[governance] Verisign to control what operating systems you can run on your computer

Carlos A. Afonso ca at cafonso.ca
Thu Jun 7 08:07:59 EDT 2012


The giant corporate IP industry moves to convert the USA in a true
dictatorship, run by the arbitrary decisions of the IP lobby. Now it
plans not only to force us to purchase licences of Windows and its
associated proprietary software but also prohibits us through the
imposition of hardware locks to use our equipment for any other purpose.

Of course the USA computer industry has no questions about this -- they
are part of the IP dictatorship being consolidated in the US. Regarding
Red Hat, they are agreeing to the lobby because they *sell* their
product (in a package of services, as they cannot sell Linux and
associated open source applications per se). The free equivalent of Red
Hat is centOS, a FOSS version of RH especially oriented to servers which
will not run on machines locked by Microsoft -- and RH will not be
paying for this of course.

We had Apple selling locked hardware products, but they did not go that
far (so far) -- we (still) can install Linux on Mac boxes, and the FOSS
community has managed even to run Android on iPhones. But who knows,
they might as well do this as part of the consolidation of the IP
dictatorship.

The question is: which computer companies will bend to M$ on this, and
which ones will continue to assemble unlocked equipment? And what are
our options? "Resistance is futile", like Darth Vader used to say?

Not even Arthur C. Clarke or Ray Bradbury imagined a an ICT dictatorship
run by the private corporate intellectual property juggernaut
controlling how we run our home or office communication and information
devices...

What are the governments eager to find ways to "control" the Internet
saying and doing about this? What is the European Union (which sometimes
accumulates some courage to confront Microsoft) doing about it?

frt rgds

--c.a.

On 06/07/2012 03:32 AM, Jeremy Malcolm wrote:
> There's been much disquiet on this list about the power that Verisign
> has to delete domains from the Internet at the whim of US authorities.
> 
> Potentially even more frightening, they will soon be able to decide what
> operating system you may run on your computer.  PCs that are certified
> for use with Windows 8 will, by default, refuse to run any operating
> system that is not digitally signed by a Verisign-issued certificate. 
> Even worse, the only certificates that hardware and device manufacturers
> will recognise by default are Microsoft's.
> 
> This leads to the absurd situation that even commercial vendors of
> Linux, such as Red Hat, will be paying Verisign to attach a digital
> signature from Microsoft's key-signing root to their versions of Linux -
> otherwise they simply won't run at all.
> 
> If that wasn't outrageous enough, consider the geopolitical implications
> of this.  By virtue of US sanctions, Verisign will not permit anyone
> from Cuba, Iran, Syria etc. to develop an operating system (or even to
> distribute a version of Linux that they compile from source) for users
> of Windows 8 certified computers.
> 
> Why should it stop there?  A US court order might be obtained against
> Verisign to prevent it from certifying China's Red Flag Linux, or
> Russia's ALT Linux.  Billions of consumers could be forced into using
> older or second-rate computers, or buying Microsoft's operating system,
> because home-grown operating systems won't run.
> 
> Will the IGC take a stand against this?
> 

-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t


More information about the Governance mailing list