[Lvlug] A good read: TCPA FAQ

[dann]

I meant to send this to the list yesterday, but again, only sent it too
myself.  Getting lazy in my old age.

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/tcpa-faq.html

I know Linc disagrees with me on this, but this is a serious wake up call.
 I do believe Palladium is going to be a reality.  IBM has been shipping
TCPA compliant ThinkPads for 3 years now.  Palladium is going to placed in
servers and desktops and leak into software.  Eventually it is going to
spread throughout the networking infra-structure much like office has
spread through the business environment.  It will spread because MS
already has the desktop and people are going to just accept it.  PC
magazine is going to praise how much more secure Palladium makes our data
and CEO's are going to buy it.  They'll have to buy it because the next MS
OS will already have it.  Your intel hardware will have Palladium chips
and an OS with Palladium control.  I don't foresee a mass exodus to linux,
freebsd, or mac OS in the near future.  In fact, Mac will probably jump on
the band wagon too.  

Sounds kind of depressing, I know, but I'm not the only one with the view
point.  I was speaking with a mac giant today who voiced that the average
joe is just going to accept this control.  They will accept it because 1) 
They feel they have no other choice, and 2)  They are so accustomed to
bugs, viruses, and lack of control that they are already submissive
enough.  Can't visit a site because it is not Palladium compliant?  Or
your machine is not Palladium compliant?  Too bad, they'll just have to
make due with something else.

I don't like the concept of TCPA, and Palladium even more.  I don't like
it that I would have to register my machine anytime I made a change or
that I could not just take my data from one location to another as easily
as I can now.  

I wonder how the rest of the world is going to take the concept of control
by an American Company?

I wonder what Palladium would do to Mozilla and netscape?  If they don't
realese the code how will these browsers make it?  How will Opera succeed?
 Will they have the revenue for Palladium support?  

I'm breaking out my old TI-994a and getting back to the basics.

-- 
Daniel S. Washko
Lehigh Valley Linux Users Group
www.thelinuxlink.net/lvlinux
get slack (www.slackware.com ) and get happy