
I've Seen the Future, and It Has a Kill Switch - pmjordan
http://www.schneier.com/essay-224.html
======
jumper
DRM has never been about stopping piracy. It's been about controlling how you
use your content. For example, I'm sure the media companies would love to
recreate that part of history where everybody rebought a bunch of music they
already owned to move from tape to compact disc. This is an extension of that,
though thankfully the difficulty in controlling this beast properly ought to
slow it's deployment.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
They will be able to control all of this (with few exceptions) once each and
every move on the internet is authenticated. It will happen. All they need to
do is cite terrorism and child pornography.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
Stop giving them ideas....

------
snitko
I was always wondering, to what extent this conspiracy theories actually work
in reality. I mean, sure there's a conspiracy, but is it like total control
with a very strict understanding of what people's lives should look like (as
in "They Live") or is it actually decentralized and not really scary. It's
very important, because it defines the means it should be fight with and
actually the need of this fight at all. And I still can't figure this out,
because just when it seems it's a huge very secret and organized conspiracy I
start to think of how dumb people actually are and how really hard would it be
for them to build a system like that.

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bprater
"The Pentagon wants a kill switch installed on airplanes... " Not altogether
sure that's the best switch to install on an airplane.

~~~
sspencer
If you live in NYC, every airplane looks like a problem.

Or at least, I imagine that is the fucked up rationale behind that particular
kill switch. While it could conceivably drop a hijacked plane before it nails
a building, I can't help but wonder how long it will take before some clever
antagonists start broadcasting kill signals to drop the planes remotely. Why
dirty your hands in a messy hijacking when you can just press a button from a
rooftop adjacent to an airport?

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streety
Looks similar if not identical to a post by Bruce Schneier on wired around the
same time. Some commentary on HN at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=228458>

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mlLK
At the rate we're going though I think the depths of what we should worry
about is whether or not a hard-drive has failed and if backups have been made.
We gotta ways to go before we see the _rise of the machines_.

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kqr2
Does anyone remember "trusted" computing?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_computing>

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meterplech
this can easily be extended to systems that prevent cars from speeding, being
put into drive with passengers not wearing seat-belts, etc...

this is why there are people who oppose mandatory seat-belt laws, the idea
being once you give up a modicum of freedom you can open up yourself to losing
more. if we all believe their should be mandatory seat-belt laws, why not
enforce them remotely and electronically?

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chaostheory
well it's good that open hardware
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_hardware>) is starting to grow and we now
have DIY 3d printers (<http://fabathome.org/>).

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ajkirwin
There's a solution to all of this, rather than sitting back and waiting for
the sky to fall.

We use our own operating systems and safe hardware. We develop new protocols
and technologies.

We build our own infrastructure and abandon the old.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
And our own laws?

~~~
tdavis
What do laws have to do with this? Almost none of the examples have anything
to do with laws (cell phones in restaurants, please) and the ones that do are
irrelevant because this is being partially described as a tool for _enforcing_
the law.

Laws can never be universally and compulsorily enforced because laws are
merely guidelines. "Don't do X because if we catch you will be punished with
Y." I imagine many of us, myself included, commit multiple crimes per day,
including various felonies. If these laws were enforced with omnipotence,
everyone would be in jail. Or life would just be a lot more boring.

Many of the "pleasantness" policies and laws this technology wants to enforce
are merely products of society; you can't fix society with more gadgets. In
fact, I don't think you can _fix_ it, period.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
Sure, all laws are products of society and eforcement is more or less leaky in
a very imbalanced way, but that's another story. I'm saying laws because my
assumption is that it will become illegal (maybe it is already in some
countries) to create or modify devices so that they do not enforce copyright
and other laws.

I am convinced that the one thing _all_ consumer devices including PCs will be
obliged to do is to authenticate users. Enforcement isn't trivial, but once it
is a felony the risk becomes so high that only organised crime will actually
do it, not hackers

~~~
Retric
It can still swing the other way, I and people like me think life of author +
10 or 30 years is plenty of time for copyrights to last. Others want it to
last forever, who wins is more a question politics than the laws of physics.

Getting the "kill switch" to work is all about the law. And having someone
"kill switch" 10,000 cars in some city would vary quickly change that law
should it ever show up.

~~~
ajkirwin
Somehow, I don't think so. They'd just say, "Oh, we need to make this EVEN
MORE STRINGENT AND DIFFICULT.", rather than abandon it.

~~~
Retric
Unlike computers, someone doing this every week is going to be unacceptable.

