An attempted reply to your concern about deepfakes grew into its own post.
If you wanted to create events in history, complete with all the “evidence” necessary, there is nothing stopping you.
For past footage, some of my proposed solutions wouldn’t apply… but this will not attenuate our connection to history by very much. Most important historical documents are not videos. We are reliant on the accounts of honest people, and we always will be, if not for verifying direct evidence, for understanding it.
this proposed solution reminds me very much of some of the solutions the software and music industries proposed in order to stop piracy. unfortunately none of these worked, or were practical enough to put into widespread use. and of course the adoption has to be UNIVERSAL to be effective.
They’re related fields. For various reasons (some ridiculous) I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the potential upsides of the thing that Richard Stallman called Treacherous Computing. There are many. We’re essentially talking about the difference between having devices that can make promises and devices that can’t. Devices that have the option of pledging to tell the truth in certain situations, and devices that can tell any lie that is possible to tell.
I think we have reason to believe Trusted Computing will be easier to achieve with better (cheaper) technology. I also think we have reasons to hope that it will be easier to achieve. Really, Trusted Computing and Treachery are separate qualities. An unsealed device can have secret backdoors. A sealed device can have an open design and an extensively audited manufacturing process.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at with the universality concern. If a work could only be viewed in theatres and on TC graphics hardware with sealed screens (do those exist yet), it would still be very profitable. They would not strictly need universal adoption of sealed hardware.
An attempted reply to your concern about deepfakes grew into its own post.
For past footage, some of my proposed solutions wouldn’t apply… but this will not attenuate our connection to history by very much. Most important historical documents are not videos. We are reliant on the accounts of honest people, and we always will be, if not for verifying direct evidence, for understanding it.
Mako i just read your response post.
this proposed solution reminds me very much of some of the solutions the software and music industries proposed in order to stop piracy. unfortunately none of these worked, or were practical enough to put into widespread use. and of course the adoption has to be UNIVERSAL to be effective.
They’re related fields. For various reasons (some ridiculous) I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the potential upsides of the thing that Richard Stallman called Treacherous Computing. There are many. We’re essentially talking about the difference between having devices that can make promises and devices that can’t. Devices that have the option of pledging to tell the truth in certain situations, and devices that can tell any lie that is possible to tell.
I think we have reason to believe Trusted Computing will be easier to achieve with better (cheaper) technology. I also think we have reasons to hope that it will be easier to achieve. Really, Trusted Computing and Treachery are separate qualities. An unsealed device can have secret backdoors. A sealed device can have an open design and an extensively audited manufacturing process.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at with the universality concern. If a work could only be viewed in theatres and on TC graphics hardware with sealed screens (do those exist yet), it would still be very profitable. They would not strictly need universal adoption of sealed hardware.