Posted 8:42 AM

It's mine, dammit!

Eric Norlin asks "Who owns your computer?" in a posting at Digital ID World, and the answer, from me, is a resounding, "you do!" (That's not what Eric things, though.)

Maybe he's been lying in the southern Florida sun a bit too long, but Eric claims that this article about Digital Rights Managment (DRM) in the upcoming release of Windows Vista prompted his introspection.

But DRM isn't about your computer - it's about the software running on your computer. If you don't like running videos that are hemmed in with draconian licenses, run other videos. If you don't like operating systems which enforce those draconian licenses - use a different OS! But don't rail about the technology or the "loss" of control of your hardware. The hardware you still control, and the DRM tool will come in very handy when we finally get to Identity Rights Management as a protection for our personal, sensative, private information. Because in the not too distant future we should be able to say about our identity attributes: "That's mine, dammit. You don't need to know that!"