Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="resistor" data-source="post: 4021968" data-attributes="member: 9142">While I completely agree that this is the intent, the power you're actually giving them is significantly more than that.&nbsp; I, for one, am uncomfortable relying on unenforceable promises of good faith when I'm giving up significant rights.Let's consider a parallel in the US Bill of Rights: the requirement of a warrant for the search and seizure of property.&nbsp; In a highly summarized form, it says &quot;The police may search and seize your property after obtaining a warrant through the appropriate means, by demonstrating that doing so will aid in the pursuit of criminal activities&quot;.&nbsp; Of course, the police want to be able to search and seize property when they're solving crimes.&nbsp; And if you ask them, I'm sure they'd (completely honestly) say that that's their intent.&nbsp; But would you feel comfortable if the Bill of Rights just said &quot;The police may search and seize your property&quot;?The basic idea, which is also an important lesson in computer security, is that no entity should be granted more power than it needs to perform its function.&nbsp; The police don't need arbitrary search-and-seizure, so we don't give it to them, because we fear that it could be taken advantage of in the future.Similarly, WotC doesn't NEED the rights that the license gives them.&nbsp; If they want to protect themselves from certain eventualities, then the license should grant them the minimal set of rights needed to protect themselves, nothing more.EDIT: I should clarify that I am certain that WotC has no intent of using these powers in a harmful or malicious way.&nbsp; But I still think the principle of least privilege, as it is called in computer security, is an important one.&nbsp; As such, I will not be visiting Gleemax unless there is a change in the TOU.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="resistor, post: 4021968, member: 9142"] While I completely agree that this is the intent, the power you're actually giving them is significantly more than that. I, for one, am uncomfortable relying on unenforceable promises of good faith when I'm giving up significant rights. Let's consider a parallel in the US Bill of Rights: the requirement of a warrant for the search and seizure of property. In a highly summarized form, it says "The police may search and seize your property after obtaining a warrant through the appropriate means, by demonstrating that doing so will aid in the pursuit of criminal activities". Of course, the police want to be able to search and seize property when they're solving crimes. And if you ask them, I'm sure they'd (completely honestly) say that that's their intent. But would you feel comfortable if the Bill of Rights just said "The police may search and seize your property"? The basic idea, which is also an important lesson in computer security, is that no entity should be granted more power than it needs to perform its function. The police don't need arbitrary search-and-seizure, so we don't give it to them, because we fear that it could be taken advantage of in the future. Similarly, WotC doesn't NEED the rights that the license gives them. If they want to protect themselves from certain eventualities, then the license should grant them the minimal set of rights needed to protect themselves, nothing more. EDIT: I should clarify that I am certain that WotC has no intent of using these powers in a harmful or malicious way. But I still think the principle of least privilege, as it is called in computer security, is an important one. As such, I will not be visiting Gleemax unless there is a change in the TOU. [/QUOTE]

Verification