From: Michael M. Butler (butler@comp-lib.org)
Date: Tue Apr 09 2002 - 12:36:07 MDT
Yes, FUD continues. We really could use more general awareness of
capabilities, E, etc.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/04/09/trustworthy/index.html
Excerpted below...
Anti-Trustworthy computing
Microsoft's new security drive aims to appease Hollywood, comfort consumers
and reinvigorate the PC. But will the price for such safety be too high?
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Paul Boutin
April 9, 2002
Would you trust your life to Microsoft?
That's the challenge the company's "Trustworthy Computing" initiative is
throwing down. First hinted at publicly in one of Bill Gates' rare
companywide e-mails earlier this year, the sweeping concept was explained in
detail in a white paper written by CTO Craig Mundie for January's World
Economic Forum summit in New York.
"Computers helped transport people to the moon and back, they control
critical aircraft systems for millions of flights every year, and they move
trillions of dollars around the globe daily, [but] they generally haven't
reached the point where people are willing to entrust them with their lives,
implicitly or explicitly," Mundie wrote. "We will have to make the computing
ecosystem sufficiently trustworthy that people don't worry about its
fallibility or unreliability the way they do today ... It may take us ten to
15 years to get there."
Microsoft is making a big play on its new push: In a wager detailed in the
May issue of Wired magazine, Mundie has bet Google CEO Eric Schmidt that by
2030, passengers will routinely board commercial airline flights without a
pilot. That is, United and American flights will be flown entirely by
computers.
Six months after Sept. 11, you have to wonder: Is he nuts?
Those who've followed the company's escapades the past few years are asking
a different question: What's the spin here? What does Microsoft stand to
gain by planting in our minds the image of computer systems so reliable
we'll leave more fallible human pilots on the ground?
Perhaps, if we'll trust computers with our lives, we'll also trust them with
our credit cards. And maybe, even more important, Hollywood will trust them
with its movies. The Trustworthy Computing initiative is as much about
securing intellectual property control as it is about "safety."
...
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:13:21 MST