🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Jan.19.22.41.18.1993.23082@planchet.rutgers.edu>  
cuhes@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Malcolm McMahon) writes:

> 4)   A "public key" encryption scheme is used for the ROM  program.  The 
> central  computer that compiles the ROM code first generates  a  private 
> and public key pair.
Sounds like an effective way to implement the "meterware and  
superdistribution" idea described on other groups and alluded to in a  
Foresight _Update_ article on "software component markets".  

Means
Something similar was discussed in a recent _Scientific American_.  Smart  
cards with separate AI processors and Public Key Encryption could make  
files only if the individual says OK.  The files are then examined by a  
network resource that can authenticate the files without knowledge of the  
individual's identity.  Thus we could create digital cash and place access  
control of an individual's credentials in the hands of the individual.

Implementation
I think that the materials authorization problem can be dealt with  
somehow.  But how would it be implemented?  Who decides what stuff I  
should have?  Libertarians fear the "evil governments who love regulation  
for its own sake".  Socialists fear "evil corporations who want to keep me  
poor even if my poverty is unnecessary."  Environmentalists fear  
"polluting manufacturing".  I dislike either/or thinking; and I think  
*all* these problems are serious.  But they have a common solution:  new  
technology properly used.  

Common Dangers
Likewise the three groups listed above will all hang separately if they  
don't hang together.  Here is the worst kind of regulation:  Not for  
safety but to infringe liberty and guarentee poverty.  The meterware idea  
is that software objects could function only on special machines which  
have downloaded (and purchased) authorization over the net.  Intellectual  
property rights could be administered by an equivalent of ASCAP.  Now I  
ask you who owns the rights to fire, the wheel, the bowl of rice?  If I  
get hungry I could scan a fish and duplicate it but not if life forms are  
restricted materials.

Can We Change?
Some say that the First World actually fears the development of the Third  
World and is willing to prevent such development because it operates on  
assumtions of a zero-sum game.  I hope this theory is incorrect.  Fear can  
be a good excuse for unecessary restriction and in my experience, it is  
difficult to convince people that there is no longer something to fear.

Forgive the length guys.  I'll take further talk to comp.society.futures  
if anybody's interested.

=========SunCat++++     | kamchar@ibm.cl.msu.edu
"A growth of knowledge is valuable only when it leads to a growth in  
wisdom."
--Ben Bova _Vision of the Future_