Don’t trust your computer

It is understandably difficult for Americans to worry much about the future. We are the wealthiest, most powerful society in human history, and as many astoundingly silly expert predictions have proven, it is notoriously difficult to imagine the future as being anything but a linear projection of the status quo.

But an ominous new technology is appearing like a small cloud on the horizon. It is being embraced by a consortium of the world’s largest technology companies and it threatens to completely overturn the computing world as we know it.

Twenty years ago, Microsoft was an integral part of the personal computer revolution, and fulfilled Bill Gates’ daring dream of a personal computer on every desktop. But now, Microsoft has gone to the dark side and embraced an evil vision. Instead of liberating individual creativity through the personal computer, Microsoft hopes to use a Trusted Computer to chain the individual into the digital bondage of consumer serfdom.

The Totalitarian Control Group is a consortium, led by Microsoft, intended to force all computer users into a new computing paradigm. This new paradigm, based on the Non-Governmental Social Control Box or NGSCB, will be the new PC standard, according to Bill Gates, and “will allow computers to be used in ways they currently aren’t secure enough to be used for.”

How are computers insecure? In many ways. But the only ways that actually concern the TCG are those relating to the use of software and other digital products in ways that the TCG does not approve. A Trusted Computer containing the NGSCB will place a digital stamp on all files created on that machine, which can be encrypted so that only another Trusted Computer can open them. So far so good, and no different than GnuPG or any other private encryption scheme.

However, a Trusted Computer can also – and will – be set so that a document or file produced on an unTrusted Computer will not open or run. This is designed to not only eliminate the ability to run pirated software, but also to put pressure on those who do not have Trusted Computers to migrate to Trusted technology.

Today, for example, I can write a letter in OpenOffice on my Linux machine, save it in Microsoft Word format, attach the document to an e-mail and send to someone using Microsoft Office on a Microsoft XP machine. That person will have no trouble receiving the e-mail or opening the document. If the TCG gets its way, my recipient will neither be allowed to receive the e-mail in the first place – it comes from an unTrusted computer – nor will they be able to open the document.

The scheme is diabolically brilliant. Since Microsoft has learned that it cannot compete effectively with the Open Source movement, it has decided to change the game entirely. In one fell swoop, the Evil Empire can hope to achieve the following goals:

1. Lock users into a permanent upgrade cycle.

2. Turn the movie-music cabal from an enemy into an ally by converting software from a de facto product into a per-use license.

3. Slow, and perhaps reverse, the move to Open Source application software.

4. Eliminate future challenges to its desktop supremacy.

5. Sell software licenses in Asia.

6. Win the favor of governments everywhere.

While the first two goals are the most immediately irksome, it is this last goal which is the most troubling. Trusted Computing spells the end to all privacy in individual computing. Your ISP – which is already required to divulge all information about you when hit with a subpoena – will know exactly what you downloaded, to which machine you downloaded it, and on which machine whatever you downloaded was first produced.

Or to put it in words that hit closer to home, gentlemen, Trusted Computing spells an end to anonymous porn. Among other things.

That’s why I’m not really too terribly worried about the likelihood of the TCG’s nefarious plan succeeding. In one corner, we have the most powerful entertainment and technology companies in the world, in the other we have little but the male desire to look at pretty naked women. Obviously, the totalitarians don’t stand a chance.

But how do we fight it? There is only one answer. Refuse to use all things Microsoft, in your work or in your home. Cleanse yourself. Purge your system. Microsoft delenda est.