Stanford Center for Internet and Society

In a recent paper on the forthcoming GPL version 3, Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen mention briefly the potential tension between trusted computing and the open source idea and how the GPL version 3 should react to this. Seth Schoen uses this paper as a starting point for some very interesting thoughts on the relationship between trusted computing and open source over here.

As any decent blog in the U.S. seems to require a posting on today's Grokster decision by the Supreme Court, here are my $ 0.02 (for a very interesting discussion of the decision, see Randal Picker's blog).There seems to be a tension in the Grokster decision concerning whether the particular architecture of a P2P system should be used as an argument in contributory infringement cases.

The Grokster decisions by the lower courts can be understood that, as long as the developer of a P2P network does not operate a search index, he cannot not be held liable. Therefore, it was understandable that Napster (with a centralized search index) was decided differently than Gnutella-based systems (with no centralized index at all) and FastTrack-based systems (with Supernode-based indices). The Supreme Court rejects this argument by relying on an inducement test.

Recently, the Supreme Court of Connecticut decided that enforcing a speed limit on a rental car by a GPS-based system is illegal. Decision is here.

Recently, the Best Practices Committee of the TCG published a document entitled "Design, Implementation, and Usage Principles for TPM-Based Platforms". The document, which had been in the pipeline for numerous months, is a major contribution of TCG to the policy debate. In my opinion, TCG should be applauded for the document. It provides a rather balanced view of the policy problems surrounding TCG, points to some solutions, but also to the limitations these solutions suffer from. Some of the solutions will, ultimately, not prevent the problems raised, but given the existing organizational structure of TCG, this document was probably the best the TCG could do (and agree upon). I'll come back to this point at the end of my comments which attempt to highlight some of the underlying policy principles as well as to criticize certain aspects of the document.

TCG Best Practices Committee, Design, Implementation, and Usage Principles for TPM-Based Platforms, Version 1.0, May 2005. For more information, click here.

I have updated the TC literature section down below. If you know any other sources that deal with important technological advances in the area of TC or with legal and policy implications of TC, please send me an email.

In addition to the slides of my recent talk about trusted computing at the CIS in Stanford, there is also an audio version available.

Furthermore, I have created a version which synchronizes the slides and the audio version. It is available here. I do not really like the synchronized version as it cannot be viewed with Firefox (basically, you have to use Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Windows Media Player 9), and, on many computers, the whole audio file must be downloaded first and cannot be streamed. But I thought the version might still be of some interest.

So the broadcast flag was struck down yesterday. As always, Ernest Miller has a nice summary of the reactions.

At Cambridge University, Dan Lockton is working on an interesting MPhil dissertation topic that is becoming more and more important: designing products with features that restrict or enforce what consumers can do with the products. For more information, click here.

Commentary on the Directive 2001/29/EC on the Harmonization of Certain Aspects of Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society, in: Dreier/Hugenholtz (eds.), Concise European Copyright Law, Kluwer Law International, 2006 (see flyer)