28c3
6 HN recommenders · recommended in 20 months, 2011–2026
54:35 · 267K views · Dec 28, 2011
Cory Doctorow's 28c3 keynote argues that the copyright wars were just a skirmish and that the real fight will be a war on the general-purpose computer. He explains why locked-down devices, DRM and surveillance tools all depend on removing general computation.
HN returns to it constantly as a prescient talk, cited whenever threads cover DRM, locked-down devices, app verification or restrictions on running your own software.
20 comments from Hacker News
> the idea that users shouldn't be developers has lead to a situation in which access to development tools and information are seemingly treated as a privilege instead of a right Unfortunately, a lot of people have been starting the War On General Purpose Computing[1] for a while now. While many people saw Doctorow's first talk[1] on the War On General Purpose computing, his sequel talk[2] about the upcoming Civil -War On General Purpose Computing is one of the most important talks I've ever seen. The talk is about exactly this point: Turing completeness scares various traditional powers (and some new/upcoming powers), and their instinct is to lash out and try to mandate that someone make a computer that can't run the various programs that scare them. Not understanding what "Turing Complete" means, they end up in a cycle that tries to blacklist anything that allows these scary programs to be written and used. Hiding the dev tools is just one step on a path that - by definition - must end up with the hobbling of computing devices until they are no longer Turing complete. This problem needs to be fought right now , in a big way. The non-technical population is just starting to understand the full impact of what it means to have a General Purpose Computer, and we are only seeing the first skirmishes. The 2nd talk I mentioned above by Doctorow[2] - which I very strongly recommend that everybody watch - points out how modern concerns over "dev tools" (or "copyright") are trivial.
It’s worth watching the talk (linked in the article, but special pointing out seems appropriate): this video I like to call it the secret keynote of 28C3.
Cory Doctorow has a prescient talk: "The coming war on general computation" from 2011 (12 years ago) in which he argues that all general computing platforms (OS, phone OS, browser) would face challenges by governments and corporations. This looks like another way to control content distribution and put more control in Google's hands. They've made a great strategic choice in building Chrome browser and effectively superseded Microsoft and Apple on desktops as a platform. The talk can be found here: this video When people have means to consume or produce content without control any governmental bureaucrat will try to control this activity. History supports this argument. No printing press > no cheap books > illiterate population > easy to control what spreads as information and what do not. Printing press arrived > cheap books > growing literacy > control over the presses. Lenin's first targets were the post/telegraph (communication), bridges and railways (movement of people) and all big printing houses (Lenin's Full Collected works - vol. 32, page 282) Radio arrived > Fixed Frequencies Radio sets sold & Governmental Radio jamming stations TV > Licence to broadcast Internet > Big Firewall of China & etc... And don't even think about moving money freely as experienced by requirement to show why are you paying someone and those nice people from bank compliance departments. The cost of enforcement in digital economy is way cheaper than before. The tools are there or can be built chea
I'm comfortable with it on SmartCards or EMV chips, since those are tailored devices for a specific purpose and the trust model is understood by the participants. I'm not particularly upset that I can't root my credit card. Mobile phones, it's disappointing, but total consumer control was kind of a lost cause from day 1. What truly bothers me is the introduction of trusted computing into general-purpose consumer CPUs, where previously we had complete freedom. There's an old but still very good CCC talk that encapsulates my feelings about this [0]. [0]: this video
Is it a serious problem that you can run whatever software you want on your computer? Should we make it so that no one can do that without permission to protect them? I recommend Cory Doctorow's talk on why this is a serious problem for society: [LINK] this video