5 ms·

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. An

by chaz6 7y ago

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.

fuzzy2 7y ago
Government-provided? Not likely. The state has long since lost (well, more like willingly let slip) control to corporations. You already have those black-box coprocessors, like the Intel Management Engine.
- orbifold 7y ago
  Pretty sure the NSA can access the IME if they want to. Remote surveillance is build into mobile communication standards as well.
gameswithgo 7y ago
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 7y ago
  > 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 7y ago
    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.
- theonemind 7y ago
  I don’t think many large technology sector corporations employ physical violence. We do have organized crime, and private defense contractors like Halliburton, obviously, but in the context of companies that manufacture or influence manufacturing or distribution of computing components, if you want to say they do more physical violence than the government, I’d say that warrants a citation and evidence as an odd/irregular claim.
dTal 7y ago
This is already the case for mobile networks. Open source basebands are illegal. The best you can do is sequester your proprietary government-aproved co-processor as far as possible from your main processor, but most computers with such network adapters built-in aren't designed this way - they're designed to promiscuously share memory.
- vageli 7y ago
  > This is already the case for mobile networks. Open source basebands are illegal. The best you can do is sequester your proprietary government-aproved co-processor as far as possible from your main processor, but most computers with such network adapters built-in aren't designed this way - they're designed to promiscuously share memory. I don't think open source basebands are illegal per se. I thought the legal encumbrance was due to the NDAs under which documents related to wireless chipsets are released. Can you explain a bit more?
  - dTal 7y ago
    It's not that there's a law (that I'm aware of) forbidding baseband software where the source is public - it's that operating a device with uncertified firmware is illegal. That means that devices with user-modifiable baseband firmware are also illegal (or at any rate, no manufacturer will take responsibility). So open community development of baseband firmware, in the usual model, is impossible - you can't legally test it (at least not without a questionably-legal SDR, a femtocell, and a faraday cage) and you can't certify it. So while it might, technically, be true to say that open source basebands aren't illegal per se, the fact remains that they are functionally impossible because of the law.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Source requested.

by chaz6 7y ago

fuzzy2 7y ago

Government-provided? Not likely. The state has long since lost (well, more like willingly let slip) control to corporations. You already have those black-box coprocessors, like the Intel Management Engine.

orbifold 7y ago
Pretty sure the NSA can access the IME if they want to. Remote surveillance is build into mobile communication standards as well.

gameswithgo 7y ago

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 7y ago
> 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 7y ago
  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.
theonemind 7y ago
I don’t think many large technology sector corporations employ physical violence. We do have organized crime, and private defense contractors like Halliburton, obviously, but in the context of companies that manufacture or influence manufacturing or distribution of computing components, if you want to say they do more physical violence than the government, I’d say that warrants a citation and evidence as an odd/irregular claim.

dTal 7y ago

This is already the case for mobile networks. Open source basebands are illegal. The best you can do is sequester your proprietary government-aproved co-processor as far as possible from your main processor, but most computers with such network adapters built-in aren't designed this way - they're designed to promiscuously share memory.

vageli 7y ago
> This is already the case for mobile networks. Open source basebands are illegal. The best you can do is sequester your proprietary government-aproved co-processor as far as possible from your main processor, but most computers with such network adapters built-in aren't designed this way - they're designed to promiscuously share memory. I don't think open source basebands are illegal per se. I thought the legal encumbrance was due to the NDAs under which documents related to wireless chipsets are released. Can you explain a bit more?
- dTal 7y ago
  It's not that there's a law (that I'm aware of) forbidding baseband software where the source is public - it's that operating a device with uncertified firmware is illegal. That means that devices with user-modifiable baseband firmware are also illegal (or at any rate, no manufacturer will take responsibility). So open community development of baseband firmware, in the usual model, is impossible - you can't legally test it (at least not without a questionably-legal SDR, a femtocell, and a faraday cage) and you can't certify it. So while it might, technically, be true to say that open source basebands aren't illegal per se, the fact remains that they are functionally impossible because of the law.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Source requested.