Congratulations, Cherokee Indian Village nonsense-poster from 86.71.107.239, you’re my 50,000th comment spammer since I switched over to WordPress last year!
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I know that a lot of spam supposedly comes in from China and Russia, but I personally see a lot hailing from France. I have no idea why, perhaps their computer security habits are closely related to their bathing habits or treatment of their immigrants.
I didn’t have the chance to watch last night’s Republican presidential debate on CNN, as I have a job, but was able to catch up with it today. Two quotes caught my attention. One of them, courtesy of Mitt Romney, was seized upon by Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart: “Well, the question is kind of a non sequitur, if you will. And what I mean by that — or a null set — and that is that if you’re saying…” Well, Mr. Romney, that isn’t what a non sequitur is. Maybe he misspoke, but no, he mis-uses the phrase again when challenged for dodging the question: “Well, I answered the question by saying it’s a non sequitur.”
For those of you keeping score at home, “non sequitur” literally means “does not follow.”
Speaking of the literal meanings of things, another quote caught my ear, this time from Mike Huckabee: “And the fact is, they know that if they have excessive taxation and a tax system that literally steps on their head…” Oh my. Our tax system literally steps on our heads? Literally? I was unaware that the tax system had feet, or was capable of stepping on anything.
Clearly the No Child Left Behind program was too late to save these unfortunate souls. People shouldn’t be permitted to throw around high-falutin’ words when they don’t know what they mean. Not without being called on it.
Fear, uncertainty, and doubt have an advantage over reason in the short term. It is natural to treat change as dangerous. When encountering a new person, business, or technology that is seeking your trust, it is normal to withhold or deny that trust at first, looking for some indication that it is merited first. The above slickly-produced infomercial is an excellent example of this.
The purpose of trusted computing is to insulate computer hardware and software vendors from liability when end-user information is compromised in some way. Toward this end, the TCPA encourages certain practices regarding interaction between processes within a system or between systems. By implementing these practices it is theoretically easier to make tools that share information responsibly.
FUD dictates that should be viewed as a power grab by greedy corporations that want to sneak into your house and steal your Cheez-its. Clearly by implementing a chip on your computer that uses 2048-bit encryption, some diabolical cabal will be hijacking your World of Warcraft guild chat and putting your company’s trade secrets up on eBay.
The Against TCPA group may be well-intentioned but their claims are unsupported and their arguments are largely an appeal to anti-corporatism. Due to the nearly invisible way that Internet traffic is already routed past various parties, through unknown hardware to practically-unknown destinations, all based upon paper-thin chains of trust with ominous names like DNS and BGP, it seems to me that this is much ado about very little indeed. If you’re concerned about shadowy figures reading your email and poking through your top-secret communications, you would be well-advised to encrypt it yourself, establish VPN tunnels through various foreign connections, and wear a tinfoil yarmulke under your hat.
Love the mascot, though.