MS DRM OS Begets SSSCA

[John Young]

I think Mike is trying to describe the worst case scenario to
arouse opposition. Bear in mind that the Content Faction
(and maybe the Tech Faction) want to control the world,
not just the US. All countries are targets for SSSCA and
DMCA through copyright treaties and other control
regimes.

Just a few days ago the last country needed to enforce
the WIPO Copyright Treaty signed on. WIPO is the global
version of DMCA. And the Hague Convention is meeting
shortly to set up the legal framework to enforce the
various global treaties on protecting intellectual property.

Sure, there will continue to be gray and black markets
in software but criminalization of circumvention devices
will put some youngsters (and oldsters) in jail, as we see 
looming from the recent warez raids.

I'm optimistic that Mike is too pessimistic but he knows
how to arouse by avoiding rosy ending scripts. The MPAA
and co-conspirators are dirty fighters and nobody should
expect to merely ignore them, thinking that loosening of
crypto controls is a model. They know that precedent and
are determined to do what governments could not.

Question is, as ever, what about the programmers within
the factions who are needed to carry out the wishes of the
bosses. In this, crypto could be a bellweather, for showing
how the technicians learned to outwit the others. But are
technical folks more susceptible these days to bribery
of swell life styles than the crypto-rebels were? Or better,
are there well-endowed, smarter than most, Factioners 
who do not want to be part of hegemonic putridity?


We'll see what the Factions offer the liberators to keep
them hard at work, happy to be protected intellectual property
slaves. None of whom would waste a second here
except to pick up intelligence for blowing upholes.