“The Digital Imprimatur” is an in-depth, step-by-step analysis of how the Internet — a revolutionary method of mass communication — is being chopped up to adhere to the traditional roles of publisher and consumer. I will admit it is a long document, but if you give half a damn about your rights in the digital world, it’s worth your time to read it. The author, John Walker, is an accomplished programmer and computer scientist, and has watched the development of the Internet since its youth.

Walker stresses that this is not some crazy-eyed prediction of a distant Orwellian future. The foundation for a restricted Internet — where anonymity and free exchange of ideas are squelched by business and media interests — is already being built, right now, before our eyes. The problem is, most people don’t notice.

The average broadband Internet user doesn’t realize all the things he is not allowed to do. Hosting a web page or a blog is technically impossible with the restrictions most ISPs place on connections; running any sort of server, whether for video games, chat, distributed processing, or sharing family pictures, is prohibited by most broadband contracts. (Speakeasy is, to my knowledge, the only ISP that has a policy of allowing its users to do whatever they want.) This means that only a “privileged” class of Internet users, who can afford pricier connections with no restrictions, are able to set up servers and publish content.

Then comes Digital Rights Management and Trusted Computing. DRM is technology that limits your ability to use content. The way it does this relies on your Internet connection; it will contact the publisher, give them a unique ID for your computer, and ask whether you’re allowed to do something. Windows Media Player 9 contains DRM technology, so that if you download a music file, and the publisher of that file doesn’t want you to burn any copies, Media Player 9 will simply not let you burn them to an audio CD.

Future versions of Windows (and possibly even Windows XP Service Pack 2) will include built-in DRM technology, so that producers of content — whether music, video, text documents, or anything else — will have direct control over what you’re allowed to do with the information on your computer. When you receive an email, you could be forbidden from forwarding it. Download a video clip, and be required to pay every time you watch it.

Trusted Computing will be the final step in cementing an interactive wall around end-users of computing technology. While companies would like consumers to believe hardware-based “trust” is about stopping viruses and spam emails, it’s really about exercising more control over your own computer — making sure media companies can “trust” your computer, but you can’t. Seth Schoen, an NMH graduate and EFF’s Staff Technologist, wrote an insightful analysis of Trusted Computing.

It’s important that anyone with a bare modicum of technical literacy understand how their computer systems are being redesigned to work against them. Computer and Internet technologies are still in their infancy, and have barely begun to live up to their potential. Public awareness is the best chance we have to prevent the Internet from becoming another exclusive media club, and to prevent our computers from being turned into nothing more than interactive televisions.