http://www.againsttcpa.com/index.shtml I'm gonna leave it up to you to form your own ideas on this, post what you feel
Yeah fetus, there's a whole lot of experts who frantically oppose the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance, and for many very good reasons. I'm not an expert, but it seems pretty black and white to me: TCPA (aka Paladium aka Trusted Computing) is very bad for us and only good for the pockets of a few huge companies. The gist of it in a nutshell: "...the TCPA can prevent any unwanted software and hardware. The long term result will be that it will be impossible to use hardware and software that's not approved by the TCPA. Presumably there will be high costs to get this certification and that these would be too much for little and mid-range companies. Therefore open-source and freeware would be condemned to die, because without such a certification the software will simply not work. In the long term only the big companies would survive and could control the market as they would like." Let me point out that the "unwanted" hardware and software may not be unwanted by us, but by the companies that control TCPA (i.e. their competition). Very, very bad. And all in the name of security! God help us all.
It's a legal can of worms. There's also rumors that this could allow companies to stop folks from using, say Linux, if they chose. Now, yes, I understand recommendations, and that it's a very good idea to follow them, but telling the consumer that they have to buy a specific component is wrong. That's none of their business. I don't care if it's to prevent piracy or whateve other good things they're saying. It's simply infuriating that these companies want to keep track of what we do with their products after we PURCHASE them. I should be able to run whatever damn OS I want. I run Windows because that's what works for me, but I shouldn't be constricted to it.
This is only bad for the market. I read about this a few months ago and didn't think twice of it. Simply to drastic action to be taken seriously. Imagine not being able to download anything but big bloated verified apps. It'd kill open source and small programmers.
