Thread by @doctorow

In my novella Unauthorized Bread, I explore how "smart" devices can be turned into rent-extraction services, enabling firms to convert the property we own into systems that we license, with the terms renegotiable at any moment.

arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01…

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Under these conditions, companies can realize the age-old monopolist's dream of controlling their risk by unilaterally imposing restraints on their competitors, customers and critics.

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And since laws like Section 1201 of the DMCA ban tampering with these enforcement systems, firms can literally make it a crime to displease their shareholders - it's "Felony Contempt of Business-Model."

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For example, a company can define some of the value you get out of your property (like using ink of your own choosing in your printer) as a "feature" and charge anything they want for it. They can also cancel that feature if they decide it's not good for them anymore.

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And since laws (like copyright and patent) prohibit third parties from making interoperable products that can restore the feature - a mod-chip, a third-party ink cartridge, a plug-in - companies get to decide who can compete with them and how.

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Say you make a mobile phone and you want your customers to throw away their devices and buy new ones every two years: you can design the phone so that repairing it requires bypassing a copyright lock.

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That makes it a crime for anyone except you to fix that phone, and you can decline to fix phones that are more than two years old. Anyone who attempts a competing, unauthorized repair breaks the law.

vice.com/en_us/article/…

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But remember, this Felony Contempt of Business Model isn't just a license to dictate how your competitors and customers must act - it also allows you to muzzle your critics.

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Digital systems contain subtle and potentially lethal security defects. The most reliable way for these defects to be discovered and repaired is for independent third parties to conduct unauthorized, unconstrained audits of products we trust with our data and even our lives.

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In particular, companies should never - for obvious reasons - get a say in who can tell the public about defects in their products or how they can say it. Companies are not neutral custodians of true disclosures regarding expensive mistakes they made.

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When companies uses digital locks to restrict access to code in their devices, they can use these laws to punish people both for researching their products and for disclosing what they find.

@EFF is suing the US government to end this.

eff.org/cases/green-v-…

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When corporations have the right to control their critics, customers and competitors, we have no hope for technological self-determination - the right to decide which technology we use and how we use it.

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So of course, corporations love this. It's a way to make money by bullying your customers, rather than by wooing them with your amazing products.

Oh hai, @BMW.

cnet.com/roadshow/news/…

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BMW is reinventing their cars as a "platform" - that is, a device where they (and they alone) can arbitrarily add or remove features at any price they choose, subject only to terms of service whose only option is "I agree" or "I no longer have a car."

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Which over-the-air "options" will BMWs have? "Everything from advanced safety systems like adaptive cruise and automatic high-beams to other, more discrete options like heated seats."

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"Imagine pressing the seat heater button only to be prompted to renew your subscription, or having to pay extra to get an engine note on your new M4 that suits your sensibilities. All this is possible -- and likely. And, frankly, ugly." -@Tim_Stevens, @CNET

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Stevens is right, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Implicit in car-as-platform is car-as-monopoly-platform, car-as-company-store. This only works if BMW's competitors are prohibited from simply unlocking this functionality.

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That is, it only works if BMW - and not you - get to decide which software runs in your car. This may sound like a safety feature but having the power to load and unload the code in every BMW guarantees that governments will order BMW to do so when it suits their needs.

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This is the lesson Apple learned when it made a phone that Apple - and Apple alone - could approve software for. The murderous Chinese government showed up and said, "Remove any software that makes it impossible to spy on our people."

reuters.com/article/us-chi…

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If you CAN do it, someone might MAKE YOU do it.

Image:
Cryteria
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9…

CC BY (modified):
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.…

eof/