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Comment by dotancohen | Hacker News Reader

The article applies this terrific Doctrow quote about Secure Computing to WEI:

  > Should your computer be able to be compelled to tell the truth, even when you would prefer that it lie on your behalf? Should there be a facility in your computer that you can’t control that other people can remotely trigger?

It is an apt application of the quote, and a fundamental question that is likely based on culture and each persons or organizations past experience with abusive overlords. I personally opposed it.

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Doctorow demonstrably knows more about this, and has thought about this, than me, but to me the answer seems somewhat straightforward:

> Should your computer be able to be compelled to tell the truth

In the context of the soldered chip that "can't be removed" that can report the "truth" of the kernel etc, the answer to me is a simple, "it's impossible to know if the computer is telling the truth or not." Go to defcon once and you'll know this as true as well. No matter what, there's always a way in. There's always a hack. The harder you make it to hack, the more motivated those crazy people at defcon will be to break it.

> Should there be a facility in your computer that you can’t control that other people can remotely trigger?

"Other people" will never be "just the people you want." It will always include criminals, stalkers, and authoritarian governments. So the answer is a simple, "no."

> No matter what, there's always a way in. There's always a hack. The harder you make it to hack, the more motivated those crazy people at defcon will be to break it.

Absolutely, but I don't want to have to use 0days like a criminal or to open up a TPM chip in an $1M electron microscope just to have my PC render webpages the way I want it to (without ads that is).

I think the importance of the quote is not in the answer, it's about how to frame the problem.

A bit similar dilemma with self-driving cars that they don't necessarily serve their owners but rather "what is right" (aka the truth); in case of unavoidable collision, should they save the interests of the current owners, or the interests of the manufacturer, or the interests of everybody on average, etc.

Trying to avoid collisions even if theyseem unavoidable seems like it would lead to more robust software then solving trolley problems and driving over lower value people on purpose.

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