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IF DRM worked, it could be used in the other direction, and your private information could be distributed in the form of software agents. Big if here, granted

IF DRM worked, it could be used in the other direction, and your private information could be distributed in the form of software agents. Big if here, granted. However, I suspect that something like Vernor Vinge's "Trusted Computing Environment" will eventually exist. It's too useful not to. I agree that it's a big 'if', because I don't think that DRM will actually ever work reasonably well, and I don't think usefulness is a huge boost -- there are too many confounding factors, even if the encryption itself isn't cracked. I'm not sure what to quote of the middle of your post. :) First off, "legal" is pretty fluid; I can find a jurisdiction that allows me to do whatever I want with personal information. Second, once someone has a copy of personal information in an unencrypted format, the source becomes very difficult to identify (unless everyone gets a customized copy, as you point out for email; I used a scheme like this to track who was selling my email to spammers from 1998 for a few years, but it didn't do me any good to find out, and it was a bit of trouble to keep up with). But essentially, privacy and copyright are the same fight, and if you can come up with an effective enforcement tool for either one, the other one is solved as well. Somehow, the situation shifted the other direction in this case. I'm not suggesting that there's any social inevitability, here, except as a result of a technological one.

stcredzero 18y ago
First off, "legal" is pretty fluid; I can find a jurisdiction that allows me to do whatever I want with personal information. The GPL seems to work regardless. It works because it is respected by and large by the programmer community, and because most of the relevant places respect the relevant laws. Second, once someone has a copy of personal information in an unencrypted format, the source becomes very difficult to identify (unless everyone gets a customized copy, as you point out for email; A "Trusted Computing Environment" would ensure that only the trusted environment would ever get a copy. I used a scheme like this to track who was selling my email to spammers from 1998 for a few years, but it didn't do me any good to find out, and it was a bit of trouble to keep up with). If it was implemented as a protocol and integrated in the browser, the user would only have to see "Received at address send to X" and the rest could happen automatically. I'm not suggesting that there's any social inevitability, here, except as a result of a technological one. But printing kept on getting more efficient throughout the Industrial Revolution. The cost of transcription was a relative non-issue. The technology trended in a direction that would indicate more copying. Yet it came to pass that there was less copying of books and that it wasn't as acceptable. Why?
- randallsquared 18y ago
  Barriers to entry for printing kept getting higher until the mimeograph, and I think the barrier to entry is more relevant than the overall efficiency per copy. In order to get those efficiencies, you needed a factory, essentially, and factories are easy to find and legislate about. Similarly, Prohibition didn't work because it was so easy to make your own in your own home (or the woods). Other drugs have been somewhat easier to legislate effectively against because they require more infrastructure. Marijuana is the exception, and that's also the most widely used illegal recreational drug. "Coincidence? I think not."

stcredzero 18y ago

First off, "legal" is pretty fluid; I can find a jurisdiction that allows me to do whatever I want with personal information. The GPL seems to work regardless. It works because it is respected by and large by the programmer community, and because most of the relevant places respect the relevant laws. Second, once someone has a copy of personal information in an unencrypted format, the source becomes very difficult to identify (unless everyone gets a customized copy, as you point out for email; A "Trusted Computing Environment" would ensure that only the trusted environment would ever get a copy. I used a scheme like this to track who was selling my email to spammers from 1998 for a few years, but it didn't do me any good to find out, and it was a bit of trouble to keep up with). If it was implemented as a protocol and integrated in the browser, the user would only have to see "Received at address send to X" and the rest could happen automatically. I'm not suggesting that there's any social inevitability, here, except as a result of a technological one. But printing kept on getting more efficient throughout the Industrial Revolution. The cost of transcription was a relative non-issue. The technology trended in a direction that would indicate more copying. Yet it came to pass that there was less copying of books and that it wasn't as acceptable. Why?

randallsquared 18y ago
Barriers to entry for printing kept getting higher until the mimeograph, and I think the barrier to entry is more relevant than the overall efficiency per copy. In order to get those efficiencies, you needed a factory, essentially, and factories are easy to find and legislate about. Similarly, Prohibition didn't work because it was so easy to make your own in your own home (or the woods). Other drugs have been somewhat easier to legislate effectively against because they require more infrastructure. Marijuana is the exception, and that's also the most widely used illegal recreational drug. "Coincidence? I think not."