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.

Personal Electronic Devices

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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