Pluralistic: Forcing your computer to rat you out (02 August 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.net

"When we let corporations decide who is allowed to speak, they act with a mixture of carelessness and self-interest, becoming off-the-books deputies of authoritarian regimes and corrupt, powerful elites.

Alas, we made the wrong tradeoff with Trusted Computing. For the past twenty years, Trusted Computing has been creeping into our devices, albeit in somewhat denatured form. "

“As I wrote last week, giving manufacturers the power to decide how your computer is configured, overriding your own choices, is a bad tradeoff - the worst tradeoff, a greased slide into terminal enshittification”

  • @[email protected]
    25•1 year ago

    We may be entering the dark ages of general purpose computing, as the pioneers (tech giants) of this space hoard technology for themselves. How is the next generation going to pioneer new tech innovations when they don’t even grow up in an environment where they can learn about computing? Because general purpose computing will be locked away from the public. This is not just a disaster for privacy and liberty, this greed is a disaster for the economy.

    • Bipta
      8•1 year ago

      Technology advances with great rapidity and threatens freedom at many different points at the same time (crowding, rules and regulations, increasing dependence of individuals on large organizations, propaganda and other psychological techniques, genetic engineering, invasion of privacy through surveillance devices and computers, etc.). To hold back any ONE of the threats to freedom would require a long and difficult social struggle. Those who want to protect freedom are overwhelmed by the sheer number of new attacks and the rapidity with which they develop, hence they become apathetic and no longer resist. To fight each of the threats separately would be futile. Success can be hoped for only by fighting the technological system as a whole; but that is revolution, not reform. – The Unabomber

  • @InverseParallaxEnglish
    17•1 year ago

    Yup, TC was weakened, and so far not powerful enough to hurt, but it’s still a threat.

    DRM is everywhere in some form or another, again usually not strong enough to stop determined attackers but enough to create a barrier that, one that can be raised as needed in an “emergency”.