Re: bit-split, or: the schizophrenia of trusted computing

[Marcus Brinkmann]

At Mon, 1 May 2006 03:20:50 +0200,
Pierre THIERRY <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
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> I agree with you that behind Trusted Computing and DRM, there are very
> dangerous ideas like the one that hardware should be the essential
> enforcer of rules that are otherwise enforced by the society, which
> creates and interpret them.
> 
> But there is something very strange, an assumption that you make, in
> your arguments: why should I own what I use in a computer?
> 
> In the real world, I use many tools that I have no right to dispose of.
> If I rent a car, I have limited rights on it's use, idem for my
> appartment.
>
> In the use case of a program that the author doesn't want to disclose to
> me, I'm just renting it. That's not schizophrenic at all. That's plain
> normal.

Renting _is_ a form of schizophrenic ownership.  However, note that we
also have protection in laws with regard to renting.  For example, in
Germany, it is not easy for a house owner to kick you out of his house.

Anyway, I did not even talk about ownership of the program.  I talked
about ownership of the storage that contains the program.  The
peculiar thing is this: Once you run DRM software on your computer,
the computer does not any longer belong to you in full.

Let's look at embedded devices, for example hard disk video recorders.
If these come with a DRM-restricted software, so that you can not
update the software on the machine, you do not fully own it.  Yes, you
could throw it away, or even put a couple of nails into it.  But if
you want to modify it in a way that is meaningful to you, it will stop
working.  You paid the full price for the device, but it only serves
you as one that you rented under restricted conditions (no
modifications).  If this happened to me, I would feel betrayed.

However, it doesn't even stop at this point.  Imagine you could not
buy anymore paper, but you were only allowed to rent paper under very
restrictive conditions, and the papers would only work with xerox
copying machines of the same company that produces the paper, and they
would have many restrictions on what you can do.  Would you feel
comfortable with that?  This is exactly what Bill Gates has in mind
for Word documents.  This is a much bigger opportunity for him than
restricting the distribution of movies or music.

So, the matter to me is not even the ownership of the content,
although that is also a concern.  However, you can only enforce rules
about the ownership of digital data if you can enforce rules about
some aspects of control over the machines that process is.  This is a
struggle about free hardware, about who controls the bits of data that
flow through _your_ (for now) computer.

Or look at it this way: Say you own some land.  Then somebody comes
along, takes away our land and then is so kind to rent it back to you
for a fee.  What do you think about that?

We are not this far yet with computers.  However, that's not for lack
of trying of some interest groups, who want to make all
non-DRM-encumbered computers illegal.  The issue at stake is
dispossession.  Big industry would *love* you to possess nothing, and
rent everything.  For them, this means fat dollars, because they can
bill you by the zip, by the minute, by the tick, by the impulse (and
get an extensive profile of your behaviour at the same time).

> > Trusted computing and DRM impose not rules about property of items.
> > They impose rules about property of digital data.
> 
> How will TC impose anything? For the moment, we discussed uses of the TC
> were it gives a (morally objectionable) power to the user (i.e.
> certification of privacy-related properties of the system).

DRM imposes rules that in effect commoditize data by bundling these
rules with the ability to use the data.  I am not sure I understood
your question, though, so maybe clarify.

Thanks,
Marcus