Should governments and megacorps license internet use?

How comically are we living in a dark dystopian cyperpunk future, where the Microsoft corporation wants to have the power of a nation state and it gives people job titles involving the expression Trustworthy Computing? I mean, for fuck’s sake. (I hope I don’t lose my internet license for cussing.) Allow me to explain what I am referring to regarding a license to use the internet.

I love trade shows. Maybe for the educational value, maybe for the windows into other worlds, maybe for the pleasures of meetings of tribes. When I say I love trade shows, I mean including those for trades I am at most tangentially involved in. That said, apparently there are some creepy-ass tradeshows out there, where I would not like the keynote speeches or seminars one bit. Specifically, I am thinking I would want to be throwing the free doughnuts at the speakers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and the ISSE or Information Security Solutions Europe computer security conference in Berlin, Germany.

In particular, Microsoft execs at these conferences have been pushing an agenda to force everyone to have a license to use the internet. Yes, you read that correctly. This week, at ISSE, Scott Charney, Microsoft brass with the dubious title of “vice president of Trustworthy Computing”, suggested, “If a device is known to be a danger to the internet, the user should be notified and the device should be cleaned before it is allowed unfettered access to the internet, minimising the risk of the infected device contaminating other devices.” At WEF, Craig Mundie, Microsoft brass with the somewhat less dubious title of chief research and strategy officer, said “We need a kind of World Health Organization for the Internet. If you want to drive a car you have to have a license to say that you are capable of driving a car, the car has to pass a test to say it is fit to drive and you have to have insurance.”

Don’t get me wrong. The internet is a cesspool in many ways. I am distressed by the ability of those with competitive business interests to come and sow discord without having to sign their real names. I am tired of having to deal with companies who like to harvest my words and/or images and profit from them, without giving me so much as a credit shoutout. I’d like to be able to look at sites I have to DMCA without catching malware. As Dave Chapelle says, “if the internet was a real place, it would be disgusting and intolerable.” However, as Benjamin Franklin said, “they who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

make the upgrade to a mac

I would appeal to my elected representatives with my wish not to live enslaved in a nanny state. To a corporation where my vote takes the form of buying their products, I implore Microsoft not to force me to buy computers and software from annoying Apple. Apple lists selling points like that Macs don’t get PC viruses. (Duh!) The Apple marketing idiocy makes my teeth itch, but restricting freedom of speech on the internet is just a bit more serious.

Full disclosure: I have been a Microsoft booster in the past and Microsoft is one of our advertisers. Most sites owned and/or operated by Blue Blood are created and maintained on Microsoft machines.

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Posted by on October 8, 2010. Filed under Trade/Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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