Compared to a PC today, the original IBM PC/XT/AT was amazingly open. All versions of DOS came with a basic debugger, which could also be used to write short Asm programs. I remember these being popularly published in the computing magazines of the time, and there was a general attitude of openness around that.

Perhaps the average user today doesn't care, but what astounds me is how much freedom we've given up in pursuit of security and safety. We seem to have gone down a path (or the corporations have led us down one) in which we're lead to believe that having responsibility and freedom is a bad thing, and that we'd be happier - blissfully ignorant - if we let these corporations (and governments) take over for us.

There are arguably benefits to this arrangement. Prostitutes have pimps, even though they cut into profits without taking much personal risk or providing much labor, because pimps do provide a safety mechanism. Likewise, vassals gave up large portions of what they produced for security from their lords and kings.

We've returned to this arrangement because:

1.) Paying is painful and copying software is easy. Instead of making money from you, Web 2.0 have monetized you as a target for advertisers. Web services are 'in' because that's the only way software can't be pirated. Much of our software today displays GUIs on a screen but runs on other computers because of this reason. The new Office products all run in the cloud, MMOs offer the same deal, and games like Diablo III can only run when in constant connection to the internet, even though there's no technical reason why that should be the case. XBox One tried to (and backpedaled from) make the xBox always on always connected. Other streaming video game and content services try the same. Essentially, the internet has become glorified TV (minimally interactive), with more channels.

2.) The internet is the Wild Wild West. Security professionals have been yelling for ages that the rush to release and the need to compete together with closed source development was making the world an insecure place. Essentially every layer of our computing stack is insecure. Attestation of computer intrusion is ridiculously hard. And there's money (and geopolitical power) to be had. We designed things insecure from the start, and continue to do so. Individuals can't stay secure on their own. It's not possible. So up with the lords and vassals - we know it sort of works from history.

I do think the average user cares. I don't think the average user is informed.

That is cognitive dissonance. If your revenue is derived from advertising then users installing ad blocking software is revenue-equivalent to users pirating your software. The fact that it's legal for users to do when piracy is not provides no support for argument that ad-supported services are on stronger financial footing.

The reason ad-supported services are winning is much simpler. Users prefer them to paying. So if one competitor is "free" (with ads) while another is charging money, the market picks the free one. But ad-supported services don't inherently require centralization or feudalism anyway.

> The internet is the Wild Wild West.

The internet has never been the wild west. Modern computing devices are dramatically more secure than physical things like your house or your car. The internet is so far away from the wild west that we consider even the possibility of a security breach under rare circumstances to be a serious vulnerability and work quickly to close it. And the feudal lords are the ones making it worse -- is it even possible to patch a vulnerability on an un-rooted iPhone which is too old for Apple to patch it officially?

Having said that, I don't disagree that the reasons you're listing are the ones used to justify feudalism, they just happen to be factually incorrect.

> That is cognitive dissonance. If your revenue is derived from advertising then users installing ad blocking software is revenue-equivalent to users pirating your software. The fact that it's legal for users to do when piracy is not provides no support for argument that ad-supported services are on stronger financial footing.

It is not difficult to foresee a world in which "forging the appearance of a website" is illegal and userscripts and userstyles are forbidden as well. How many sites try very hard to block right click to hide their code?

There are five actors that can modify the appearance of a website:

* the author,

* the server,

* the network,

* the browser,

* the user (instructing a browser's add on).

By definition the author can do whatever they want.

But what if the server started serving slightly different pages, maybe with advertisements? This is happening now with hosted blogs and publishing platforms; it is frowned upon but accepted.

If the network changes the content of a page, for example adding advertisements, the network will have to face a lot of bad reactions, so very few networks are doing it now. (see http://justinsomnia.org/2012/04/hotel-wifi-javascript-inject... )

The browser is in a similar situation. When Internet Explorer wanted to modify the received HTML to "enrich it", there has been a big backslash from authors «Microsoft thinks they can improve my writing. This makes me want to get a gun and go to war.» «With smart tags, Microsoft is able to insert their ads right into competitors’ sites.» (http://alistapart.com/article/smarttags )

So the authors are against modifications to the way their sites appear. Their remaining problem is _the user_. Authors cannot force the user to see what they produced: users have the freedom to install an ad-blocker or strip the CSS away. But we have to realize that this may be only a temporary situation. With the app-ification of the web, userscripts and userstyles are gone. And the content producers are happy about this.

Not illegal, but made technically impossible. That will be the logical Result of the EME Standard, combined with WebCrypto where the Website owner, not the user controls the browser.

All of these users chanting about how great netflix "HTML5" is do not understand the long term game that is being played for control over the web browser

Er, no. You can't break into my house from another country. Moreover, my computer is also a physical thing in my house, so it cannot easily be more secure than the house itself.

