Ross's TCPA paper

[Ted Lemon]

> I'm hard pressed to imagine what privacy without
> DRM looks like.  Perhaps somebody can describe
> a non-DRM privacy management system.  On the other
> hand, I easily can imagine how I'd use DRM
> technology to manage my privacy.

Oh please, this is absurd.   How hard is it to violate my privacy?   How 
much good does DRM do here?   If you can't plug the analog hole for 
something as data-intensive as a DVD, how do you plug the analog hole for 
something as trivial as a social security number?

I have to assume that what you're saying is that I will somehow use DRM to 
secure information that I give to a company with whom I want to do business.
    But this is unlikely ever to happen in any meaningful way - in order for 
this to work, the company with whom I am doing business has to have some 
incentive to implement DRM.   The incentive can't be that I refuse to do 
business with them if they don't, because most people *do not* refuse to do 
business with companies that violate their privacy.   Indeed, in many cases,
  we have no choice - if you want water, you sign up with the water 
department.   If you want power, you sign up with the power company.   
There's no market there - these are monopolies.   There's no opportunity 
for market leverage to impose DRM on them, even if the average person cared 
enough to make that happen, which they don't.

I know this will come as a terrible blow to those who are morally against 
government coercion, and prefer the subtle coercion of the market, but if 
you want privacy, there's gotta be a law.   And at that point, DRM for your 
personal information becomes something that I suspect is too expensive to 
be worth it.   Do you keep all your money in a safe, or is some of it in a 
bank, or in a wallet, or in your dresser drawer?   Why don't you keep all 
of it in a safe?


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