In 1999, Intel received an absolutely massive amount of opposition when they decided to include a software-readable serial number in their CPUs, so much that they reversed the decision.

Then the "security" and Trusted Computing authoritarians continued pushing for TPMs and related tech, and contributed to the rise of mobile walled gardens. Windows 11's TPM requirements were another step towards their goal. The amount of propaganda about how that was supposed to be a good thing, both here and elsewhere, was shocking.

It turns out a significant (but hopefully decreasing) number of the population is easily coerced into anything when "security" is given as a justification.

The war on general-purpose computing continues, and we need to keep fighting.

Stallman was right, as always. Time to give his "Right to Read" another read. (If it hasn't been done already, an AI-generated short film of it would be a great idea...)

"Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither."