Disproportionate sentences like this don't enamor people to their government, or to put it another way "unjust laws serve to bring all law into contempt." The United States of Amerika indeed where the slightest act is met with ridiculous punishment. No wonder per capita the land of the free imprisons the most people in the world.
They don't get the inherent flaw with "breakable" encryption: if the government can break it then so can third-parties. Which may be other governments. Like China looking for industrial secrets. Hell, even right now you know that encrypted channels of every kind are being recorded for the inevitable day quantum computing becomes a reality and they can then be decrypted after the fact.
You don't like the license? Fuck off and write your own then. Simple.
*didn't think
which is why a $100 Android phone is impressive even if it doesn't quite have the horsepower of a 1980s Cray supercomputer.
Actually, a typical smart-phone today kicks the ass of a late 1980's Cray Y-MP super-computer. Shh though, you see, those computers used to be used for certain cutting-edge physics verification calculations. Best if people did think about using a cheap smart-phone for that today.
It's called: Regulatory Capture, and it is a failure mode in government.
The point I gave is the culmination of an effect over the span of 35+ years.
Remember way back when at the dawn of the PC era? When Tandy clean-room reversed engineered IBM's BIOS? That led directly, directly, to the PC as an open-platform. If the PC wasn't open, and therefore became the de-facto standard, then very arguably we would be stuck with crappy machines right now because innovation would have been dead. IBM would have had a strangle-hold on their implementation and if you didn't like their MicroBUS then you could build your own complete architecture. Copyrighting API's sounds good to non-technical people but people in the know know that it is the death-knell for advancement. The specific implementation deserves copyright but API's, and various implementations of them, are what foster competition and therefore better stuff, faster.
Oh noes! North Korea is building missiles to launch one at us! Yeah, don't be stupid. Missiles are costly and take a ramp up to deploy over years and many tests. There is no threat from North Korea or any other developing nation concerning missiles that won't be seen years in advance.
The actual threat is not missiles, but nuclear weapons themselves. Smuggled in in a shipping container or in the boot of a car. You think it is any accident that people getting radiation treatment for cancer are, fact, setting off radiation detectors as they drive down highways and then getting stopped and searched? The USA is already ahead of the real threat, smuggled warheads, talk of North Korea or other fanatics building missiles just makes good TV for the masses.
So, we should race to the bottom then? Cooperate with whatever crass demands those other shitty nations decide we should oppress with? Or actually act like an enlightened democracy and say we won't help you do your shit?
I would hope that corporations faced with these unreasonable demands simply close up shop in the country. Google CEO going to go to jail? Well, Google pulls out of France and has no presence. Good luck French people with your search queries. If a corporation caves to one country then it will just embolden then next country. Better to draw a line in the sand and tell them to fuck off.
That was some serious shit..
Solve the problem of malware being served first then once that self-defence is out of the way look at coming to a resolution of acceptable advertisements.
Anyone else get a feeling of: The Self Aware Colony from good old Alpha Centauri? Layers and layers of automated systems that keep the cities running "smoothly."
Copyright has no clothes is how the saying goes.
Perpetual copyright - and make no mistake it is that by extension after extension - robs our culture of rich works that never were. If copyright was a sane term like 20 years then after those 20 years new authors could tell new stories in those universes and receive their own 20 year copyright on their flavors. But, no, better to let the tapestry rot away for a few pennies more a year.
Get a free book on the issues here: The Public Domain.
New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you. - David Letterman
