[12284] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: RIAA turns against Hollings bill
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Gilmore)
Wed Jan 15 10:25:37 2003
X-Original-To: cryptography@wasabisystems.com
X-Original-To: cryptography@wasabisystems.com
To: Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com>
Cc: cypherpunks@lne.com, cryptography@wasabisystems.com
In-reply-to: <fdac1ace21439abfef4f76a81e6349af@dizum.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 00:53:53 -0800
From: John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com>
> How does this latest development change the picture? If there is no
> Hollings bill, does this mean that Trusted Computing will be voluntary,
> as its proponents have always claimed? And if we no longer have such
> a threat of a mandated Trusted Computing technology, how bad is it for
> the system to be offered in a free market?
The detailed RIAA statement tries to leave exactly this impression,
but it's the usual smokescreen. Check the sentence in their "7 policy
principles" joint statement, principle 6:
"... The role of government, if needed at all, should be limited to
enforcing compliance with voluntarily developed functional
specifications reflecting consensus among affected interests."
I.e. it's the same old game. TCPA is such a voluntarily developed
functional spec. So is the "broadcast flag", and the HDCP copy
protection of your video cable, and IBM's copy-protection for hard
disk drives. Everything is all voluntary, until some competitor
reverse engineers one of these, and builds a product that lets the
information get out of the little "consensus" boxes. Consumers want
that, but it can't be allowed to happen. THEN the role of government
is to eliminate that competitor by outlawing them and their product.
John
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo@wasabisystems.com
