Last month, an Apple patent application was published describing a method of “Protecting electronic devices from extended unauthorized use” – effectively a ‘charging rights management’ system. New Scientist and OhGizmo have stories explaining the system; while the stated intention is to make stolen devices less […]
All posts filed under “External Control”
‘Smart meters’: some thoughts from a design point of view
Here’s my (rather verbose) response to the three most design-related questions in DECC’s smart meter consultation that I mentioned earlier today. Please do get involved in the discussion that Jamie Young’s started on the Design & Behaviour group and on his blog at the RSA. […]
“The progressive and dispersed installation of a new system of domination”
Burak Arikan of the MIT Media Lab helpfully pointed me to Gilles Deleuze‘s 1990 essay, ‘Postscript on the Societies of Control.’
Cinemas jamming mobile phone signals
Via Boing Boing – the US’s National Association of Theater Owners wants the FCC’s permission to block mobile reception inside cinemas. To be honest I thought this already happened in some places… maybe I’d mentally linked it to office buildings with Faraday cage wall structures […]
Microsoft blocking MP3s on Verizon Wireless phones? – Engadget
Via Engadget (“Microsoft blocking MP3s on Verizon Wireless phones?”), another example of an architecture of control being imposed on a product or service subsequent to purchase by a mandated firmware or software update (the TiVo example is the best-known in this category).
“Sign software on the digital line”
Bill Thompson, of the BBC’s ‘Go Digital’ programme, sets out very clearly (‘Sign software on the digital line’) many of the issues involved with ‘trusted computing’ and forcing the use of signed software.
‘Value of your home to be determined by the “freedom” your gadgets exhibit’
In a piece examining GPL v.3 and Linus Torvalds’ recent comments (‘If Linus snubs new GPL, is that it for ‘open source’?’), Andrew Orlowski discusses an idea put to him by a “GPL 3.0 advocate”:
Anti-teenager sound weapon: more comments
This post from last year has been getting a lot of hits over the last few days due to more media coverage of the story – come on & join in the comment debate: Anti-teenager sound weapon in Wales
Richard Stallman’s ‘Right To Read’ dystopia growing closer every day
We seem to be accelerating towards the nightmare vision presented by Richard Stallman in his 1997 article, ‘The Right to Read’, ninety years too early, and investigated so thoroughly by Cambridge’s Ross Anderson. (See also here for more discussion of DRM and ‘trusted’ computing).
Another dystopian vision
I should have posted this very impressive piece last month, but forgot, so here it is: ‘Burnoff: Part 1 – The Bad Guys Win’ by Tarmle.
GPS External Speed Control in Canada
Via Slashdot, a CNN story reports that: Canadian auto regulators are testing a system that would enforce speed limits by making it harder to push down the car’s gas pedal once the speed limit is passed… [using] a global positioning satellite device installed in the […]