Who Really Owns Your Computer?
Hey guys and loyal readers. No I haven't died or disappeared.
It's been a busy few weeks with projects and vacations, VBS,
and just life in general. While I very much enjoy writing this
article. Unfortunately it's not always at the top of my list
of things to do. In any case, I'm taking the time to write
this one for you. This week's article isn't so much a
how-to or a tech tip as it is an idea. It's an idea intended
to get you to begin thinking about something very important. The
question is "Who really owns your computer?". You
bought and paid for it, but do you own the contents of it and
ultimately have control over what happens on your computer, what
gets installed, and are you aware of what all that software is
doing while you're asleep?
A lot of this idea is borrowed from two camps of thought that
goes back several decades and in short are known as
"Commercial/Proprietary Software" and "
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source">Open source
Software".
Proprietary software is what's mostly available from
companies like Microsoft, Symantec, Mcafee, Macromedia, Adobe and
the like. You give them some money and they give you a product.
Sometimes this transaction includes support from the provider.
When new features are added to the product you are asked to once
again pay for the software. This happens usually on an annual
basis. Security patches are usually provided for free however.
There is nothing wrong with this model, but it does have a few
drawbacks. Most notably is that you're at the mercy of the
software vendor as to how and when you're concerns or needs
will be addressed. And at what cost. Suppose you're using a
program you paid for and you think it's almost great. It
allows you to be fairly productive and it works well, but there
is a certain thing (feature) that you wish it had. How do you go
about getting that feature you need added? Well, maybe you decide
to wait and see if it's added to next year's release. And
you might still be waiting for a couple of years. For a feature
to be added, many hundreds of people would have to make that
request to the vendor. But if they don't provide you a
channel to do that where do you start? I don't know the
answer to that question. I suppose a logical start would be their
tech support phone number. Several transfers later you try to
explain your desire to a minimally English speaking individual on
the other end who is logging all of this into a database
somewhere that's far away from the actual developers. The
real point here is that you must depend on someone else to take
care of you, and they may not understand or really care about
your needs. Furthermore, in proprietary software do you really
know what all that code is doing? Do you know what information
it's sending out about you? Do you know what servers it's
chatting with on the internet? Do you have any idea about a
single line of code contained in that software? Did you know that
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Sony_CD_copy_protection_controversy">
Sony/BMG were shipping
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit">rootkits as part of
the audio CD you paid for(old news by now, but valid to make my
point). The rootkit installed itself without your permission or
knowledge, and potentially opened the door for a flood of other
problems and attacks. They were doing this as a way to prevent
you from making illegal copies of the CD you bought. The problem
is that the computer is yours and you should have the ultimate
say-so as to what's installed and you should fully understand
what the software's intention is once it is installed. Since
we don't know the contents of the code, we have to put our
trust in the software provider to do what's best for us. And
in most cases this works fine. But as in the case with Sony/BMG,
sometimes companies do what's in their best interest
regardless of your rights and your property. It would not be out
of the realm of reality for a company providing software, that
you've paid for, to include code to monitor your actions and
attempt to control your behavior. Picture this…"You spend
$500 for a piece of commercial software only to find out that it
displays ads to you every 20 mins or so." Do you stop using
it? Probably not, you're used to paying to look at ads. Cable
TV, for instance, you pay money for it but there are still ads
all over it. I'm really not a paranoid person, nor am I
anti-capitalism, nor do I entertain conspiracy theories. But I
believe strongly in freedom and far too often these days
we're more than willing to give up a bit of our freedom in
exchange for simplicity, comfort, security and what not.
Possessing freedom requires work, thought, and diligence to
protect it. We should ask for an account of the code that we are
purchasing and fully understand what its intent is as well as
actual actions are. We should be exempt from marketing if we have
spent money on something.
Now Open source software is quite a bit different. The GNU/Linux
Operating System is probably the best example of open source
software at work. I love it and use it everyday. It's been a
part of my life for over four years now. In fact everything I
know about computers I learned simply by using GNU/Linux. The
idea behind open source software is that the code that makes up
the program is available for you to view, edit, share, compile,
fix, and poses. In contrast to proprietary software this means
you can review the code and you know exactly what every line of
code is intended to do. You'll know what servers on the
internet it's communicating with and you can either disable
features you don't want or need or add features that you do
need. The openness of the code gives you complete freedom and
control over something that already belongs to you. You are not
limited by a vendors release schedule nor are you bound by their
desire to pay attention to your request or not. I've
mentioned before that open source software is typically free, but
it doesn't have to be. If you find it useful or don't
know how to read and write code yourself you can pay the
developers to add a feature for you. Or someone in your community
that write code. I'm using an open source document editor
called Abiword. It's compatible with MS Word and when I'm
finished I'll email a word document to "The Record"
for print. If you'd like to learn more about GNU/Linux and
open source software there is a group here in North Wilkesboro
called "North Wilkesboro Linux Users Group". You can
find their website at http://nwlug.org. They meet once a month to
discuss GNU/Linux and open source software. They are made up of
some of the best and brightest the community has to offer and are
more than willing to help you take the open source plunge.
Please send your comments, questions, or suggestions to:
comments@deconfuser.com
PO BOX 987
North Wilkesboro, NC 28659
Visit http://www.deconfuser.com/article for more advice.
No comments yet.