[ohwp]

I don't agree with you. The problem with IT technology is that it's connected. It is (evenly) distributed, but connected. This gives people who want bad a much wider perspective.

Centralized technologies are not dangerous because they can be easily broken by revolutions. That's why DRM does not work. It's being hacked all the time.

And ofcrouse you always have a choice. You can put down the stick, or disconnect. But the choice is becoming harder as we rely (too) much on technology.

[jiggy2011]

The reason DRM gets broken all the time is because it's decentralised and it attempts to act like it like it is centralised.

There is a DRM system with a very high success rate , it's called SaaS.

[hp50g]

It's not that high a success rate. We have escrow agreements and all sorts in place because people don't trust our SaaS.

[jiggy2011]

Difficult to comment without knowing the specifics but I assume there is some transfer of data/code under specific conditions? As in your customers can't just say "gimmie your code , we want to fork it".

That's a little bit different and in most cases for consumer SaaS (facebook,gmail etc) there is no way to get at the software itself. All the consumer gets is a thin client layer.

[wladimir]

What is the problem with being connected? I think it is good to strive for connectivity as it encourages cooperation. Of course you need to be careful with what you trust and what you don't trust, and spread the risk when a connection goes 'bad'. This means not relying too much on any one connection.

I don't understand what you mean by "easily broken by revolutions". I also don't see what is bad with a wider perspective, unless it is somehow restricted to "bad people" (the classical panopticon?), but that'd require a very centralized system.