
Lockdown – The coming war on general-purpose computing (2012) - ryukafalz
https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
======
userbinator
This and Stallman's "Right to Read" (posted yesterday at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14332257](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14332257)
) are particularly relevant given the whole WannaCry situation --- no doubt
there will be plenty of authoritarian-minded thinking computers (and maybe
even programming them) should be locked-down/regulated more, to stop such
attacks.

In some sense, I rather take solace in the fact that hacks, attacks, cracks,
leaks, etc. are continuing to happen regularly --- they are a sign that there
is still some freedom left in society. "Imagine a world without crime" is a
somewhat common phrase used by some, and if you actually do, you will realise
that it would pretty much be the world of Orwell's 1984: there is no crime
because there is no more freedom of thought nor action; everything has become
under the control of some central authority.

This goes beyond computers, although they will be a large part of it; it's
really a general war on _freedom_.

~~~
TeMPOraL
We need to be careful with the scope here, I think. "War on general-purpose
computing" is already abstract enough most people just roll their eyes and
move on; expanding that to "war on freedom" guarantees that almost nobody will
care.

I have mixed feelings about what to do. On the one hand, there would be merit
in requiring a professional license for programmers like in other engineering
fields - a lot of the mess in our industry could be removed if at least _some_
jobs would require a license, which would give both a recognized right to
refuse work based on ethical issues (backed by professional association) and
the _liability_ in case you fucked up badly and people died.

On the other hand, I fear the day when Turing-complete systems will get
regulated and require a (probably expensive) license to use. Like many others
here, I benefited a lot from being able to tinker with computers and
programming languages in my teenage years, before I had access to formal
education on the topic. I would like my children to have the same chance.

In a way, my feelings are reflected on a smaller scale in the way I feel about
sandboxing. On the one hand, I appreciate the idea of isolation and don't like
user-hostile software to be able to do whatever it wants on my system. On the
other hand, I'd love to have the right to breach the sandbox _myself_ and mess
with software running on it. On Windows I still can alter GUI elements of
running applications; try that on unrooted Android.

If it was just about security vs. freedom, then the problem would be
relatively easy; some compromise could be reached (e.g. expanded definition of
"life-critical" systems which would require licenses, and also hopefully
licenses for jobs requiring use of personally identifiable information). As it
is, there are other selfish/malicious actors in play - like music/movie
industry pushing for DRM, corporations fighting for their walled gardens, etc.
It'll be hard to navigate this problem space.

~~~
braveo
> On the one hand, there would be merit in requiring a professional license
> for programmers like in other engineering fields - a lot of the mess in our
> industry could be removed if at least some jobs would require a license

Right, and we all believe that the Volkswagon debacle really was some
nefarious programmer doing it without any knowledge of management.

I'm tired of developers getting blamed for this shit, put the blame squarely
where it belongs, on the people with the money who are making such decisions.

~~~
watwut
Through, to be fair, plenty of developers are cool with such management
decisions as long as the company is cool or the decision helps their career
too. They may even proactive come with proposing ideas to management.

Management is ultimately responsible for the overall culture. However, bad
cultures find plenty of eager employees. We are talking about skilled people
able to find job elsewhere if the ethics was consideration - we are not
talking about uneducated dudes having no choice.

~~~
braveo
oh right, it's not the managements fault because the developers are the ones
coming up with the nefarious ideas.

------
daoubt
I always like to try to pick out the single most useful sentence or two from
long essays like this. Here's my go:

"So when I get into a car—a computer that I put my body into—with my hearing
aid—a computer I put inside my body—I want to know that these technologies are
not designed to keep secrets from me, or to prevent me from terminating
processes on them that work against my interests."

Indeed.

------
eponeponepon
This always, _always_ rewards a re-read.

Five years down the line, though, and I'm no longer sure that "We haven't lost
yet," as the closing paragraph puts it.

~~~
flukus
Did we even fight the war? Around here I regularly see people advocating for
this sort of lockdown. It used to just be apple, but now it's in windows and
Chromebooks.

