Richard Stallman on 'trusted computing'

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http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4933

Saturday 1st January 2005 (20h24) :
Microsoft's plan to take over your computer
by Richard Stallman

Who should your computer take its orders from? Most people think their
computers should obey them, not obey someone else. With a plan they call
"trusted computing", large media corporations (including the movie
companies and record companies), together with computer companies such as
Microsoft and Intel, are planning to make your computer obey them instead
of you. (Microsoft's version of this scheme is called "Palladium".)
Proprietary programs have included malicious features before, but this
plan would make it universal.

Proprietary software means, fundamentally, that you don't control what it
does; you can't study the source code, or change it. It's not surprising
that clever businessmen find ways to use their control to put you at a
disadvantage. Microsoft has done this several times: one version of
Windows was designed to report to Microsoft all the software on your hard
disk; a recent "security" upgrade in Windows Media Player required users
to agree to new restrictions. But Microsoft is not alone: the KaZaa
music-sharing software is designed so that KaZaa's business partner can
rent out the use of your computer to their clients. These malicious
features are often secret, but even once you know about them it is hard to
remove them, since you don't have the source code.

[snip]