Digital Freedom in the New Millenium

After a considerable amount of investigation into a new technology that Intel is integrating into its microprocessors (codenamed LaGrande) I developed a healthy skepticism of the future it promised. This hardware is designed to enable an operating system that supports a new standard of security, euphemistically called trusted computing (TC). The beneficiaries of this improved security will not be the end-user as much as the creators of digital media. And, of course Microsoft.

After a brief discussion with my father about this I forwarded him a link that Will sent me summarizing some of the key features of this technology. Included in that article is some speculation as to the abilities that TC systems will have that will also curb your current digital freedoms. The best summary of this issue I could find was found at the end of section 23:

TC does not so much provide security for the user as for the PC vendor, the software supplier, and the content industry. They do not add value for the user, but destroy it. They constrain what you can do with your PC in order to enable application and service vendors to extract more money from you. This is the classic definition of an exploitative cartel – an industry agreement that changes the terms of trade so as to diminish consumer surplus.

My further investigation online has not revealed anything that could dispute the Orwellian vision of our future that this article predicts. I could find nothing that challenged the freedom and privacy concerns voiced in this article.

I don’t have a problem with the movie or recording industry protecting their content from illegal duplication and distribution. I have a problem with being sold a PC that does less than it did the day before. And I have the greatest problem with the manner in which trusted computing will enable applications that are guaranteed not to be interoperable. Interoperability is why the PC market killed Apple despite selling less reliable computers that were more difficult to use. Common interfaces is why Intel and AMD can produce chips that are both faster and cheaper than non-x86 competitors. Keep standards open and you get RSA. Close them and you get DVD-CSS.

After this discussion, my father and I each decided to mail our respective U.S. Congressmen and Senators. A copy of the draft I submitted on March 5, 2005 is included here:

Congresswoman Eshoo, Senators Feinstein and Boxer (mails sent individually),

For seven years I have been a resident of various cities in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay. As an employee of Intel Corporation, a high-tech enthusiast, and a well-read citizen, I pay close attention to the technologies that become available to us yearly and consider the ways in which they will shape our lives. Today I write to you as a concerned citizen as to the future of my industry and the freedoms that it allows.

An initiative known as trusted computing (TC) is currently being developed under the support of the Trusted Computing Group with the aim of generating a more secure personal computer. Among praiseworthy ambitions such as curbing digital content piracy and reducing the impact of spam and viruses, a questionable doctrine of trust is being defined. The PC will only execute a trusted operating system, the operating system likewise with trusted applications, and those applications will only process trusted data.

Ostensibly, the promise of TC is a landscape of systems that are incapable of pirating software, unable to steal music, and free from damaging worms. In reality, it provides operating system and application developers a way of guaranteeing a lack of interoperability to their products. I can think of few examples in this country’s history in which a lack competition provided our citizens with better choices. In the fast-paced, high-tech field, interoperability is the bedrock of competition.

Also, I should point out that an equally disturbing threat to personal privacy is introduced with a trust relationship. With an operating system and applications that cannot be observed through inspection, PC users will be held hostage by their software manufacturers. Not only will the lay person continue to be able to only speculate as the operations of his system, but the ultra-technophile will be prevented from determining the operations that his own PC is performing. This lack of transparency is as deleterious to the health of the PC industry as it is to any industry.

I hope that you will take the time to investigate this matter to the best of your ability. Please understand the impact that this technology will have on our economy and choices in this digital age. Verify that, in our rush to protect the intellectual property of our artists and software creators, we don’t establish a system that prevents competition and limits the transparency of our indispensable computers.

Please give this technology due consideration before this consortium is allowed to enable a technology that is in the best interests of their stockholders but not those of the citizens of California.

Sincerely,

Scott B. Drummonds
363 N. Rengstorff Ave. #14
Mountain View, CA 94043

Updates to this topic will be made as I receive replies from the letter’s recipients.