TCPA is an organization of very large companies in the computing industry, including Microsoft, Intel, AMD, IBM, VIA, SiS, and many others, who have banded together to develop hardware and software, legislation and government endorsement, to spying on your computer at all levels.

They will have full access to any hardware and software, files and information you keep on your computer, and they will have full authority using their devices to outlaw, change, or delete anything you have on your computer.

Got an ass or any freedom whatsoever?  Start kissing it goodbye; it'll be gone within 3 years if these guys get their way.  Go to the website I posted as the name of this thread.  Read the faq.  Be very afraid, and sign up to fight this.

-Visko

PS:  This could mean the end of MUDs.

Thanks for the info. I hope more people learn about this kind of stuff going on.

I think people are over-exaggerating on TCPA, but I also think that it is bull****, considering all these huge companies would come together to stop piracy, and try to police the internet. The internet is a beast that cannot be tamed, try as they might, in the end they will just get biten in the arm, and they will bleed to death by the animal that they themselves created.

Hrm? What does that have to do with anything, Ingham? This affects EVERYONE who uses a computer. Everywhere. Many software creators and hardware creators are now including ways to force this onto people (which, essentially, is the main reason people are railing against it so hard). Where you live is of no consequence.

When the major BIOS suppliers incorporate required compliance... when the 'fritz' chip comes into wide-scale usage... when it makes it into motherboards, and the like... when MicroSoft and the others insert mandatory use of those capabilities into their products so that without it you can't use their software, see how much denial and being anti-American helps you.

I'd venture to say not much. But, to each their own.

Palladium and the like are nothing new.  M$ has been working on it for a while - though they did just change the name  to 'Next-Generation Secure Computing Base' because of all the bad press it has been receiving.

Read for more information about Palladium.  Or for additional reading.

I know Bush is fond of saying "if you're not with us, you're against us", but don't you think it's just a bit extreme to accuse someone of being "anti-American" simply on the basis that they're not actually American?

What does that have to do with anything? Ingham's statement was oozing smug anti-Americanism. Doesn't that make him anti-American?

Lot

I love it when people call me anti-something simply because I'm right. I don't troll on these forums, I leave that for IRC. (real time responses are much more fun and people are quicker to anger in a real time chat situation) However, it is ironic that the US, the country which has been the (self proclaimed) land of freedom, oppurtunity and equality, is now instituting laws and regulations against all it supposedly stands for. They barge over to Iraq to liberate oppresed people while their own country slowly becomes an . Besides, in regard to this subject, was in not Thomas Jefferson who said the following:

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country” Thomas Jefferson

That said, yes, I'm against the US goverment. Strongly. However, not against the US people.

I'll tell you, if I could I would definitely choose to live in Europe besides USA. Too much blood spilt here for stupid beliefs for my taste.

That's quite a baffling comment. Very little blood has been committed on American soil relative to the amount spilled on European soil and the reasons were generally just as stupid.

--matt

Depends on which part of Europe. Switzerland hasn't been involved in a war for over 600 years if I recall correctly. And the only wars in europe that was spilled due to stupid beliefs would be the world wars, and world war I had a purpose, world domination. Two was just hitler's insanity unleashed in Nazism. Other then that, europe is far cleaner then America, in the sense that it is much older, and in comparison to America which has only been around for the past three centuries, simply pales in the major problems that america has faced, and now faces.

-Delerak

Thats because America's population is one of the worst educated in the First World. Many people here believe the media when they frame stories to make it appear that islam is fundamentally opposed to western ideals. At the same time, they're angry (probably rightfully so) that such a huge portion of our budget is being spent on "the middle-east" (it actually goes to us-based arms dealers and other multi-national corporations).

Of course, this trend will only get worse now that Bush has asked for an additional 87 Billion dollars which, for comparison, is equal to one fifth of the budget of all domestic deptartments.

I think its all an elaborate plan to roll back the last remnants of the New Deal, but that makes me sound paranoid.

- Ryan

You aren't much of a student of history, are you?

Honestly, do a tiny little bit of research. For over a thousand years Europe was nothing but one bloody war after another. Ironically, the only thing that managed to keep Europe at peace for more than a handful of years was the Cold War.

Here is a nice little link to get you started down the road of knowledge:

If you think the US is out of control right now, fine. But your historical revisionism is absurd.

You are truly clueless.

Europe was one big f-ing bloodbath from oh, about 500 BC until 1945. In no particular order: Carthaginian invaders, Turkish invaders, Greeks slaughtering each other, Romans making war on half of Europe, Vandals and Goths making war on Rome, Charlemagne, Moorish invaders, Mongol hordes, the First and Second Wars of Succcession, Viking raids, wars between Russia and Norway, the Hundred Years war, the interminable Balkan wars, the Napoleonic wars, the French Revolution, the Dynastic wars in England, the wars between England and the Scots, the Danish Civil War, the various Frankish civil wars, the Danish-Swedish war, the Livonian War, the War of the Spanish Succession, and on and on and on and on and on. And that leaves out WWI and WWII, both fought for exceedingly stupid reasons.

--matt

Umm... Maybe this doesn't make any difference, but 500 BC? Not counting native history (which I admittably don't know much about), America is a much younger country than that. Also, the wars you listed involved many nations, some now dead. The US grew very quickly compared to other nations, but it's not fair to compare an entire continent's timeline back to a point where the total time to the present is nearly eight times as long as the age of the US, now is it?

(Bleh, forgive me if it's not eight times, my math skills are not great.)