[PLUG-TALK] What are we designing? Re: Applying M$ and Adobe Patches

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 04:17:34PM -0700, Rich Shepard wrote:
>   I read at KrebsOnSecurity that both Adobe and M$ have pushed out a bundle
> of patches to fix the latest bunch of exploited vulnerabilities. This brings
> up a question: where can computer-naive folks get their systems upgraded?

At a presentation last night about the future of computing, 
I asked the speaker about the "123456" password people -
the ones who aren't wired to think about a world of digital
threats, information power asymmetries, digitized life games
where a rival designed the game and holds all the cards.

The software samurai are creating a new world with new
shoguns - and new tools that are used by bandits to make
strange and fearful threats, justifying the power the
shoguns gather and wield "to protect us".

The speaker's response was: there will always be losers.
He was talking about people I care about.  In time, as
age and misfortune reduces digital agility, he is talking
about me, and himself, and everyone else in that room.

Lawrence Lessig writes "code is law".  We can write code
to protect and enable the weak, or we can write code to
further empower the software shoguns.  What do we write
if the shoguns write the checks?

It is difficult for a software wizard at the peak of
lifetime productivity to understand that every coding
decision they make can and will be used against them
and their family and friends.  The dancing animated
screen that captivates and keeps users in their seats
for one more minute, multiplied by millions, is a
handful of disabilities and deaths, driven by chair-
bound passivity and the sedentary diseases that result.
Which cigarette kills the smoker?

We can dismiss this as "problem exists between keyboard
and chair" - or we can ask why a human being has to sit
in that chair in the first place, what we screwed up so
badly that a precious human life must be spent that way?

In utopia, every life lived well would become sharable
software that others could use to live well also.  I
have no clue how to do that, only the belief that we
have the capability if someone is clever enough to
harness it, and humble enough to realize that it isn't
their own life that is most worth sharing.

Keith

P.S. Forgive the speaker, he had a bad cold, was stoned
on Sudafed, but had the fortitude to show up and speak
anyway.  I hope he isn't forced by inflexible software
to choose and remember a password before he gets well.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com