1,228 views

54:35 L

Watch
- Search Videos
  
  Advanced search »
- Submit a New Video
Discuss
About
- Try clicking on the various channels to see videos posted to that channel - if you're into music you can click the Music channel to get more music sifts - go on and explore! Use the "hotness" when you have opened the channel link to get videos that have gotten a lot of votes, or use "newness" to have a look at the new sifts.
  When browsing sifts you like, have a look at the Related Posts list to see other related videos, click the tags under the video title to see more sifts tagged with the same tags or have a look at other sifts from the same user in the More Posts By list. If the sifted video is in a play list, have a look at the play list to see other interesting videos the Sift users have linked together.
  Enter the Sift Lounge to chat with online sifters about anything and everything, or read interesting posts in the Sift Talk forum.
  The Top New Videos list is always full of interesting, current videos. It is always recommended that you have a look through the Top New Videos, but also have a look at these:
  - Upcoming Unsifted Videos - active video submissions that neither are published to the front page nor archived to the submitter's personal queue
- Have you seen a really funny, surprising, scary, interesting, cute or in any other way extra good quality video?
  Post and share it here - VideoSift is the best video aggregator on the Web, where we share, discuss, promote, and interact with the best videos out there on the web. Post it here, and share it with the large community of video-interested users. And - you are guaranteed to find more very good videos here already!
  Mind you, we only share videos you discover that someone else has made; if you "self link," by posting a video you have made, have posted or have interests in, you risk the ban hammer - read the posting guidelines before posting. The sift is NOT for promoting your own videos - it is for sharing videos others have made.
  Submit a Video Now »
Login

The coming war on general computation

submitted by longde

1 decade 2 years 4 months ago

The last 20 years of Internet policy have been dominated by the copyright war, but the war turns out only to have been a skirmish. The coming century will be dominated by war against the general purpose computer, and the stakes are the freedom, fortune and privacy of the entire human race.

The problem is twofold: first, there is no known general-purpose computer that can execute all the programs we can think of except the naughty ones; second, general-purpose computers have replaced every other device in our world. There are no airplanes, only computers that fly. There are no cars, only computers we sit in. There are no hearing aids, only computers we put in our ears. There are no 3D printers, only computers that drive peripherals. There are no radios, only computers with fast ADCs and DACs and phased-array antennas. Consequently anything you do to "secure" anything with a computer in it ends up undermining the capabilities and security of every other corner of modern human society.

And general purpose computers can cause harm -- whether it's printing out AR15 components, causing mid-air collisions, or snarling traffic. So the number of parties with legitimate grievances against computers are going to continue to multiply, as will the cries to regulate PCs.---YT

8 Comments

i can't believe someone alrady tried to sift this. *quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by marinara.

It was an interesting and relevant talk. I don't necessarily agree with his points. For instance, I don't think an appliance or an embedded system is equivalent to a 'general purpose computer with spyware'. Maybe a tablet qualifies, but not a true appliance.>> ^marinara:

i can't believe someone alrady tried to sift this. quality

Interesting talk. SOAPA looks like the start of a whole new "war on drugs" style regime. Be very afraid of governments seeking to ban TOR.

Coming?! We're already there. This is what every device Apple sells is all about, and all of the other producers are burning with jealousy about it.

Decided to watch the first 5 minutes. 50 minutes later and I've watched the whole thing :3

Maybe we don't need to go as far as creating our own cpus, but it would be nice if the general population at least had a passing understand of the tecnology that we use on a day to day basis. We are so dependant upon the net and computers, and yet most know next to nothing about either. I'm not saying everybody has to be able to build their own PC from scratch, but perhaps these bullshit laws would keep coming up if it was more than some fringe geeks making a fuss about it.

There are so many whitebox hardware platforms and open source operating systems, anyone can build a general purpose computer if they really want for cheap.

The problem is, most people don't want to or need to. Most of the capabilities of the windows operating system is not used by ordinary people and is actually a hindrance to a optimal user experience. That's why simplified tablet and smartphone platforms are taking off in some consumer segments.

http://boingboing.net/2011/12/29/state-of-the-arms-race-between.html

Discuss...

🗨️ Emojis & HTML

Enable JavaScript to submit a comment.

This website uses cookies.

This website uses cookies to improve user experience. By using this website you consent to all cookies in accordance with our Privacy Policy.