Assuming the failure of all the calls to regulate PCs and the Internet because people might do bad things with them, what then? Civil war, that's what. The su/user split we inherited from multiuser systems has given us a false intuition: that owners of computers, and not their users, should set policy on them. How will that play out when your car, house, legs, ears and heart are driven by computers that you don't own?
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger -- the co-editor of BoingBoing (boingboing.net) and the author of Tor Teens/HarperCollins UK novels like FOR THE WIN and the bestselling LITTLE BROTHER. He is the former European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in London.