Steven Levy in Newsweek has an excellent and scary column on why Big Forces want to lock down the Internet and how they’re doing so under the guise of “trusted computing” and other industry efforts.

Here’s the John Walker he talks about. And Jon Husband points us to this Paul Hughes piece on VoIP’s challenge to the telcos.

Eric is pissed by the Levy article. I really disagree with Eric’s argument that DRM, “trusted computing,” et al. are neutral technologies because they can be used for good or evil.

Well, sure, you could mug someone by threatening him with a hypodermic full of polio vaccine, but if we look at the technology and the context into which it’s being introduced, I’m willing to say that polio vaccine is good and DRM et al. is (not nearly as unambiguously) bad.

Whether I’m right or wrong about DRM et al., I’ll still argue that we need to discuss the likely moral/social impact of technologies. Discuss and act. In fact, I like Eric’s closing: “Wanna do something about it? Great. Start a company. Write a program. Come up with a business plan.” (And for those of who write: Write something!)

Categories: Uncategorized dw