Open Economies and Copy Left “open source” Hardware

After having worked in various companies and projects ranging from simple web development to complex, embedded systems all of us realised the great danger for the user’s privacy and security. Do you know what all the chips in your all-you-ever-want phone do? Are you sure that only you can control all data on your devices? Sure, this sounds paranoid, but think about it. Recent developments, such as the “Telekom scandal” in Germany and the IPRED law in Sweden have shown that customer data is not private per se. Play with this scenario a bit longer and you will see that the step to using micro chips to gather information on the individual user is not that big and who can be sure that it hasn’t been taken already? So our answer is: know your device! Only once the user has knowledge of ever piece of technology in his/her hardware and can decide what should or shouldn’t happen, do we regain real privacy and are free again.

NanoNote: how did we get here

Open Economy, user freedom, freedom for companies to “fork” a hardware design without crippling royalty and patent issues. Collaboration without endless duplication or man hours (5x R&D departments in 5x companies). A big UP YOURS to the system that rams “competition” and “free markets” down our throats (translation: not real competition, un-freemarkets). I want to live in this kind of world. A world where we share hardware designs, just like we already do with open source software. A world where micro-circuitry can be seen and checked by anyone. A world where these chips and CPU’s are not black boxes containing God knows what kind of insidious security checking and monitoring SHIT. It’s already breaking out. It’s a tweakers dream come true. Hackers, designers, creatives dream about this kinda thing. Companies who actually want to innovate. Hardware and devices. Gaming consoles and phones that actually GIVE the user the extraordinary functionality that electronics can really give. NOT a world of zombie clone iPhones brainwashing people into believing they have “freedom” and “innovation” when they are having a sick model rammed down their throats.

The pharmaceutical industry has been working on the same sick model. Closed development. Black box drugs that no one really knows WHAT they do. The natural health system has always worked the same way that Copy Left hardware works. Nature is open and SHARING. Natural health is open and anyone can check the history of a vitamin or plant.

And it’s PLAYFUL all this. I discovered some of this Copy Left Hardware stuff because I was checking out the CPU in the Supercard DSTWO that I just ordered for my DS. The design has some connection to open sourced CPU’s. It’s now possible to buy these parts straight off the shelf. These companies have proved that it’s possible to produce this Copy Left Hardware without over the top production costs. So we’re going to see the same kind of revolution that we have seen with software happening with hardware. A’men !