Sen. Hollings and the sssca, your thoughts.

Great Debates
1

I was reading This thread, http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=145520
When I thought I would point you all in the direction of one senator Fritz Hollings and legislation he’s trying to get passed into law.

Here are a couple links to the document in question.
http://cryptome.org/sssca.htm
http://www.politechbot.com/docs/hollings.090701.html

Here are a couple articles that talk about some of the problems with this legislation
http://electronics.cnet.com/electronics/0-3219397-8-9508589-1.html
http://www.audiorevolution.com/news/0402/18.fritz.shtml
http://www.seattlepress.com/article-9489.html
Now don’t get me wrong, I am well aware of the piracy vrs entertainment issues involved in this, but this goes way too far. I couldn’t find a link to the article I read in the paper where it details the way companies could make electronic documents simply vanish. I think it’s funny I just read 1984 for the first time this summer, and last week I read an article listing the main characters job as a possible outcome of this bit of legislation.

You tell me, am I being paranoid here? What they are after here goes WAY beyond stopping file sharing. Now they want control of the way I Use my own music and other media as well as control of virtually ALL new software.

Here’s something that is glaringly absent from all the talk surrounding the legislation. In 10 years home entertainment systems as we know them will be a fast fading memory. As it is I have my pc controlling my stereo and dvd player already, ad in the custom box I plan to build with a wireless keyboard/mouse and I am set with a primitive but working model for the future of home entertainment. A big hard drive to store all that media I want easy access to, Built in video game capability, cd player, vcr, game consol, and with a spiffy new high-def plasma screen it does the work of the monitor and the television. And it will look as sleek as you want it to. No more ugly tower with cords all over the place. (ok they’ll still be there, just buried in the unit) optical mice have no need for a mouse pad, your thigh works just as well, and I already own a floppy keyboard that lays on my bed without me worrying (ok is that REALLY the way you spell worrying? Cause I think word must be on crack to give me that as the correct spelling) about kicking the thing in my sleep.

The companies backing this want control and you can bet your ass that they are fully aware that technology is heading down this path already.

I am posting this here and not the rant hall because I think it’s a worthy topic to discuss even if I would rather just bust out with the dissin and the cussin and skip all this polite conversation.

2

Companies don’t always get what they want. Remember the anti-piracy coding on CDs, which turned out to be easily circumvented by drawing on the thing with a Magic Marker?

Anti-piracy stuff on music and videos doesn’t get my blood pressure up much, since I grew up with books, vinyl LPs, and 8-track tapes, none of which I expected to be able to duplicate at home.

People keep confidently predicting there will soon be a computer in every home in America.

Hasn’t happened yet. Doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen any time soon, not until they get computers down in the same price range as a 19" color TV, say two hundred dollars. And those home network 'puters had better be one-size-fits-all completely idiotproof, so your Aunt Martha can take it out of the box, plug it into the TV set and the stereo (which means the TV and stereo manufacturers have to be on the bandwagon, too), and start surfing the Internet two minutes later, with one minute of that time being taken up in stashing the box and the bubble wrap by the back door.

Until the computer manufacturers get their product (a) cheap and (b) foolproof turnkey, and until a third-grader can connect all the systems together, Aunt Martha will continue with her TV set, computer, and stereo all on different systems.

You been spending too much time on all those tech websites, dude, wake up and smell the decaf out here in the real world. :smiley:

3

Your missing one really obvious point here, the computer that would easily run a system like I described can already be built for 200-300$

its called ps2/xbox/gamecube

all it takes is a few components to be combined in new ways., all the technology already exists and is plenty cheap.
and I dont do caffine! friggin migraines