While I was in Ireland, it became apparent to me just how warped the North American lifestyle appears to be. Watching an episode of ‘Friends’, I noticed that Monica and Rachel’s apartment was roughly the size of most Irish families’ entire houses! Most movies showed homes that were not only disproportionately large compared to North American standards of living, but also nearly palaces by European standards. No wonder so many people around the world feel bad about themselves.
People in other countries must think we’re crazy, given some of the things that we consume. Think of the things that get made in places like China, Indonesia, India, and Bangladesh, to name only a few of the world largest Export Processing Zones. In No Logo, Naomi Klein presented the disturbing image of a child in one of these zones producing Disney merchandise for consumption by her North American counterpart. Imagine what she must think of us, or of the child that will be the eventual recipient of the toys she produces.
Personally, I always wondered what the workers in these zones think about producing all of the exotic sex toys consumed by the world market. How do you explain your job to your child? I guess all you can say is that daddy works “in plastics” or something equally vague. It must be surreal to work in one these factories, and to think that you have to scrape a living out of creating artificial phalluses for the pleasure of bored housewives. What do they think of us?
Even our perception of how we should be living is distorted within North America. Look at ‘Sex in the City’. Do you think Carry Bradshaw could afford some of the outfits and shoes she wears? I don’t think so. No wonder that, according to the Age Of Access, the saving rate of American has dropped from 25.5% of post-tax income in 1944 to -0.2% in 1998. In other words, they’re spending more than they make!
The time has come for us to stop this feel-good-about-ourselves consumption binge. We’re not living a dream, we’re living an illusion. It’s not healthy for us, those producing these goods, or the planet. Next time you’re in a store, ask yourself, “Do I really need this? Is this something that I can’t actually live a full life without?” and if the answer is “No”, then do the right thing. Don’t buy it.
Last week Hewlett-Packard attempted to use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to crush security research company SNOsoft for revealing a particular nasty exploit allowing a remote attacker to access to machines running HP’s Tru64 Unix operating system. While this is not the first attempt to disrupt legitimate security research using the DMCA (see earlier attempts by the RIAA against Dr. Ed Felten), this represents a true departure from previous attempts: to a casual observer, SNOsoft didn’t even violate the DMCA!
The DMCA, as its name suggests, is about protecting copyright in the age of technology that enables perfect digital copies of copyrighted materials. Part of the act outlines terms that make it a crime to circumvent copyright controls or distribute tools for that purpose. What’s interesting is that the “technology” distributed by SNOsoft had nothing to do with copyright protection technology, it only really enabled a malicious user to access a system running Tru64 without proper authorization. Is that wrong? Undoubtedly a person using the exploit against a third-party’s system would be breaking the law, but they, not SNOsoft, would be prosecutable under US federal computer fraud statutes, not the DMCA.
Did HP honestly expect it would be able to sue SNOsoft for damages resulting from the release of the exploit, despite the fact that the problem was a direct result of HP’s own faulty software? Most software today is distributed under an End User License Agreement (such as this example Microsoft EULA) that stipulates the software is provided “as is”, under no warranty, and not even guaranteed to be suitable for any purpose! If HP is not liable to its own customers for faults in its Tru64 Unix, how can it contend that SNOsoft should be liable for any damages that result from an exploit that someone other than SNOsoft used to breach a Tru64 system?
Perhaps recognizing the possibility of setting a software-liability precedent, HP hastily recanted its legal threats.
Software companies want to be able to sell a product, but they don’t want to be liable for any damage their product might inflict. They want to sell something, but a person who purchases their product doesn’t actually own it, they only own a “license” which can be revoked by the manufacturer at any time. They want to be able to access a user’s machine without their knowledge. They want. They want. They want.
How about what we, the users, want?
It’s time that software development companies realized that they’re just regular companies and, like every other company (recent examples notwithstanding), they have to follow the rules. Play time is over. Grow up or go home.