I actually read the FAQ, touchoff, and now I'm very concerned. I smell Big Brother and his
Thought
Cyber
Police
Army. (Here is a VB version of the above link, BTW:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html)
What is TCPA? It is a way for a business, a coalition, or whoever controls these "Fritz" chips (an excellent name, because they cause people to fritz when they learn what the chips do) to assume control over your computer
at will in the name of DRM. Microsoft and Intel are trying to be able to control everything in the massive computer market, excluding other developers and instituting their tyrannic rule.
TCPA and Palladium will allow Microsoft, or your system administrator, or whoever has the right permissions, to delete "illegal" files off your computer, against your will. This may be fine for pirated music, movies, or software, but where do they draw the line? What will stop them from actually putting a subscription model into place, and jacking up the price on it from a dollar per launch to, say, $20?
This is probably the best explanation: "...TCPA and Palladium do 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."
In this light, I don't see how Apple can join this coalition. Sure, they have limited DRM with the iTMS, but with Apple, it's about minimizing their control over your content. They only put DRM in place to get the RIAA to agree to the whole concept of the iTMS; do you think Apple
wants to control what you do with the music you buy? Microsoft, however, wants to catch you, gut you, throw you out, and laugh at you for being broke. They want to extract as much money as they possibly can from your wallet with you being unable to do anything about it, and they want to control what you can do as they shaft you.
The only way I can see this working in any way besides horribly skewed and monopolistically is if the Fritz chips were controlled by a group, much like the UN. One or two countries don't make foreign policies for everyone to obey, a large group of representatives do. Sure, the US has enough weight to push around that we can usually get away with breaking UN policy, but we are not the final voice in world affairs. Microsoft would be like the US in this United Platforms: they have the most weight to push around, but they do not have the final say in a group composed of megalopolies like them, Intel, IBM, and Apple, as well as smaller developers and even a government agency or two. The final call must be democratically voted upon, or we will be helpless against the power of the Evil Empire.
Imagine this scenario: everything, and I mean
everything, has computer chips in it, from large satellites to the door locks in your homes. Now, these chips all have TCPA embedded in them, and Microsoft controls the TCPA. What is to stop them from deciding they want world power and controlling everything until they get it? Sure, it's illegal, but the police and the military can't do anything because the chips in their humvees, machine guns, and even HQ doors have suddenly stopped allowing their host devices to function. A court of law can't pursue Microsoft because they have no way of making them show up in court, and they can't get near Redmond to bring court to them. Suddenly Microsoft controls the world, and the term "third world country" takes on a global scale.
Everyone on this board, and everyone who uses a computer at all, should take a stance against TCPA. It is manipulative, tyrannical and anti-competitive, and it stands to benefit only those who control it.