The patching of possible security breaches has become a weekly ritual. And there are hundreds of thousands of unpatched compromised computers sloshing around in botnets.

An attacker could certainly pay someone to break into your house from another country in much the same way as they pay their ISP to deliver malicious packets to your computer.

> Moreover, my computer is also a physical thing in my house, so it cannot easily be more secure than the house itself.

That isn't strictly true. If your device has full disk encryption using a strong password, physical access doesn't get you much in the way of accessing the data.

It's easy to confuse this with the explanation of why DRM can't work, but they aren't the same thing. To access data you need either the plaintext, or the ciphertext and the key. DRM fails because you need one or the other in order to watch the content, which means an attacker inherently has in his possession what is necessary to get the data. But a locked or turned off device with disk encryption only gives the attacker the ciphertext without the key, which is an entirely different situation.

> The patching of possible security breaches has become a weekly ritual.

That's kind of my point. Nobody recalls your car windows when they're discovered to be vulnerable to the "blunt force with heavy object" attack.

> And there are hundreds of thousands of unpatched compromised computers sloshing around in botnets.

Hundreds of thousands out of billions is what, 0.01%?

Well, even if assuming that all your software is bug free, someone with physical access can either replace the unencrypted boot image with a compromised one which gives him remote access or install a hardware keylogger and come back later for the disk and password.

In the hypothetical situation of a targeted attack and attacker with physical access, FDE only protects you if you never turn on your computer.

Finally, there is the eventual cracking of many encryption algorithms via cryptanalysis and moores law.

[1]: Answer about moore's law effects on bits of security http://crypto.stackexchange.com/a/1828 [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_boot_attack

With FDE and memory encryption, how else can you get pass this?

Securing your data is a completely different problem, and a much more difficult one, than securing your house.

I think "users prefer ads to paying" is not a full explanation: I did include "paying is painful". If that's all there were - just upfront cost, how do we deal with the trend of connected software (Diablo III, etc) and devices whose primary developer feature is DRM?

The internet totally is the WWW. Well, it's an analogy. So no, it's not. But the analogy is useful in its most spirited form. There is no truly enforceable law and criminal and conspiratorial enterprises run abound. It's questionable whether the Feudal lords are making it better or worse. (One way they make it better is by having direct accountability.)

Connected software is a different business model. It has certain advantages for the developer (like collecting a monthly fee rather than a one time payment), but how is that supposed to be providing any security or other benefit to the user?

> There is no truly enforceable law and criminal and conspiratorial enterprises run abound.

There are lots of enforceable laws -- probably too many. And the threat is vastly overhyped. Actual criminals and criminal organizations are the likes of Ted Bundy and the Zetas Cartel. The internet version of that is supposed to be weev and Anonymous? They're not even on the same planet.

Moreover, what is the feudal lord supposed to do any better than anyone else to prevent some jerk from cracking into a webserver and stealing private data? If anything the centralization makes it worse by creating juicer targets. If the bad guys compromise Apple or Google you're roasted, toasted and burnt to a crisp.

> It's questionable whether the Feudal lords are making it better or worse.

I have a hard time thinking of any way they could legitimately make it better that wouldn't work just as well without a locked boot loader.

> (One way they make it better is by having direct accountability.)

The fact that they aren't accountable is half the problem. At best the user can throw away their device and buy one from a different vendor, but that's hardly much consolation when you can't get your money back. And the app developers have even less leverage. The only way to opt out is to abandon hundreds of millions of prospective customers.

I guess it is an apt analogy.

... And If neither occurs, you won't get it at all. I've started to become increasingly convinced that huge scale piracy really did harm the quality of popular music. You can find some good obscure music today, but the average quality seems to have hugely declined in some objective way. Art is no more free than code, and good art really does cost more than bad art for all kinds of reasons... Fewer can make it, and quality takes time and sustained focus. Having some talentless tart squall into an auto tuner to a cliched catchy melody is cheap. Finding an Elizabeth Fraser and paying them to practice for 40 hours a week under the supervision of a professional choral voice instructor while you coach the band on composition in a recording studio is not. Why invest in a product nobody will pay for?

Funny how when I bring up the issue in the context of software everyone agrees. Of course people have to get paid somehow and of course polished products cost money. But on every forum including this one, nobody gets how there could be any relationship whatsoever between the quality of art and its ability to be financed. I think this comes down to one of the greatest myths about art: that it comes from some automatic and magical place and people either have it or they don't, and that artists make art solely out of duty to the muse. Like anything else art is a skill and doing it well requires practice, research, focus, coaching, even peer review, and all of that takes time during which many people including the artist must be supported. There is a component of inspiration but raw inspiration without the rest of it results in rough draft quality work that is only of value to the artist themselves.

