[Previous entry: "Zone Alarm may be safe"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Microsoft disses Windows XP"]

01/29/2006 Archived Entry: "stockpiling old computer hardware"

Feburary 3rd is going to be ugly. F-Secure reports that over half a million computers have been infected with the Nyxem virus. On the 3rd, these computer owners are going to lose all of their DOC, XLS, MDB, MDE, PPT, PPS, ZIP, RAR, PDF, PSD and DMP files. Of course, some of those computers may have been disinfected by now...but odds are most of them haven't.

And now some musings of my own, which originated in my latest eBay purchase.

I'm stockpiling computer hardware. For reasons which I won't go into here, I have a continuing need to use ISA-bus computer cards in my personal computer. The last generation of computers which supported the ISA bus are now a couple of years old; no more are being made. Over the years, I've had two motherboards fail, and one get fried by a lightning strike. So to be prudent, I'm watching eBay for motherboards of the type I use, and buying them cheaply when I can. (I've decided it's more space efficient to store extra motherboards than entire computers.)

But even if I didn't have this peculiar need, I'd be stockpiling hardware right now. I may perhaps be overreacting, but I'm very worried about the next generation of computer hardware -- the new hardware that's going to be required by Windows Vista. I fear that will be the first generation to include Digital Rights Management (DRM) in hardware, and as I've said before, DRM is shorthand for "you don't own your computer or your data."

Microsoft still wants Palladium, or Next Generation Secure Computing Base, or Trusted Computing, or whatever they're calling it nowadays, in your PC. The MPAA and RIAA want it too. There are rumblings that this will be an integral part of Windows Vista, which means that any chipmaker who wants to stay in business will have to support it.

I wish I could say with confidence that Open Source software will ignore these new features, and remain forever free of DRM. But some of the rumors I've heard fifth-hand about the Linux 2.6 kernel development give me doubts.

So, the day may come when I no longer trust new computer hardware or new computer software. Indeed, other than video editing, I can think of no applications that require more horsepower than I currently own. In hindsight, my last two computer upgrades were to overcome the fact that operating system and applications software has become slower and more bloated. (Yes, even Linux.) I'm really not doing anything with my PC that I wasn't doing under Windows 95.

This means it just may be practical for me to freeze my computer technology at its current level, and stick with the software I presently use. (I'll have more to say about this in a future blog entry.) And that means I can pick up "obsolete" hardware on the cheap, to keep my systems running for a decade or more.

Of course, I've been wrong about this before. I stayed with DOS much longer than many, because I didn't perceive any needs that it didn't meet. Then came the Internet, and the World Wide Web, and graphical applications, and local networks...and I found the need for a graphical operating system. I could be wrong again.

And it could be that more people become aware of the importance of computing freedom and owning your data, and a market develops for DRM-free computers. So it may someday be safe for me to upgrade to the latest and greatest.

But in 2006, no upgrades for me.

brad