Lockdown – The coming war on general-purpose computing (2012)

This and Stallman's "Right to Read" (posted yesterday at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14332257 ) are particularly relevant given the whole WannaCry situation --- no doubt there will be plenty of authoritarian-minded thinking computers (and maybe even programming them) should be locked-down/regulated more, to stop such attacks. In some sense, I rather take solace in the fact that hacks, attacks, cracks, leaks, etc. are continuing to happen regularly --- they are a sign that there is still some freedom left…

I like the essay but it fails to realize the goal posts are not fixed on the field. General purpose computing is alive and well and cheaper than ever, you can build the equivalent of a PC/AT for about $50 in parts. What Cory misses is that when we were building CP/M machines and IBM PC clones, there already was a big pile of computers that were locked down so that somebody else could make money off of you using…

I wanted to repeat a comment I made in the thread about Cory's talk - as I'd be interested in the answer. Many of today's printers, scanners and image editors already ship with restrictions designed to prevent the counterfeiting of currency. In effect general-purpose digital imaging has already been restricted. What I wonder is how are these restrictions implemented, legally? Do laws or regulations require it? Or is it ad-hoc? Are OEM vendors persuaded or paid to implement it by…