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

[Jeremy Malcolm]

On 07/06/2012, at 10:24 PM, Kerry Brown wrote:

> I fail to see how you believe a feature that is easily turned off endangers “the early egalitarian promise of a decentralised and bottom up architecture of the digital space/ opportunity”.

Because to use LInux, users have to either:

1. Use a distribution that has been signed (for a fee) by Verisign on behalf of Microsoft, two US IT companies with dominant market power, who may withdraw this "service" at any time (we already know that Verisign's fee will be rising 500% after its "limited time" offer expires).  Not only that, but all drivers for the system must also be signed, and some operating system features will be disabled!

2. Go into their machine's boot loader settings to turn off a setting that is labelled as a security feature - which to the ordinary non-techy user is something like being instructed to disconnect the brake cable of your car.  It's relatively difficult, and a scary thing to be asked to do.  Moreover, a user can't even be given simple instructions on how to do it as the procedure will vary from one computer to another.

So yeah, I think it's a big deal and I support Parminder's characterisation of it.

-- 
Dr Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Policy Officer
Consumers International
Kuala Lumpur Office for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East
Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: +60 3 7726 1599

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