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May 26, 2009

The Technology Bill of Rights, take two

Some clarification, discussion, and explanation on the Technology Bill of Rights

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Last Monday, during my first cup of coffee, I wrote a brief piece titled "Toward a Technology Bill of Rights." It contained a few basic ideas that had been bouncing around in my head for a while, but it was by no means exhaustive. It got picked up on Slashdot and other places, and I was deluged with e-mails, comments, criticism, and praise. Had I known the distance that piece would travel, I probably would have had another cup of coffee before writing it.

But the specifics of this idea certainly isn't set in stone, and it's supposed to create public discussion -- so that part worked. I've had more time to think about it and to read the comments and e-mails, so I think some clarification and expansion is in order.

[ Read up and weigh in on Paul Venezia's proposed Technology Bill of Rights | Keep up on the day's tech news headlines with InfoWorld's Today's Headlines: First Look newsletter and InfoWorld Daily podcast. ]

I really liked the idea of patterning something such as this on the Five Laws of Library Science, and I think that in a perfect world, those might be sufficient. I also fully agree with the comments that the last thing we need are more laws, and what I've outlined could either be covered by existing laws or handled by mere common sense. However, we live in an ever more litigous world, and common sense is more expensive now than ever -- and somehow even rarer. That's why I think that these rights need to be explicitly spelled out. They also need significant clarification. This whole writing of laws thing is pretty tough, believe it or not.

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JamesMartin 29-May-09 11:55am
Returning to your original bill of rights, I found this troubling: "there should be a mandatory update check in every product" I understand you wanting to take out of the hands of the user the option not to pull down security updates so the network will become safer. However when a vendor pulls a trick, such as downloading Windows Genuine Advantage as a security update, which product then claims falsly that you are running a pirated copy of the software because the hardware configuration has changed too much, and therefore will not let you run your computer, I have a problem with this part. Whether or not you install ANY software on your computer, should always be your decision. (I'd just love to see Micosoft try to run WGA on my Ubuntu machine!) My machine belongs to me, not a software vendor. They did not plunk down the hard cash for it, I did. This is the same order of magnitude as running any purchased content on any device I wish. We already have the situation where some CDs don't play in older CD players, let alone on a computer.
JamesMartin 31-May-09 5:51am
Another example of Microsoft downloading harmful code disguised as a security update: Security Fix Column by Brain Kreb at the Washington Post "...the .NET update automatically installs its own Firefox add-on that is difficult -- if not dangerous -- to remove, once installed." "...Microsoft tells us that the only way to get rid of this thing is to modify the Windows registry,..." He also includes this quote from Annoyances.org: "this update adds to Firefox one of the most dangerous vulnerabilities present in all versions of Internet Explorer: the ability for Web sites to easily and quietly install software on your PC."

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