~~~
Sephr
Your point holds true for Windows 10 S, but why do you consider Chromebooks to
be locked down? You can enable developer mode, install your own OS on them, or
even re-use the Chrome OS kernel for other desktop environments through
crouton.

You're also not forced to use Google's Chrome Web Store (except on Windows
with the official distribution of Chrome).

~~~
candiodari
Google for (oh the irony) "Widevine" and how it interacts with it. So it has
the same sort of problems that Microsoft palladium had : things like Netflix
and the like simply won't work as soon as you have the developer switch
enabled.

General purpose computing is dependent on 2 things : ability to run your own
programs AND the ability to lie about that fact to the network. Without the
second the first is useless.

Google understands this subtle point, but it appears most people do not. So
Google is exploiting our ignorance here.

~~~
microcolonel
I'm pretty sure Netflix works fine with developer mode switched on. I can
confirm at the moment (away from Chrome OS devices right now) that Widevine
works fine with Netflix on desktop Linux; I'm pretty sure I remember Widevine
working on my Chromebook with developer mode enabled.

------
confounded
Worth a quick note that Doctorow moved back to the EFF in 2015 fight DRM
creating exactly this doomsday scenario (project 'Apollo 1201').

Donation link for those interested:
[https://eff.org/donate](https://eff.org/donate)

~~~
camillomiller
My experiences with EFF in real life in Europe have been abysmal. I tend not
to donate to organizations that are contrarian by statute. Especially so when
you go to conferences, you hear panels where a EFF representative is chatting
with a Google lobbyist and ends up using sentences like - and I quote - "OMG,
you are so right", "Wow, I can't agree more". The theme was the censorship of
content and a critique - clearly instrumental to Google's bottom line - that
any content shouldn't be regulated by law.

~~~
r3bl
I had the opposite European experience. They seem to do pretty fine and talk
constructively during the conferences I've attended where I listened to them,
and I'm a regular donor to them, _but_ , as a donor, I have to point this out:

Their communication with the donors is almost non-existential. Waited for like
two weeks to receive an answer for them, had to ping them after two weeks,
they've replied, but failed to answer my questions, which I pointed out and
never received an answer, then they've sent me a t-shirt to a wrong country
(got the address right, missed the country completely and I have no clue how
that happened), so I had to ping them again and let them know that they've
fucked up the country while sending me a package, to which they didn't reply,
but a couple of days later sent me another email in which they claim to have
sent another package to the right country. Meanwhile, my initial questions
remain unanswered for about two or three months now and all I get from them is
"another donation successfully charged" emails.

~~~
saimiam
I just remembered that I sent them money after Snowden and I didn't get that
promised t-shirt.

------
_wmd
Doctorow presented this at 2011 Congress:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg)

------
eecc
I don't mind a new security model for personal computing, one that sanely
quarantines - or containerizes or sandboxes - an application.

Any browser or App process has nothing good to do in ~/Library other than its
own application support and prefs plist files (and the equivalent in Linux and
Windows)

If an App needs to access any artifact in my $HOME it needs to be explicitly
authorized for that specific one (e.g. I want to embed images in a
presentation) by a UI element that is part of a the OS itself.

Right now, I might be running as root on my machine, because as soon as I'm
0wned, my whole life can be siphoned to some dodgy server on the net.

~~~
nicky0
Apple needs to bring Sandboxing to macOS right away!

------
oldmancoyote
The trouble with this sort of article is that it takes too long to get
anything useful out of it. A better structure would be an explanation of the
core idea at the beginning and the rest of the article to explore and defend
the idea. Writing is not an ordered series of deductions as this author
assumes. It's far more complicated.

~~~
bruo
This kind of text work is called essay, it doesn't need to follow the rules of
writing an article because it's not one.

The author probably knows how complicated it's to write (he is a professional
writer), and still manages to do it good enough to get some prizes for his
work
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow#Awards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow#Awards)

~~~
oldmancoyote
Please don't presume to tell me what an essay is. This author has written a
"story" with the climax (explanation) at the end. That is not an essay.

