Re: DRM and freedom

[Martin Schaffner]

On Thu, 10 Nov 2005 11:59:20 -0500, Jonathan S. Shapiro wrote:

> So far, you have presented an argument (to me, an unconvincing 
> argument)
> that DRM is bad.

On Thu, 2005-11-10 at 17:33 +0100, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:

> So, we have three issues here:
>
> * The technology question if DRM and privacy are inseparable or not.
> * The strategic question if it makes a difference if we have a 
> structure that
>   makes implementing DRM easier.
> * The political question, which is how much privacy we want.
>
> The hardest is a balance between the second and third point.

The following article is very relevant to this discussion, and provides 
more examples why DRM is bad:
http://www.eff.org/Infrastructure/trusted_computing/20031001_tc.php

It proposes the "owner override" mechanism to solve the treacherous 
aspects of TC. It also lists disadvantages of this mechanism.

I'd like to add to the disadvantages that it's not possible anymore for 
people to privately store data on machines which they do not own: 
employers, students, and remote account users can still be spied on if 
owner override is available.
It seems to me that owner override would break "remote privacy" (I 
can't prevent you from spying on data I've put on your machine), while 
keeping "local privacy" - privacy would be limited to the machines one 
owns, /unless/ it is kept encrypted and therefore unusable (except as 
data store).

It is therefore possible to have local privacy with technical means 
while keeping everyones freedom to use whatever software one wants, and 
the freedom to lie about what software one uses, with owner override. 
The question is only wether TC+OO (owner override) will become 
available on the mass market (we can hope...). If yes, it seems clear 
that GNU should run on such machines. If no, it is not clear to me 
wether GNU should utilise TC hardware. Marcus' second and third points 
remain.

Thanks,
Martin