Piracy undermines the ability to finance art just like it does in software. What's one of the first questions a VC asks about? Defensibility. In other words how will you protect your ability to monetize the value you create. You think investors only ask that question in software?

Top40 music is palatable to many and is the exact result of what you describe: practice, research, focus, coaching, and peer review on a massive financed scale that "startup" bands could never afford.

Yet despite that, the indie music scene has never been more vibrant and alive than it is today. Instead of a small number of bands/groups producing music that all indie fans like, there's a huge pool of artists each producing their unique sound based on their own personal values of how music should be produced (including things like practice, focus, peer review, and other things not mentioned like experience, personality, and culture). That, to me, is art -- not a rehearsed manufactured production but an embedded experience unique to the artist you are listening to. That's what you heard in popular music until the mid nineties. The lack of quality popular music is not due to lack of craftsmanship.

I also disagree with the OP about cost vs. quality. The key difference comes later when you're managing the artist. If the artist has talent then they also have a certain amount of leverage in the relationship. If you make them feel like a slave then they have an ultimate trump card: turning off the juice. (The "Atlas Shrugged" maneuver?) A talentless piece of meat plus auto tune gives you total leverage, which means risk mitigation and a more controllable product.

Right now the environment in the music industry is one of extreme risk aversion, which is something you see when the bottom falls out of an industry. You've arguably seen a much more risk-averse tech industry since the 2001 crash.

I think my points about piracy fit into a broader critique of the concept of "free" that I've been thinking about and that I've heard others talking about. Unlike previous critiques it's more of a liberal/progressive critique.

I share these concerns but coming up with a way to be both open and secure is deeply hard. Companies like Apple have decided to just punt on the problem, especially in the mobile space. Not only does it save money on R&D while delivering a product that isn't instantly malware ridden, but it also gives them App Store revenue.

My point though is that its not just them ramming these models down our throats. Other factors are in play helping to seal the deal.

pursuit is the critical word. Of course you don't get either, often enough the opposite.

Citation required?

Worth mentioning is that it's illegal in the same way breaking the speed limit by 1MPH is illegal, i.e. technically against the law, but your chances for ending up in trouble for doing it are nil.

Speeding by 1mph isn't a practical or useful law to enforce. Creating a new OS and breaking the boot loader would require a group of people working together in some organized form, which would make it practical to target, and it'd probably be financially threatening to a larger company, which would make it useful to enforce.

In 2014, companies are the political and cultural entities in our society, and a law like this kills off a class of entity.

The EUCD was the DMCA pushed through the EU by trade agreements. In some ways it's worse, since it lacks the safe harbor provision.

The end user situation isn't as bad though because there are other laws that protect you. In Sweden there is a provision that it is specifically allows it for interoperability reasons for example.

Funny you mention Germany though. It is one of the few countries that tried to outlaw "hacking tools", broadly defined as including a lot of reverse engineering tools you would use for the purpose you mentioned. I don't know what happened with that, perhaps the situation have improved?

No.

Warranties are voluntary and distinct from seller liability for defects in the product. That liability is legally required in the EU. The details of the implementation are different in different countries.

In Germany it’s like this: The seller (and only the seller) is liable and you have to go to the seller to make a liability claim. So if you bought your phone from Amazon you have to write Amazon, not Motorola. If you bought it from a carrier you have to go to the carrier. If you didn’t buy the phone directly from the manufacturer that manufacturer doesn’t have to do anything when you come to them with a defect phone. It’s the seller’s problem. (This is mostly to prevent a runaround, where seller and manufacturer both tell you each other is responsible for fixing the problem. This creates one entity that is clearly and obviously responsible and has to handle the problem.)

It’s for defects present when the device was sold and that’s it. (However, subsequent defects of some component because the device was delivered with some faulty or not up to spec components count, too.)

In the first six months the seller has to prove the defect wasn’t present when the device was delivered to not be liable. You, the buyer, don’t have to prove anything. That burden of proof, however, reverses after six months and up to 24 months (then there is no more liability), making it very hard in practice for buyers to prove after those six months that the defect was there when the device was sold. (However, courts have relaxed the requirements for that. Buyers usually don’t need to get some expensive expert opinion or something like that. If you can make a very good and informed argument for your case you should usually be covered.)

The seller can repair or replace the device. Buyers don’t have right to get their device replaced when it’s possible to repair it. If repairing and replacing fails a number of times (I think three) the buyer can demand their money back.

That’s the liability. A legal requirement and very complicated – and also wholly distinct from warranties.

By unlocking your phone you may have voided your warranty, but you certainly didn’t void the legal liability of the seller.

Oh, and in some countries the law has more teeth: here in Portugal the burden of proof never shifts during the 24 months :)

Also if a contract contains a clause forbidding you to disassemble, decompile, or debug something, then the clause is automatically void.

Yay for EU rights.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/1/5959915/president-barack-ob...