On Thu, 28 Aug 2003, Jo Walsh wrote: > this stuff is sneaking up on us, and i'm reluctant to wait until it > becomes a social-technological crisis before preparing counterarguments.
I agree with all the campaigns against the introduction of these cards, and support them. However, I also believe that changes to technology are inevitable. What we have to fight against are the changes to mentality (similar to those across the pond?) that cause these things to be used in particular ways. If a new technology does become inevitable, and this is also my policy with, say, .net, then wait until it would be very, very expensive to replace/fix/update before breaking it. Then break it. Then wait again. Then break it. While it's kind of funny to break, say, WPA before the official release, that's exactly what the company want. Break it much later when there's a plethora of vulnerable versions around. I think the virus writers have this down to a tee. I think that the only way to comprehensively defeat the use of these technologies is to comprehensively break the technologies themselves. I'm fairly happy with having a known breakable technology around. It would be like credit cards, with the legal protection as a primary backup mechanism to prevent fraud. Randomness. S. -- Shevek http://www.anarres.org/ I am the Borg. http://www.gothnicity.org/
