The Age has an interesting article on how the new security measures companies are taking may affect us all. With Microsoft's Palladium creeping up on the horizon and Hollywood's "Digital Restriction Management", you might find yourself asking one question: Who controls your comptuer?

The technical idea underlying treacherous computing is that the computer includes a digital encryption and signature device, and the keys are kept secret from you. (Microsoft's version of this is called "palladium.") Proprietary programs will use this device to control which other programs you can run, which documents or data you can access, and what programs you can pass them to. These programs will continually download new authorization rules through the Internet, and impose those rules automatically on your work. If you don't allow your computer to obtain the new rules periodically from the Internet, some capabilities will automatically cease to function.