

Lockdown - The coming war on general-purpose computing  - fedxc
http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

======
colmmacc
I wanted to repeat a comment I made in the thread about Cory's talk - as I'd
be interested in the answer.

Many of today's printers, scanners and image editors already ship with
restrictions designed to prevent the counterfeiting of currency. In effect
general-purpose digital imaging has already been restricted.

What I wonder is how are these restrictions implemented, legally? Do laws or
regulations require it? Or is it ad-hoc? Are OEM vendors persuaded or paid to
implement it by the proprietors of the pattern matching technology (who in
turn sell it to currency mints), or they concerned about vicarious liability
if they don't?

I'm interested because this may serve as a template for how other restrictions
are implemented in future.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
It's done today purely out of cost restrictions.

Why build a printer that you can plug a monitor into, power some usb devices,
and also connect a keyboard and mouse to?

It would be entirely pointless and too expensive for a manufacturer to do
that.

~~~
Retric
Your missing his point. Printers have anti counter-fitting measures built in
and it costs _more_ money to build them that way.

[http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/surveillance/2008-07-13-pr...](http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/surveillance/2008-07-13-printer_N.htm)

It's mostly a non issue, but there are always edge cases. For example there is
software that let's you print backup data that can latter be scanned in which
was somewhat hampered by this technology. 600DPI * 600DPI * 24 bits * 8.5inch
* 11 inch = ~100mb a page which is not all that amazing today, but still
useful in the early 90's.

~~~
finnw
> _100mb a page which is not all that amazing today_

100mb is probably enough to hold all the code you will write in your lifetime.

------
lukev
While this is something that we have to remain vigilant about (case in point,
vigorous opposition to SOPA), I think the cat's much too far out of the bag to
actually worry about general-purpose computing itself.

To effectively prohibit _any_ general-purpose computer, the government would
effectively have to forbid the sale of transistors and solder.

What Microsoft, Apple or any particular hardware or software company chooses
to do might be objectionable and annoying but it can hardly threaten open
computing itself: I can always build my own PC and install linux.

~~~
waqf
The government won't forbid the sale of transistors and solder. They don't
have to, for two reasons.

Firstly, nobody can build a computer _to the standard of a contemporary
desktop_ out of transistors and solder. It simply can't be done, even if you
don't care about its size or power consumption. You can build a little 4-bit
computer, but that's no use to you. So they don't have to prevent all
unsecured computation, they just have to prevent you doing more than, say, a
billion cycles of computation.

Second, even if the bar is much lower than that — say, you can buy all the
chips you need, you just can't buy them preassembled into circuit boards —
that's already an effective suppression of general purpose computation. Maybe
you personally have the skills and the time to build a computer from those
pieces, but I and most people don't. So I've been effectively prevented from
computation. I won't write programs and post them on the net, and the online
programming communities will dwindle to a small bunch of experts.

And once almost nobody builds or uses general-purpose computers, it's much
easier for the government to say "We can't think of a legitimate reason you
need a computer, therefore, anyone who has one is a
terrorist/pirate/communist." QED.

~~~
sliverstorm
The only devices I am aware of that are regulated to the point of "you must
assemble them yourself" are hand grenades and fully automatic weapons.

It may just be me, but I don't think our society views general purpose
computers as quite that dangerous.

~~~
waqf
I wouldn't say that society views industrial quantities of fertilizer as
dangerous, but the FBI keeps track of who's buying it.

~~~
sliverstorm
Industrial quantities of fertilizer IS dangerous. The Oslo bombing wasn't even
that long ago, have you forgotten?

~~~
waqf
You missed my point. Of course it's dangerous if you _want_ it to be, but so
is a kitchen knife.

The point is, stuff eventually gets regulated because of how it _might_ be
used, not because of how it's normally used.

~~~
sliverstorm
But is fertilizer actually regulated?

~~~
waqf
Apparently yes: [http://cnsnews.com/news/article/fertilizer-control-dhs-
creat...](http://cnsnews.com/news/article/fertilizer-control-dhs-creates-
ammonium-nitrate-security-program)

(Thanks for making me research it, I learned some interesting stuff and I
would learn more if I had more time.)

------
phelmig
I saw Cory's talk at the 28c3 in Berlin. There is a video available here:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg>

You might agree not on everything but I think it's a great talk to give non-
technical people an idea what might happen.

