Microsoft's Palladium transforms Internet from Wild West to suburban neighborhood

[R. A. Hettinga]

http://worldtechtribune.com/worldtechtribune/asparticles/buzz/bz06282002.asp


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Microsoft's Palladium transforms Internet from Wild West to suburban
neighborhood

 Special to WorldTechTribune
Scott McCollum
June 28, 2002

Microsoft's "Palladium" project was announced this week.  If you haven't
heard, Palladium is a computer security solution that requires software and
hardware to work properly much like a common Automated Teller Machine in a
mall uses hardware (the reader that scans your personal bank card) and
software (the user interface used to enter in your PIN) to secure your
transaction.  Palladium is in the planning stage right now, but Microsoft
has already secured the support of microprocessor giants Intel and AMD to
supply the chips needed to harden Palladium's software security.  Between
now and the time Palladium technology ships (possibly in 2004), Microsoft
will announce partnerships with financial services, entertainment
enterprises, health care providers and government customers who will
utilize Palladium.



Unless this is the first time you've ever read World Tech Tribune.com, you
probably don't see where this is goingŠ

Yes, the outcry from so-called cyber libertarians, open source cultists and
tax-exempt organizations concerned about the destruction of privacy by huge
corporations was immediate and deafening.  Well, just the organizations
worried about destruction of privacy by Microsoft.  Remember, Oracle CEO
Larry Ellison said: "this privacy you're concerned about is largely an
illusion" while lobbying Congress for National ID cards using Oracle
database technology back in October 2001, leftist groups like the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for Democracy and Technology and
American Civil Liberties Union gave a half-hearted "we're closely watching
the situation" and a missive wave to Ellison's outrageous statement.  It
was mostly conservative pundits and groups that shoved Ellison back into
his Silicon Valley hole.

What is the problem these groups have with Palladium technology?  According
to the story in Newsweek magazine that broke the story on Microsoft's
Palladium, this new initiative's goal is make the PC more secure and
private.  The idea is that Palladium will use software routines and
hardware chips in your computer to create a "zone" of privacy that is
accessible only to authorized apps and users.  In this zone, apps, files
and documents will be encrypted to keep thieves from stealing anything off
of your PC.  However, the main reason why I view Palladium as secure is
because it makes your computer a unique and individual entity on the
Internet which allows for transparent Internet transactions.  In other
words, with Palladium you know exactly who you're talking to and dealing
with while online.

The outcry against Palladium doesn't really stem from a concern about your
privacy, but more from a vocal minority who wish to impose their
anarchistic schemes onto us under the guise of "freedom" and "liberty."  It
has often been said that the Internet is similar to the "Wild West" and
should be kept that way, because that was a time were people (mostly men
with guns) were truly free to roam and explore.  Crazy as it sounds many
cyber libertarians and open source cultists truly believe that all freedoms
on the Internet will be destroyed in the coming transformation of the
Internet into some gated suburban neighborhood.  Don't think of the
Internet as a frighteningly lawless place controlled by the few elites that
write programs and communicate via cryptic shell commands - think of it as
"freedom" because anyone has the "freedom" to learn Perl or C++, write
their own code and share it with other elites on the Internet.

It should be pointed out that America's amazing economic boom that
increased the incomes and quality of life for every socioeconomic segment
of the population did not come from the sharing of wealth by the few elite
ultra-rich railroad and cattle barons of the nineteenth century.  Actually,
the economic booms spearheaded by a broad and relatively well educated
group of American middle-class consumers came in the 1950s and 1980s; booms
that built the Internet and were a full hundred years after the lawless
Wild West era was finished.

Regardless of what some leftist self-appointed libertarian Internet
watchdogs and privacy advocates will try to say, the citizens living in the
nineteenth century are nowhere close to being as "free" as those fortunate
enough to be alive now.  These hypocrites are right about Microsoft's
vision of Palladium, it is a technology that wants to turn the lawless Wild
West into an orderly suburban neighborhood.  Gated communities much like
those hypocritical privacy advocates live in.




-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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