1) the social consequences of technical change, their inevitability, and their essential unpredictability.

2) That any distinctions between governmental and corporate power are minor ones, fundamentally arbitrary and artificial, and those distinctions are deliberately exaggerated in order to conceal that fact.

3) That free markets are becoming less effective at regulating economic (hence, social) relationships, and that the nature of those relationships are more and more dictated by business models and the governmental efforts to protect the security and profitability of those models.

4) I was particularly delighted by his characterization of Libertarians: that although they may be technologically aware and progressive, they are social Luddites and wedded to a social model that was essentially feudal in nature. I’ve always felt that way myself, but I was never able to articulate it so effectively.

I’ve been bothered for several years now by what he described as the locking down of the “endpoints”, that is, the devices we peasants use. They’re mutating from general-purpose digital processing devices–remember “personal computers”?–into appliances with prescribed and proscribed feature lists.

I guess a better description of my attitude might be conflicted, since I like my Android tablet. Schneier at several points seemed to be walking on eggshells on topics that might be sensitive to his corporate hosts, and this is one: Although Google’s Android is more open than Apple and Microsoft’s products, it’s still locked in the sense that you can’t get at the settings and configuration files on your own machine; you can’t be “root” in Linux terms. Naturally there’s a thriving exchange of “rooting” information on the net about all these locked-down appliances. But it’s as he pointed out: That’s fine for the well-armed geek, but what about the civilians?

Google does get credit for “allowing” apps to be loaded from places other than its own store. But that exception highlights the general rule.

And don’t get me started on Facebook. I was tickled when Schneier voiced exactly my own thought: Facebook’s only business model is betrayal. To corporations and, we know now what was suspected, governments.

Nice recommendation, podrock. Thanks.