TCPA/PALLADIUM

[Aldis A. Tuck]

[snipped](written by someone else)

In the UK (where I live), it is perfectly legal for
you to take any
number of copies of software, CDs, DVDs, or videtapes
for personal use
that you have legitimately bought.  It is general
legal opinion that
EULAs which define a company's ability to impose legal
sanctions are
illegal unless they specifically define a UK Act of
Parliament for the
purpose and it has been tested in Court.  It is
general legal opinion
that deCSS is probably not illegal in the UK at the
moment because
owning the code allows you to use DVDs you have
legitimately bought, not
to copy them, though draft legislation is in the wings
which would make
it illegal.

TCPA and Palladium will make this legal position
untenable.  Owners of
access to the software and hardware involved in a
Palladium/TCPA system
will be able to stop software running or limit its use
under specified
circumstances which may be legally correct in
California but which may
be against the laws of this jurisdiction.  And some of
the uses which it
could be used for will erode further our privacy and
liberty if they are
not controlled.  It also drives a coach and horses
through the GPL and
similar software licenses.

The GPL relies for its existance on people getting
code and ALTERING it
providing those alterations are written up in a
revised source code and
distributed with the alteration.  TCPA requires you to
register the code
and all future instances of the binary running will be
referenced
against that registration.  If no internet connection
is made within a
certain time, the system will fail to run: if an
internet connection is
made, those that have control of the software you are
using can allow or
disallow it.  In short, you cannot alter a piece of
code or tailor a
server to your requirements, as you were able under
the GPL: it is in
the hands of others.

Those that think this is a nightmare science-fiction
scenario, should
look at what has become available recently.  Both
Intel and AMD have
been producing TCPA compliant chips and I understand
that a series of
Dell laptops already has them installed; the X-Box is
totally TCPA
hardware compliant and Sony's PS2 software has been
built around a core
which is in line with the basis of Microsoft's
specification for
Palladium.  Palladium is not yet with us, but the
specification for its
core software has been published, and the system will
be incorporated
into the next generation of Windows OS.

Of course, we could say we're having nothing to do
with it, but every
single hardware upgrade we get, or every replacement
part, will be
designed to be part of a hardware/software TCPA
system.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes
http://finance.yahoo.com