News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You... by rdl on Wednesday September 12, 2012 @05:37PM (#4513373)
Yeah, some kind of trustworthy computing would be around a 4-5 on the scale. Maybe 6.
Re:Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You... by stcredzero on Thursday September 13, 2012 @02:17PM (#4517710)
> Yeah, some kind of trustworthy computing would be around a 4-5 on the scale. Maybe 6.

A great sign for this idea, is that it gets pooh-poohed and shouted down, particularly by people who don't even hear the entire thing and just pattern match the security part. The idea that DRM can be useful and beneficial to society as a whole is precisely "What You Can't Say" for large swathes of the tech community and even more mainstream society.

Re:Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You... by michaelt on Wednesday September 12, 2012 @06:30PM (#4513614)
We already have a subset network of computers where DRM lasted from 2006 to 2010 - the PlayStation 3.

Now, it's a console with some good games, but I wouldn't rate it as equivalent in social impact to electricity or nuclear weapons.

Re:Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You... by rdl on Wednesday September 12, 2012 @06:33PM (#4513623)
Right, it was a game console, and not even a particularly good one.

A real computing device (I'd accept tablets, but really, enterprise desktops and especially servers) would be entirely different.

What I really care about is servers which can be trusted to be "fair" by all parties -- server operators, software operators, and end users. There is absolutely nothing like that today, and it's impossible without trusted computing. It's unclear if trusted computing itself is feasible (it's theoretically possible).

If it works, we end up with Vernor Vinge's _True Names_