Presidential Ramblings

 

Issue 2.5

November 2004

 

Did you make it to the October general meeting? The three people who won the door prizes were certainly glad they did. Lisa Leifels took home a copy of Microsoft Office Pro 2003. Tim Purdy chose the ViewSonic Pocket PC (yes, really!) and Richard Castonguay got a copy of Microsoft FrontPage 2003. I can’t promise that we’ll always have door prizes like these, but sure can pay to attend the meetings.

How are you doing with Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Windows XP? The industry predictions of doom don’t seem to have materialized. I’ve applied SP2 to three machines all without any problems, so far. How’s your mileage?

Do your digital rights
need managing?

I just love the terminology here. If you have the right to fair use of copyrighted material, then why do those rights need managing? The trend seems to be toward systems that restrict your ability to use digital material but offer to sell those privileges back to you for a fee. If you buy a song on Apple iTunes should you be able to listen to that song on any computer or just on your iPod? If you buy a DVD should you be able to make a backup of that disk before it falls on the floor and the kids walk on it? What if you buy a DVD and then want to copy it to your hard drive so you can watch the movie on your next plane flight.

Security versus Trust – Privacy versus Anonymity

Some food for thought: If your computer is secure, does that mean that you can trust it? When you visit your bank’s web site, how do you know that you’re actually connecting to the bank’s computers and not someone pretending to be the bank? On the other hand, how does that bank know that it’s you on the other end throughout a series of transactions? If it’s so difficult to maintain our privacy online, then why is it so difficult to be anonymous?
Microsoft, Intel and others are working very hard on technology – software and hardware – to make computers trustworthy. The next question of course is, trustworthy by whom? My guess is that the goal is to make your computer trustworthy to the movie industry. Will this make it any easier to copy a movie from a DVD to your Pocket PC? Well... maybe for a fee.

The general election

This newsletter should arrive just before Election Day (and our November general meeting). This election is perhaps the most critical election ever for our country. I’ve been told I can’t endorse specific candidates here and we are a computer club after all. So I will just suggest that you look at the record of each candidate in protecting your privacy, your civil liberties and your digital rights. Then vote for the candidate who will best support and defend your freedoms – digital and otherwise.

DACS Elections

One last thing, remember that the DACS elections are coming in December, just a month after the general elections. So far, one person has offered to be a candidate for the DACS Board of Directors. We don’t have a formal nominating committee. If you are interested in this club and would like to help move it forward, please contact me or any director.


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