A Net of Control

December 13, 2003 | Source: Newsweek

Picture, if you will, an information infrastructure that encourages censorship, surveillance and suppression of the creative impulse. Where anonymity is outlawed and every penny spent is accounted for. Where the powers that be can smother subversive (or economically competitive) ideas in the cradle, and no one can publish even a laundry list without the imprimatur of Big Brother. Some prognosticators are saying that such a construct is nearly inevitable. And this infrastructure is none other than the former paradise of rebels and free-speechers: the Internet.

These are the concerns of Autodesk founder John Walker in a 28,000-word Web document called the Digital Imprimatur .

Tamperproof “digital certificates” to identify who you are, “trusted computing” (people and computer programs stamped with identifying marks), and “digital rights management” (to block unauthorized copying of music, movies etc.) would eliminate identity theft and spam while enabling small, secure electronic “microtransactions.” But the Internet could become transformed into a tool of corporate and government power.