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20 -May -2012 - 22:37
Wednesday, 04 January 2012 17:36

There IS a War Coming for Control Over Our Computing Devices.

OVER VIEW

Over the holidays, noted blogger Cory Doctorow delivered a keynote at the 28th Chaos Communication Congress in which he warned that one of the biggest problems on the technology scene is that control over our computing devices is about to be taken from us. There is a video of the address, called The Coming War on General Computingavailable on YouTube. Doctorow warns that the copyright wars are only the beginning of a much bigger set of issues having to do with how much we control our own devices. The address has already drawn much reaction from the open source community, and is, in some ways, a defense of open source principles.

Your computer will not be yours. What? How can you say that? I paid for it. Sure, you paid for it. But, Hardware,OS and Internet Lock-in and Lock-Out is the future here now.

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One of Doctorow's central points in his talk was that the devices we use now are going to become much more pervasive--even heading inside our bodies--making it even more important that we control how they work:

"As a member of the Walkman generation, I have made peace with the fact that I will require a hearing aid long before I die, and of course, it won't be a hearing aid, it will be a computer I put in my body. So when I get into a car - a computer I put my body into - with my hearing aid - a computer I put inside my body - I want to know that these technologies are not designed to keep secrets from me, and to prevent me from terminating processes on them that work against my interests."

Doctorow's address has prompted a post on OSnews titled "Richard Stallman Was Right All Along," which notes:

"Here we are, 2012, and [Stallman's] once paranoid what-ifs have become reality...There are people with the opinion that if you purchased a product and you can't hack its limitations, can't change some of those company control-freak issues, then you don't actually own it. Hackers are often the answer to modding hardware or software so it can do things the manufacturer meant to prevent . . . but there may be a war coming where all control over computing devices is taken from us."

We've noted before that Richard Stallman sometimes takes his notions on the value of free, open software to the extreme, taking aim at eBooks and eschewing smartphones, but it does seem that the stakes are getting higher when it comes to maintaining control over our devices. Many of us who favor open source software know that one of the advantages of FOSS is that the user retains a high level of device control.

Or as Network World puts it:

"The crux of the matter here is that unlike the days of yore, where repressive regimes needed elaborate networks of secret police and informants to monitor communication, all they need now is control over the software and hardware we use. Our desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and all manner of devices play a role in virtually all of our communication."

As 2012 begins, Congress is debating SOPA, a proposed law backed by copyright owners that many have called deeply oppressive. Meanwhile, one of the big technology brouhahas of last year was whether Microsoft was going to lock Linux users out of Windows 8-based PCs. 

These types of debates will only become more high-profile as the number of devices we use increases, and devices get smaller and more integrated with our bodies. It's worth listening in on Doctorow's address, and heeding his stern warnings on our upcoming loss of control of our devices. 

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