Ed Felton of freedom-to-tinker.com reminds us that we make progress by tinkering. DRM is thus a major threat to innovation.

“Trusted computing” won’t shut down the Net entirely he says, but it’s very bad. In particular, remote attestation means that a remote app can tell exactly what apps you’re running and decide not to let you interact with it. Currently http does say which browser you’re using, but you can lie about it. Not with remote attestation, which also says what your computer’s configuration is. For example, if the Web site doesn’t like the VOIP software you have running, it could refuse to talk with you.

The IRC recommends this video for a humorous look at trusted computing. [Tags: f2c ed_felton drm digital_rights]

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