Reverse engineering :: Architectures of Control

Biting Apple

Published September 28th, 2007 in Apple, Architectures of Control, Bad design, Bad profits, Blogosphere, Business model, Cell phones, Circumvention, Consumer rights, Design, Design attitudes, Design philosophy, Designed to be unpleasant, Digital rights, Distasteful corollary, Embedding code, Entropy, Feature deletion, Firmware, Freedom to tinker, Gadgets, Interaction design, Intrusive technology, Lock-in, Mobile phones, Philosophy of control, Rent-seeking, Reverse engineering, Sneaky, Software, Technical protection measures, Technology policy, Treacherous computing, Usability, User experience, Your property and iPhone. 6 Comments

BBC News headline, 28 September 2007

Interesting to see the BBC’s summary of the current iPhone update story: “Apple issues an update which damages iPhones that have been hacked by users”. I’m not sure that’s quite how Apple’s PR people would have put it, but it’s interesting to see that whoever writes those little summaries for the BBC website found it easiest to sum up the story in this way. This is being portrayed as Apple deliberately, strategically damaging the phones, rather than an update unintentionally causing problems with unlocked or modified phones.

Regardless of what the specific issue is here, and whether unmodified iPhones have also lost functionality because of some problem with the update, can’t we just strip out all this nonsense? How many people who wanted an iPhone also wanted to be locked in to AT&T or whatever the local carrier will be in each market? Anyone? Who wants to be locked in to anything? What a waste of technical effort, sweat and customer goodwill: it’s utterly pathetic.

This is exactly what Fred Reichheld’s ‘Bad profits’ idea calls out so neatly:

Whenever a customer feels misled, mistreated, ignored, or coerced, then profits from that customer are bad. Bad profits come from unfair or misleading pricing. Bad profits arise when companies save money by delivering a lousy customer experience. Bad profits are about extracting value from customers, not creating value.

…

If bad profits are earned at the expense of customers, good profits are earned with customers’ enthusiastic cooperation. A company earns good profits when it so delights its customers that they willingly come back for more—and not only that, they tell their friends and colleagues to do business with the company.

…

What is the question that can tell good profits from bad? Simplicity itself: How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?

If your iPhone’s just turned into the most stylish paperweight in the office, are you likely to recommend it to a colleague?

More to the point, if Apple had moved - in the first place - into offering telecom services to go with the hardware, with high levels of user experience and a transparent pricing system, how many iPhone users and Mac evangelists wouldn’t have at least considered changing?

BoingBoing podcast - direct link

Published September 19th, 2006 in Analog hole, Architectures of Control, Audio, Bad design, Cargo cult, Circumvention, Control, Design, Design philosophy, Designers, Digital rights, Embedding code, Freedom to tinker, Interaction design, Intrusive technology, MP3, Nonsense, Restriction, Reverse engineering, Sneaky, Software, Technology, Technology policy, User Psychology and User experience. 0 Comments

Here’s the direct link for that new BoingBoing podcast - www.archive.org/download/…/boingboingboing_1_64kb.mp3 .
BB were almost the last people I’d expect to wrap up their audio in a Flash interface! Still, ‘View Source’ is a lot easier than having to use a Flash decompiler to extract the link.

Maybe an OGG version will be available for the next in the series?

Update: OK, they’ve now added the mp3 link to the post! Good on them!

Some links: miscellaneous, pertinent to architectures of control

Published September 1st, 2006 in 1984, Analog hole, Architectures of Control, Audio, Bad design, Black box, Broadcast flag, Built Environment, Bureaucracy, Business model, Cargo cult, Censorship, Cinema, Circumvention, Civil rights, Consumer rights, Control, Copyfight, Copyright, Corruption, Creeping erosion of norms, Crime, DRM, Deleuze, Democracy of innovation, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Designers, Digital rights, Discrimination, Discriminatory Architecture, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, Dystopia, Education, Embedding code, Engineering, Engineering design, Entertainment, Entropy, Erosion of liberty, Everyware, Exclusion, External Control, Feature deletion, Fightback Devices, Forcing functions, Foucault, Freedom to tinker, Future, Gadgets, Gravy train, Greasing palms, Health and safety, Hidden persuaders, Indoctrination, Intellectual property, Interaction design, Internet economics, Intrusive technology, Invention, Killjoy technology, Law, Legislation, Liberty, Lobbying, MP3, MPAA, Monopoly, Movie industry, Music, Music industry, Norms, Observation, Open source, Oppression, Orwellian, Panopticon, Pervasive computing, Philosophy of control, Political design, Privacy, Product design, Propaganda, Prophecy, Protest, Public money, Punishment, RIAA, Razor blade model, Regulation, Rent-seeking, Restriction, Reverse engineering, Security, Site Announcements, Sneaky, Social engineering, Software, Spatial, Stallman, Stifling innovation, Surveillance, Technical protection measures, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Technology policy, Technology underclass, Treacherous computing, Trusted Computing, Ubiquitous computing, Underclass, Urban, User Psychology, User experience, Vague rhetoric, Worldwide and Your property. 0 Comments

Ulises Mejias on ‘Confinement, Education and the Control Society’ - fascinating commentary on Deleuze’s societies of control and how the instant communication and ‘life-long learning’ potential (and, I guess, everyware) of the internet age may facilitate control and repression:

“This is the paradox of social media that has been bothering me lately: an ‘empowering’ media that provides increased opportunities for communication, education and online participation, but which at the same time further isolates individuals and aggregates them into masses —more prone to control, and by extension more prone to discipline.”

