Interesting read

I just re-read The Right To Read, by Richard M. Stallman. It's not the greatest piece of literary style, but the content is good. It really bothers me that society is going this way.

More on IndyMedia: the FBI were able to get around the normal notification requirements of a warrant by issuing the warrant to RackSpace, and then hitting them with a gag order (Patriot Act, I believe). That makes it illegal for RackSpace to tell anyone, including IndyMedia, what the legal justification of the warrant was, thereby making it impossible for IndyMedia to seek legal recourse. This loophole would make it possible for police to raid any rental property, without notification of the actual tennant/lessor. This is legal according to the letter of the law, but clearly violates the spirit.

There is some good news, though. Microsoft have announced that they are fundamentally reviewing the role of Palladium/Trusted Computing in Longhorn - with an announcement due at the end of the year. All the indications are that it will be massively refocussed on corporate document control/corporate execution environments, rather than a wider DRM scheme. I might be able to live with that, depending upon the details. I will never buy hardware or software that prevents me from installing/writing software when I want to, on the platform of my choice, or with the requirement of third party consent (whether through law, or through a Digital Rights Management scheme). I urge all my readers to do the same. If a requirement of signed/approved binaries were to take even a small foothold, it wouldn't be long before it was effectively illegal (under the DMCA) and impossible (due to hardware) to run free software. Licensing/bonding of programmers would not be far behind, and the corporate stranglehold over IT would be complete.

That said, a trusted architecture could be very useful - as long as I, or other administrators - are the ones trusted by the hardware/software. Only permitting execution/installation of signed/approved binaries on corporate networks would be a very good thing: no more malware, no more crap on workstations that the users don't own, and no more worries of corrupted binaries destroying things by accident. It's a fine line.
Mood: happy
Music: Inkubus Sukkubus - Supernature