneaky, Social engineering, Supermarkets, Sustainability, Technical protection measures, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Technology policy, Treacherous computing, Trusted Computing, User experience, User Psychology, Worldwide, Your property

McVitie's Digestives packaging: a forcing function

A few days ago, Tim Quinn of Dangerous Curve posted an interesting observation on the Simple Control in Products page:

“This may not be what you had in mind, but I immediately thought of such things as toothpaste pumps that ‘meter’ use to insure the product will be used up quickly at a rate higher than needed. That made me think of the older method of training consumers to over-use. Typified, once again, by toothpaste, with ads which show a brush topped by a generous glop of paste that is far more than necessary to do the job. This strays a bit more from your topic but it could fall under the design for control heading.”

This is definitely a phenomenon worth exploring further, since it’s part of our everyday experience, right under our noses, yet we may not be conscious of it. It’s at the intersection of advertising, marketing and product design, with particular applicability to fast-moving consumer goods.

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Another pig ear skateboarding control

By: Dan
09-07-2006
Architecture, Architecture & urbanism, Britain, Civil rights, Control, Deleuze, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Design with Intent, Designed to be unpleasant, Designed to injure, Designers, Discriminatory Architecture, Do artifacts have politics?, Dystopia, Embedding code, Engineering, Engineering design, Erosion of liberty, Forcing functions, Foucault, Health and safety, Interaction design, Intrusive technology, Killjoy technology, Liberty, Norms, Oppression, Orwellian, Philosophy of control, Political design, Product design, Public money, Punishment, Restriction, Skateboarding, Social engineering, Spatial, Technology, Technology policy, Technology underclass, Teenagers, Traffic calming, Underclass, Urban, User experience, User Psychology, Worldwide

A pig ear skateboard deterrent

Nothing special, just another ‘pig ear’ I saw the other day, fixed to a concrete wall to prevent skateboarders using the edge. A more interesting example and, in a similar vein, the Anti-Sit Archives.

A pig ear skateboard deterrent

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ABC wants to disable fast-forwarding on digital video recorders

By: Dan
08-07-2006
Arbitrary, Bad design, Broadcast flag, Business model, Circumvention, Consumer rights, Control, Creeping erosion of norms, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Design with Intent, Designed to be unpleasant, Do artifacts have politics?, Dystopia, Embedding code, Engineering design, Entertainment, Erosion of liberty, External Control, Feature deletion, Firmware, Future, Gadgets, Greasing palms, Hidden persuaders, Indoctrination, Interaction design, Intrusive technology, Killjoy technology, Liberty, Marketing, Monopoly, Nonsense, Norms, Orwellian, Panopticon, Philosophy of control, Political design, Product design, Propaganda, Rent-seeking, Shopping, Sneaky, Specious arguments, Technical protection measures, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Technology policy, User experience, User Psychology, Vague rhetoric, Video, Your property

Via BoingBoing:

ABC Looks Beyond Upfront To DVR, Commercial Ratings Issues (needs you to sign in – use username ‘wasteoftime’, password ‘wasteoftime’):

“ABC HAS HELD DISCUSSIONS ON the use of technology that would disable the fast-forward button on DVRs, according to ABC President of Advertising Sales Mike Shaw, with the primary goal to allow TV commercials to run as intended.

…

Shaw also threw cold water on the idea that neutering the fast-forward option would result in a consumer backlash. He suggested that consumers prefer DVRs for their ability to facilitate on-demand viewing and not ad-zapping–and consumers might warm to the idea that anytime viewing brings with it a tradeoff in the form of unavoidable commercial viewing.

“I’m not so sure that the whole issue really is one of commercial avoidance,” Shaw said. “It really is a matter of convenience–so you don’t miss your favorite show. And quite frankly, we’re just training a new generation of viewers to skip commercials because they can. I’m not sure that the driving reason to get a DVR in the first place is just to skip commercials. I don’t fundamentally believe that. People can understand in order to have convenience and on-demand (options), that you can’t skip commercials.“

It’s hardly worth commenting on this (without going off on a rant), except to note that maybe he should be talking to Philips…

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Written by Dan Lockton, 2004-12

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