~~~
umarmung
This is a fantastic talk, thank you for the link!

It covers much more than even the Lockdown article and the questions from the
audience at the end are both interesting and lead to even more interesting
responses.

------
nicktelford
I find it somewhat ironic that DRM, SOPA and all the other various techniques
designed to prevent copyright infringement are being championed by the
politicians of a country who's attitude towards firearms control is "guns
don't kill people, people kill people".

Movies don't download themselves, people download them.

------
gaius
I am prepared for the coming infocalypse, I have dusted off my old BBC Micro
and am re-learning 6502 assembly language.

~~~
mst
I'd seriously consider dusting off a RISC PC or late model Archimedes instead;
ARM26 is a joy to work with compared to 6502 (at least for me) and the RISC OS
system is quite beautiful to work with. Plus, I (perhaps naively) figure that
there'll be plenty of ARM chips continuing to be shipped in devices where I
can somehow get the thing to do what I want, whereas I'm not so sure the 6502
architecture would be so widely useful.

------
codehalo
Whether hardware is locked down or not, it will soon become quite obvious that
it is the internet that has all the value. Be it an open, a general or
proprietary device, they will ALL see their value diminish without and within
the network. This network cannot be unborn.

~~~
SkyMarshal
>This network cannot be unborn.

People keep repeating that, like an article of faith. I really wouldn't put it
past the smart folks at NSA or wherever to figure out a way to gradually turn
the Internet into Cable TV. I don't think the Internet's current ability to
"interpret censorship as damage an route around it" is something we should
take completely for granted.

------
jamesbritt
Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3400449>

------
sown
If this happens, does this mean that manufacturers or vendors will have to
practically _give away_ computers? They're already so cheap that even the
slightest tech-savvy consumer will just go ahead and pay a tiny, small premium
for the ability to do whatever.

------
programnature
Program or be programmed.

~~~
lani
more like 'use it or lose it' ?

------
J3L2404
Cory is a tremendous fiction writer, but this particular article isn't. Sure
the government passes bad laws. They always will. How did prohibition work
out?

A talented hacker has much more power than any official. If people want
'locked' systems that can't be hacked it shouldn't ruffle your feathers.
They're not hackers.

If you close the door on reality it _will_ come in the window every time.

The sky is always falling. The end is always near.

~~~
adrianN
But unlike during the prohibition, the vast majority of the people doesn't
really care about whether they can run arbitrary programs on their computer.
Most are content if it runs Facebook. A sizeable portion would probably even
like computers that are as realiable as a dishwasher because they run only
certified programs.

------
maeon3
If we don't bake freedom right into these handheld computers. We will wake up
as pets on the land our fathers conquered.

------
lallysingh
Really, what's this trollbait doing on HN's front page?

------
amitparikh
The article raises some interesting points, but I think the author makes a
major error by misusing the terms 'spyware' and 'malware' multiple times
throughout.

The term 'spyware', in particular, has a well-defined meaning which indicates
that the malicious software is communicating data back to the creator in order
to exploit the user unknowingly. The author of this article uses the term to
refer to non-general-purpose computers, and I think that's exceptionally
misleading. The iPad could be considered a non-general-purpose computer, but
most people would not go around labeling it as coming pre-loaded with
'spyware'.

~~~
incomethax
That's exactly what Doctorow is arguing. He says that we don't actually have a
way to make a computer capable of only running specific applications, we just
have general purpose computers that are loaded with spyware/malware to prevent
running every program as an approximation to a specialized computer.

~~~
amitparikh
Yup. I was just pointing out the misuse of the terminology. Specialized
computers certainly are, as you say, just general-purpose computers with
restrictive software. But calling all of the restrictive software 'spyware' or
'malware' is unfair to a multitude of devices that are intended to operate in
a specialized way. I think it's scare-tactics and a failure of the author to
generalize all restrictive software as 'spyware' or 'malware'

~~~
wladimir
That's only a minute technical distinction. It is spyware, because the only
way to prevent users from doing general purpose computing is to spy in them.
Spying, in this case, is defined as "remote surveillance and control". For
example, forcing a firmware upgrade when a way is found to get around code
signing restrictions.

It is very simple: If you are not in control of a device, someone else is.

