4 ms·

Nice to read this excellent essay again. It has stood the test of time. Far from being a straw-man it presciently describes what has come to be since 1997: The

Nice to read this excellent essay again. It has stood the test of time. Far from being a straw-man it presciently describes what has come to be since 1997: The idea of "illicit debugging tools" (DMCA against reverse engineering). The leverage of debt against free learning and research. Draconian monitoring and threatening of academic staff and students by "university IT police". The ostensible use of copyright protection as a cloak for "selling personal interest profiles to retailers". No matter how you cut it, how much you detest his style, puns, defence of inconvenient friends and personal hygiene.... as always Stallman was right. Most of all, and his greatest sin in this age, Stallman's writing has a compassionate streak. Even Orwell was too cynical to let something as schmaltzy as "love" triumph in Nineteen Eighty Four. But here, as in other passages by Stallman, we see the human urge to share and help one another is leveraged by the exploiters to herd, separate and corral us toward digital domestication.

dane-pgp 4y ago
> it presciently describes what has come to be since 1997 The only question now is when will the system he describes become fully operational? When will it be impossible to go online using a device that can't produce a "Secure Boot" attestation that it is running an "approved" operating system (namely one which runs a process like Gatekeeper[0] to monitor for unapproved applications)? My guess is that some G7/EU/FVEY nation will pass a law to that effect before the 20th anniversary of Stallman's essay. That will give time for desktop users to "upgrade" to Windows 11, with its required Pluton chip. If the law does allow "hobbyist" OSes like GNU/Linux to access the internet, it will probably require them to install a CA certificate for TLS interception. [0] https://www.pcmag.com/news/apple-explains-why-it-grabs-data-from-mac-computers-amid-privacy-concerns https://www.pcmag.com/news/apple-explains-why-it-grabs-data-...
- jbay808 4y ago
  > My guess is that some G7/EU/FVEY nation will pass a law to that effect before the 20th anniversary of Stallman's essay. Before 2017?
  - dane-pgp 4y ago
    Oops, I guess I meant 30 years. Thanks for catching that. Anyway, 2027 is only 5 years away, but it's after 2025 which is when Microsoft ends security support for Windows 10 (and thus when countries will be able to claim with a straight face that if your computer doesn't support Secure Boot then it's too dangerous for you to be allowed online). https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/14/22533018/microsoft-windows-10-end-support-date https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/14/22533018/microsoft-window...

dane-pgp 4y ago

> it presciently describes what has come to be since 1997 The only question now is when will the system he describes become fully operational? When will it be impossible to go online using a device that can't produce a "Secure Boot" attestation that it is running an "approved" operating system (namely one which runs a process like Gatekeeper[0] to monitor for unapproved applications)? My guess is that some G7/EU/FVEY nation will pass a law to that effect before the 20th anniversary of Stallman's essay. That will give time for desktop users to "upgrade" to Windows 11, with its required Pluton chip. If the law does allow "hobbyist" OSes like GNU/Linux to access the internet, it will probably require them to install a CA certificate for TLS interception. [0] https://www.pcmag.com/news/apple-explains-why-it-grabs-data-from-mac-computers-amid-privacy-concerns https://www.pcmag.com/news/apple-explains-why-it-grabs-data-...

jbay808 4y ago
> My guess is that some G7/EU/FVEY nation will pass a law to that effect before the 20th anniversary of Stallman's essay. Before 2017?
- dane-pgp 4y ago
  Oops, I guess I meant 30 years. Thanks for catching that. Anyway, 2027 is only 5 years away, but it's after 2025 which is when Microsoft ends security support for Windows 10 (and thus when countries will be able to claim with a straight face that if your computer doesn't support Secure Boot then it's too dangerous for you to be allowed online). https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/14/22533018/microsoft-windows-10-end-support-date https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/14/22533018/microsoft-window...