
Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing (2011) - gfmio
https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
======
ChuckMcM
I like the essay but it fails to realize the goal posts are not fixed on the
field. General purpose computing is alive and well and cheaper than ever, you
can build the equivalent of a PC/AT for about $50 in parts.

What Cory misses is that when we were building CP/M machines and IBM PC
clones, there already was a big pile of computers that were locked down so
that somebody else could make money off of you using them. I went to school at
a time when you were allocated a fixed number of kilocoreseconds (kilowords of
core you could occupy on the big computer charged on a per second rate) and I
had my kit Z80 system and felt very superior.

Computers got more powerful and now the one that was sold to you has the more
than the capabilities than the one where it was already proven you could
extract value for using it, so people continue to extract that value. And when
their extraction is sidestepped, they work with computer makers and software
makers to regain the upper hand. The goal posts moved.

What has also happened is that the backbone of what used to be the "personal
computer" market was people who were more fascinated with the computers
themselves than with the software they might run on them. The manufacturers
worked to appeal to the tool users, the architects, engineers, and others who
understood the value of computation for their job and so they were willing to
invest for the right tools. There are a _lot_ more of those people then nerds
who like computers. The goal posts moved.

Today's "computer" market is not really about computers, its about a platform
for consuming digital products. Whether it is entertainment, or navigation, or
gaming. That you could run a compiler on that thing and make new programs that
it could run is nearly incidental (and certainly insignificant) to the market
who buys it. The goal posts moved.

We have reached the point where general purpose computers are these $35 and
$50 things for people interested in computers and for no one else. Even when
people try to push them that way.

I don't believe there is an assault on general purpose computers, what is
happening is that thing you called a computer before is what back in the day
we called a TV and a telephone and a radio and a record player, except all in
one package that runs all day in your pocket. It has a computer _in it_ but it
isn't a _computer_ in the original sense of general purpose computing. There
are lots of general purpose computers, and there are now FPGAs that are easily
loaded with general purpose computation. You just can't run gcc on your TV.

~~~
craftuser
> You just can't run gcc on your TV.

I'd be interested in speaking with anyone who has tried. =]

But moreover, I think your point about the goal posts is apt given "the goal"
is to have "cheap GPC" since the definition of cheap changes (in dollars
adjusted for time) but the definition of GPC also changes. And so, you might
say we're even moving them in (at least) two dimensions.

~~~
qhwudbebd
You could run gcc quite nicely on the little rockchip boards in a lot of smart
TVs (people do repurpose them quite a bit) but I bet you'd melt the TV if you
tried to compile gcc on there!

------
inimino
I've been thinking about this article a lot in the last couple years. It felt
slightly alarmist at the time but seems prescient now.

~~~
api
Virtually every alarmist article from the past 50 years about mass
surveillance, tech lockdown, etc. seems prescient now. Today's surveillance
capitalism exceeds the wildest fever nightmares of 1990s shortwave radio
conspiracy nuts.

~~~
jstewartmobile
"shortwave radio conspiracy prophets"

There, corrected it for you.

------
chaz6
My fear for the future is that any computing device must have a government
provided co-processor, and it will not be able to connect to a network without
it. Any citizen found with an illegal device would be punished.

~~~
gameswithgo
You fear the government doing something like this but the corporation already
has. What difference is there? Please don't claim that the government has a
monopoly on violence, that is certainly not the case.

~~~
vageli
> You fear the government doing something like this but the corporation
> already has. What difference is there? Please don't claim that the
> government has a monopoly on violence, that is certainly not the case.

Can you please give an example from recent history (past twenty years) of
corporations forming a duopoly on violence?

~~~
sneak
Apple PIs accompanying police in their official capacity to investigative
sites during their stolen iPhone 4 investigation comes to mind.

Also Blackwater, and the breakup of Occupy, which was a public/private
partnership between law enforcement and the banks.

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saagarjha
> People who took the software without paying for it were untouched.

This is a fundamental issue of DRM: people who "break the rules" end up better
for it. If you annoy people, they _will_ find ways around your rules, and then
you won't be able to touch them.

~~~
stcredzero
On the other hand, such rules are more easily applied to corporations and
government organizations. I say we should start making big companies use
Trusted Execution technologies to use people's data, so we can keep the keys
and take away their access when we want to.

------
dang
A couple older discussions, from 2017:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14335261](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14335261)

and from 2012:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3448754](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3448754)

------
musicale
>"fix the Internet so that thepiratebay.org no longer resolves," sounds a lot
like .. “take that pizzeria on the corner off the phone network," and not like
an attack on the fundamental principles of internetworking.

