Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!xerox.com!"Ron_Fischer.mvenvos"
From: "Ron_Fischer.mvenvos"@XEROX.COM
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: the "mold" standard
Message-ID: <8906130724.AA21679@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 12 Jun 89 23:11:04 GMT
Sender: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu
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Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu

"Keith_J._Emanuel.HENR801c"@xerox.com writes:
>	I was just thinking that one could have your nanoassemblers
>cranking out perfect $100.00 bills, or bearer bonds for that matter.

Indeed, one of the interesting things about assemblers is that they make
the value of unique physical objects as ephemeral as information.
Currently the difference between information and physical objects is that
when an object is sold its gone.  When informatoin is sold you still "have"
it.  With nanotech this no longer holds true for objects, since you can
easily keep the information needed to reproduce a perfect copy.

We're facing enormous problems today trying to define informational
property rights in the emerging information marketplaces (entertainment is
the largest).  What will happen when you can create an object from
information is difficult to imagine.  Perhaps the way we buy information
today will bear on this.

One of the convulsions our society has had in trying to define
informational property rights was the CD copy protection scheme that CBS
attempted to legally mandate as part of consumer DAT hardware.  Several
specific frequencies were "cut out" of the audio spectrum on the disk.  A
digital filter arrangement detected this and could shut down a DAT
recorder's input section when it was detected.

To draw this into nanotech I've speculated that it would make an
interesting high tech spy story where a primitve molecular materials
processing facility was trying to hide the origins of its material by
introducing errors (analogous to cutting out frequencies).  Of course, if
the errors were perfectly regular at the atomic scale one would be
immediately suspicious (randomness could be introduced).

Commercial dis/assemblers might follow such a route, detecting patterns of
innocuous embedded molecules as copy protection.    Assemblers are likely
to be complex devices, at least as much as a DAT recorder, thus it may be
possible to bury such a protection scheme in the guts of a standard
commercial assembler in such a wayt that the "shade tree molecular
engineer" can't remove it... easily.  In "Blade Runner" Deckard identifies
the genetic engineer who created an artificial snake using such embedded
"version and author" codes.  In most objects there would be alot of room to
hide such info.

With assemblers its likely that the way we buy physical objects will begin
to resemble the way we currently buy information.

[As a side note: I see am emerging tendency toward turning over the value
of information by devaluing the media that contains it.  Thus, VHS tapes
will become less valuable as 8mm HiBand emerges (perhaps) or CDs become
less valuable as DAT emerges.  The consumer's recourse, without taking the
option of ignorance, is to demand some kind of upward compatibility.  E.g.
if DAT comes along I want the RIGHT to move my old CDs onto DAT.  I think
that this is legally OK right now, since one can make an indefinate number
of "personal use copies."  Of course, the information merchants (at least
in the computer software business) no longer sell you the data, they
"license" it to you with all manner of restriction.]

In Brand's "The Media Lab" there is a comment that consumers will pay for
"quality of the originating source," hence the popularity of subscription
services, the Honda automobile, etc.  ["Superproducts" in Toffler's "Future
Shock"].  Perhaps in future we can "subscribe" to various databases of
music, images, information, etc. and license (permanently?) full ACCESS to
any items we wish.  These would then be availible in different media (CD,
DAT) for a small copying fee, produced on your local DAT or writable CD
player, or perhaps picked up at a local mom & pop duplication shop.

Finally, (with nano tech) this might follow for physical objects, subscribe
to a publisher that ensures quality to an acceptable level, license the
design for the object, then pay a local "nano machine shop" to make copies
whenever you like.

You could probably buy right to make plain copies, or right to make
modified versions.  Finally, a standard contract for distribution/resale of
modified versions would be excellent.

It seems odd writing the paragraph above, which brings home the idea that
in either physical objects like cars and planes or information objects like
records and CDs, there is an information component on the one hand and an
implementation component (matter) on the other.  Or put another way,
information (design) is a precursor to any physical experience.  Something
about this feels wrong however, perhaps at the quantum level this idea
(implementation = information) breaks so badly that the overall idea is
foolish?  I'll stop here.

(ron)