Slashdot on ‘A working economy without DRM?’ - same debate as ever, but some very insightful comments

Slashdot on ‘Explaining DRM to a less-experienced PC user’ - I particularly like SmallFurryCreature’s ‘Sugar cube’ analogy

‘The Promise of a Post-Copyright World’ by Karl Fogel - extremely clear analysis of the history of copyright and, especially, the way it has been presented to the public over the centuries

(Via BoingBoing) The Entertrainer - a heart monitor-linked TV controller: your TV stays on with the volume at a usable level only while you keep exercising at the required rate. Similar concept to Gillian Swan’s Square-Eyes

Ed Felten: DRM Wars, and ‘Property Rights Management’

Published August 15th, 2006 in Analog hole, Arbitrary, Architectures of Control, Bad design, Black box, Broadcast flag, Bureaucracy, Business model, Cargo cult, Cartridges, Circumvention, Civil rights, Consumer rights, Control, Copyfight, Copyright, Creeping erosion of norms, DRM, Deleuze, Democracy of innovation, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Designed to be unpleasant, Designers, Digital rights, Discrimination, Discriminatory Architecture, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, Dongle, Dystopia, Embedding code, Engineering, Engineering design, Entropy, Erosion of liberty, Exclusion, External Control, Feature deletion, Fightback Devices, Firmware, Forcing functions, Freedom to tinker, Future, Gadgets, Hidden persuaders, Indoctrination, Ink cartridges, Innovation, Intellectual property, Interaction design, Internet economics, Intrusive technology, Invention, Killjoy technology, Law, Legislation, Liberty, Lobbying, Monopoly, Norms, Open source, Oppression, Patents, Philosophy of control, Political design, Printers, Product design, Propaganda, Prophecy, Protest, Razor blade model, Regulation, Rent-seeking, Restriction, Reverse engineering, Sneaky, Social engineering, Software, Specious arguments, Stifling innovation, Technical protection measures, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Technology policy, Treacherous computing, Trusted Computing, User Psychology, User experience, Worldwide and Your property. 3 Comments

At Freedom to Tinker, Ed Felten has posted a summary of a talk he gave at the Usenix Security Symposium, called “DRM Wars: The Next Generation”. The two installments so far (Part 1, Part 2) trace a possible trend in the (stated) intentions of DRM’s proponents, from it being largely promoted as a tool to help enforce copyright law (and defeat ‘illegal pirates’) to the current stirrings of DRM’s being explicitly acknowledged as a tool to facilitate discrimination and lock-in — and the apparent ‘benefits of this’:

“First, they argue that DRM enables price discrimination — business models that charge different customers different prices for a product — and that price discrimination benefits society, at least sometimes. Second, they argue that DRM helps platform developers lock in their customers, as Apple has done with its iPod/iTunes products, and that lock-in increases the incentive to develop platforms.

Continue reading ‘Ed Felten: DRM Wars, and ‘Property Rights Management’’

Freedom to Tinker - The Freedom to Tinker with Freedom?

Published August 4th, 2006 in 1984, Arbitrary, Architectures of Control, Bad design, Black box, Bureaucracy, Business model, Cargo cult, Circumvention, Civil rights, Consumer rights, Control, Copyfight, Corruption, Creeping erosion of norms, Crime, DRM, Democracy of innovation, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Designed to be unpleasant, Designers, Digital rights, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, Dystopia, Embedding code, Engineering, Engineering design, Erosion of liberty, Exclusion, Feature deletion, Freedom to tinker, Future, Gadgets, Gravy train, Greasing palms, Indoctrination, Innovation, Intellectual property, Interaction design, Internet economics, Intrusive technology, Invention, Killjoy technology, Law, Legislation, Liberty, Lobbying, Monopoly, Norms, Open source, Patents, Philosophy of control, Political design, Privacy, Product design, Propaganda, Prophecy, Protest, Public money, Punishment, Regulation, Rent-seeking, Restriction, Reverse engineering, Stifling innovation, Technical protection measures, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Technology policy, Technology underclass, Treacherous computing, Trusted Computing, User Psychology, User experience, Worldwide and Your property. 0 Comments

An open bonnet At Freedom to Tinker, David Robinson asks whether, in a world where DRM is presented to so many customers as a benefit (e.g. Microsoft’s Zune service), the public as a whole will be quite happy to trade away its freedom to tinker, whether the law needs to intervene in this, and on which side: ensuring freedom to tinker, or outlawing it in order to enshrine the business model that “most people” will be portrayed as wanting, given the numbers who sign away their rights in EULAs and so on.

“Many of us, who may find ourselves arguing based on public reasons for public policies that protect the freedom to tinker, also have a private reason to favor such policies. The private reason is that we ourselves care more about tinkering than the public at large does, and we would therefore be happier in a protected-tinkering world than the public at large would be.”

Many of the comments - and those on the follow-up post - look in more detail at the legal issues, with some very interesting analogies to freedom of expression and points made about the impact on innovation - which benefits everyone - when power users are prevented from innovating. Continue reading ‘Freedom to Tinker - The Freedom to Tinker with Freedom?’

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What are Architectures of Control?

Audi A2 : The user cannot open the bonnet; Bench designed to prevent lying down: 'redesigned to face contemporary urban realities'; Some HP printers shut down the cartridges at a pre-determined date regardless of whether they are empty

Increasingly, many products are being designed with features that intentionally restrict the way the user can behave, or enforce certain modes of behaviour. The same intentions are also evident in the design of many systems and environments.

This site aims—with readers’ input—to examine and analyse the ideas and techniques of these architectures of control in design, through examples and anecdotes, and by keeping up-to-date with relevant developments... More