At 09:23 AM 1/17/00 , Paul Snively wrote:
>People still just don't get it... see <http://www.clbooks.com/pressreleases/e_debut.html>.
Well, some don't get it, but I'd guess some have simply decided to lie. A lot of this work derives from Mark Stefik's earlier work on electronic "rights" management for content such as books. Stefik (my old boss at PARC) has always been scrupulously honest about the limitations of what such technologies can do. In particular, I've seen him repeatedly quoted on the inability of software-only "solutions" to offer any meaningful impediment to copying.
In everything else I've read, I've never seen any other advocate of these technologies make a similar admission. Since Stefik's work was their starting point, one has to wonder whether this might be something worse than the usual cluelessness.
Cheers,
--MarkM