------
bobajeff
Well as long as you can still install Linux on a server or hobby board there
will be some vestige of general purpose computing.

~~~
gue5t
No.

The problem is not a lack of access to _a_ general-purpose computer. The
problem is the lack of control over the computers you're forced to use in
order to manipulate their attached I/O devices such as lights, refrigerators,
screens, speakers, insulin pumps, steering and brakes, Internet connections,
etc.

~~~
closeparen
The microcontrollers that used to run these things were never particularly
free, were they?

Is it worse just because the computers running them are now more powerful?

~~~
ryukafalz
They do a lot more now. They're often networked and remotely upgradeable.

Sure, you couldn't see the code in the microcontrollers in your old TV - the
ones listening for IR signals and driving the LCD. But modern TVs do all of
that and more; they have internet connections, some have cameras and
microphones, etc.

And even if you couldn't see the code in your old pacemaker (which I would say
was still a problem), your new one probably has wireless administration and
firmware updates. Those likely have remotely exploitable security
vulnerabilities[0], and even if you have one inside your body, you aren't
allowed to look at the code yourself.

[0] [https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/21/pacemaker-security-is-
te...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/21/pacemaker-security-is-terrifying/)

------
dano
When in a company that runs windows with AD and lot's of strict GPO's in
place, this is basically what you experience as an employee.

~~~
hyperhopper
A corporate setting is completely different. They can choose how you access
their own hardware (putting aside personal gripes for purposes of efficiency
and convenience)

However the real problem is hardware level DRM implementation and non-open
CPUs, which really mean that I cannot truly own my own personal computer

------
mark_l_watson
This 6 year old article is still relevant but now most of the public seems
very satisfied with iPhones or Android phones as their primary digital device.
Even though I can hack on Haskell and Python code on my iOS devices, I see
them, and am happy with them basically being appliances.

When I program, I am in portable environments (Pharo Smalltalk, Emacs with
Common Lisp or Haskell) that more or less can sit on top of any general
purpose OS.

If our government (I am in the USA) locks down computing devices to an extreme
extent, then that will just screw up our economy and more well run tax
jurisdictions (countries) will benefit.

------
pmiller2
I'm really surprised there was no direct mention of the DMCA. That's turned
out to be the thing that's given us un-repairable John Deere tractors and
printers that won't use 3rd-party ink cartridges.

~~~
zardo
At least until next year, your tractor software is not protected by the DMCA.

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151027/10131232649/libra...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151027/10131232649/library-
congress-releases-dmca-anti-circumvention-exemptions-hot-mess.shtml)

------
naveen99
You will always be able to do general purpose computing, maybe just with a
loss of speed. No one is going to back door every 10 dollar microcontroller.

~~~
ominous
And there's always pen and paper. ahah, silly article, worrying about such
nonsense. /s

~~~
naveen99
10 dollar microcontrollers are way more powerful then pen and paper. In 10
years they may be as powerful as today's $2000 computers.

It's a matter of scale. You can do general electronics with some AA batteries.
If you want to build a nuclear reactor, yeah there will be interest from
others in your affairs.

~~~
VLM
"In 10 years they may be as powerful as today's $2000 computers."

That's been continuously true for some decades now. What might save us is
capitalism in that the bean counters are not permitting $10 controllers for a
toaster, those get the ten cent controllers. Also the cost of labor to program
those is a limiter in that a mass market toaster with $50M of programming
budget will be financially destroyed in the marketplace by a competitor
spending $5K on "its a 60-180 second timer, nothing more".

An embedded swamp will form of $25K cars with expensive insecure software.
Your car will get powned 1000x more often than your toaster even though the
risk to your life is fairly similar.

