“The National Commission for Computer Safety and Integrity requires that, as part of the 2032 Standards for Internet Safety, all devices must run manufacturer authorized code unless a permit has been granted, to supposedly prevent future pipeline and cyberwarfare attacks.”
“Home built PCs allow the use of crypto mining software and cryptocurrencies, which facilitate tax evasion and money laundering. We haven’t had this problem on computers which require signing… “
The freedoms of collaboration over the Internet can taken away with:
1. widespread trusted computing (we're close)
2. banning encrypted comms over unregulated spectrums (done)
3. political will to ban such freedoms (growing)
How can those that prefer such freedoms preserve them? Political activism can. Can censorship resistant tech help in that situation? Plausibly deniable mesh networks? Sneakernet?
This nightmare scenario was proposed in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Broadband_and_Digit... for combatting piracy, and instead we have settled on a lesser evil of limited DRM to access Netflix. This permits torrenting, but torrenting is less prevalent now.
A carbon tax is inevitable, and will alleviate the concerns such as OP's.
Control over E2E encrypted messaging is an ongoing policy dispute. I don't have a good feel for how the pieces will land. A lesser evil solution might be to require warranted escrow for popular messaging clients. This permits two malicious actors communicating over unpopular platforms, but catches cases like threats/harassment on popular platforms.
Another way this could play out is some gov official decides to create the National Commission on App Stores (to solve the Apple and Google abuses), and then a bureaucrat comes later and just says every device must have and use an App Store, and we have the NCAS to ensure it’s fair, so why would you want anything else?
You don't have to like it, but the right of the people to rise up against an oppressive government is a founding principle of the US.
That sentiment was all well and good back in the 18th and 19th century. But in the next civil war, the Mason-Dixon Line will run through your and my back yard.
I am going to be honest. I think the overlap between people for whom PC energy regulations are the last straw and people willing and able to go through the privations a civil war is sure to bring, particularly to the combatants, is pretty small.
You have no idea how powerful "Live Free or Die" is.
There is a reason the Declaration of Independence went to Great Lengths to articulate, and warn, future generations that it is their Right and Duty to rise against a tyrannical Government.
I'll be frank. The promulgation of "It's for your own good" types continue chipping away at liberties which should be some of the most prized things we cherish as a nation, has put an edge on life I've seen no precedent for in my life excepting firearm regulations, and plotted against a curve over time, it's only becoming faster to implement, more hospitable in the National Rhetoric, and less transparent as the Government goes the route of ignoring getting buy-in from the populace at large and contents itself with Industry collusions through influencing the means of production.
I'm actually kind of tired of people waving around Gadsden flags and getting to make life unlivable (sometimes literally) for everyone else. Freedom can be conceived of in more than one way and not all of them are compatible with each other.
“This PC cannot be shipped to CA, CO, HI, OR, VT or WA because the ability to run unsigned code makes it an environmental and digital weapon.”