I don't get this - disconnecting the pizzeria from the phone network seems
more severe than simply removing it from the yellow pages. If you remove
thepiratebay from DNS you can still reach it via its IP address, you can still
link to it, and you can probably still find it using search engines.

~~~
ultrarunner
DNS is a fundemental component of the internet. Currently, computers trust
their upstream DNS servers to resolve correctly. Imagine if tpb resolves
incorrectly on some networks. People on those networks may choose to use a
different DNS server that resolves TPB correctly, but maybe has a grudge
against Google and resolves an IP for Yahoo instead. Other DNS servers may
have other grudges, or policies, or political pressures.

The end result is that DNS cannot be trusted, and so the design entirely
breaks. Imagine ordering a package but not knowing if the delivery driver will
see your address at your house or someone else’s.

This isn’t just removing something from the yellow pages, it’s introducing
distrust into the phone system itself.

~~~
mr_toad
> Imagine if tpb resolves incorrectly on some networks.

It already does. DNS can’t be totally trusted now. Arguably it’s already
broken.

~~~
ultrarunner
Agreed. I can't see DNS not being redesigned at some point in the future. I
really hope it will end up decentralized, but it could go either way.

------
basicplus2
You'll take my general purpose computer from my cold dead hands!

~~~
nixpulvis
Or maybe they'll slowly replace it, while you lie dying in bed unaware as to
the problem.

~~~
ClassyJacket
Apple is already doing this. They've recently required that ALL software run
on Mac is signed by them, even apps from outside of the App Store.

[https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=04102019a](https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=04102019a)

Not much longer until we can't run software Apple doesn't like at all.

Because I shouldn't get a say in what I run on my four thousand dollar
computer, of course.

~~~
tom_
Right click bundle icon, click `Open', follow instructions (such as they are).
It's been like this for years.

You might have to tick the 'App Store and identified developers' option in the
General section of the Security & Privacy preference pane? - but my
recollection is that if you don't, you just need to right click a bit more
often...

I was a mite concerned when they introduced this stuff, but the net effect has
been minimal, and I've (so far?) found no reason to disable it.

~~~
dingaling
And people complain that desktop Linux is arcane and full of obscure
configurations

~~~
tom_
They do.

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Joakal
That reminds me of this video on TPM:
[https://www.lafkon.net/tc/](https://www.lafkon.net/tc/)

Bruce Schneier on TPM:
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/tpm_to_end_pi...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/tpm_to_end_pira.html)

------
narrator
When AI gets smart enough to do bad things there will definitely be a
lockdown. What happens when you can program your robot to commit crimes for
you? You won't be able to load certain types of programs by law. They are
already doing this with geofencing for drones.

~~~
Buttons840
I disagree. It may be a convenient narrative for those who want to lock down
computers, even on the desktop, but remember that our desktop computers have
had intelligent agents capable of committing crimes for decades, and it hasn't
been a big problem all things considered. Of course, by "intelligent agent"
I'm referring to the animal that operates the computer by pushing buttons.

If machine learning and other advanced AI produces sophisticated programs
capable of assisting in these crimes, or of performing the crimes
automatically, how will that change anything? The human pushing buttons
committed a crime and got caught, the advanced AI committed a crime and got
caught, what's the difference? Either way the person responsible for the
computer is punished.

Of course, if computers reach super-human intelligence, then all bets are off,
and having access to general purpose computers might be the least of our
concerns.

~~~
gmueckl
You neglect the scale of the damage done in the various crimes. Yes, the
person giving the command is tesponsibke, but law enforcement also includes
crime prevention. This means keeping the most terrible crime supporting stuff
out of the hands of the people (guns, anyone?) and dissuading people from
doing bad things.

A network commected computer rarely leads to more than deleted files and
leaked data elsewhere. In the hands of capable, well funded hackers,
devastating damage could be done to infrastructure these days, but few actors
are interested in that and they mostly exist in a space where conventional law
enforcement is powerless.

An autonomous roving robot that could be patched to turn into a murderbot is
facilitating crimes of a completely different magnitude. There will be
political will to rein that in as soon as the possibility becomes real.

This will have an effect on self driving cars as well: these will be locked
down completely, mostly by political mandate. And the cause will be reckless
hackers building uncertified firmware that is either of low/unproven quality
or capable of breaking the law on request in some reckless form or other.

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blakesterz
Someone might want to add "2012" to this title.

~~~
webmaven
Or [2012].

~~~
dang
Brackets for [pdf] and [video], parens for (year). Don't ask me why!

