individuals. Means
of protection belong to the physical and the logical realm. A company like Iron Mountain specializes in storing digital content
in places immune to physical breaks. In the logical domain, various
mathematical tools have been developed to protect digital content, and they’ve
been progressively surrounded by associated techniques allowing to also
communicating how protection mechanisms can be lifted for use.
A different way
to partition digital content is to look at it from the perspective of human
needs. In modern societies, many physiological needs are fulfilled by the
provision of digital content in the form of electronic money. Whether using a
credit card at the supermarket or on the Web, all there is to it is a string of
numbers flowing from us to some institution. In terms of safety needs, the
entry code for our apartment is certainly a good example. More generally, the
very protection afforded to data of importance is by itself a type of
information related to safety. In terms of the need of belonging, digital
content expresses a fabric of society that defines the various institutions
that we share with others. The needs for esteem are well expressed by the
multiple forms of entertainment, where television takes perhaps a central
place. And finally, self-actualization would be reflected by art and other
achievement of the higher realm translated into information, be it scientific
literature or poetic license.
Now that we have
outlined the general attributes affecting the economy of digital content, we
can look at personal electronic devices, or rather, at their core, private,
secure information part. It is, in some ways, different from other, more
general content, as it is difficult to imitate and replicate, thanks to various
advanced protection mechanisms, in particular on access methods. This is an
indication that the content is highly valued, which is true in the proper
sense, as a lot of it has to do with actual money: the rights to phone
somebody, the capability to spend money, and other properties associated with
fiduciary exchange. In other cases the value is in the privacy, with the
quintessential example being health data. But we may want to also think about
political information, potentially lethal in certain context, sexual interests,
or other elements of our intimate social interactions. Modification of personal
electronic devices central content is tightly controlled by the device and the
institutions that are allowed to bring change. The device itself links tightly
to its owner such that any modification must be properly authorized by the
person most concerned about it. Institutions, that grant rights, have an equal
interest in tight control, which is why the protocols of modifications are
considered as interfacing the person and the institution, the personal
electronic device acting as a mediator as well as a digital representative of
the owner. A properly configured personal electronic device will keep a log of
transactions, and will provide means to administer its content in order to
arbitrate between the various demands put on it in the proper manner. For
example, if no space is available anymore in the personal electronic device,
which comes first: the bank account or the list of contacts? We have presented
as an economic attribute of content its timeliness. For example, if I want to
see on my personal electronic device the goal scored by my favorite team as it
happens, I don’t want to be bogged down at that time in a long exchange of
messages between my personal electronic device and the broadcaster to make sure
that I have acquitted my dues. This function, though necessary, has to be done
in microseconds, and that, in turn, will determine how the secure core of my
personal electronic device is built, together with all the intervening agents
in the chain leading from the personal electronic device to the broadcaster. In
terms of the spheres of activities of the personal electronic devices, they cover
the full gamut. Government information, as in electronic passports, which are
personal electronic devices embedding a radio-frequency identity chip together
with extra protection layers to prevent snooping; public information, as in
health cards, that limit access to personal data to health care
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