To: Chief Compliance Officer, KesselTech Galactic
Re: Request for Authorization to Deploy Proprietary Computer Connectors
Dear KesselTech Compliance Unit,
The Imperial Competition Commission, Interoperability & Standardization Division, has reviewed your proposal to develop a “walled garden” digital ecosystem utilizing exclusive K-T Link™ physical connectors and encrypted HoloNet protocols. As you are no doubt aware, Section 501(c)(3.14) of the Galactic Interoperability Mandate (as amended post-Death Star) prohibits any effort to subvert or undermine the Galactic Standard Scomp Link (colloquially, “Phillips head”), as codified in the historic R2 Decree.
You argued that mandatory compatibility with, and unrestricted access for, all forms of astromech droids and third-party slicers has resulted in “security challenges.”
We acknowledge that scomp links have facilitated unauthorized access to sensitive Galactic Republic and Empire systems, including the catastrophic depressurization, plasma venting, and core detonation event at Imperial Battlestation DS-1 (hereafter: “Death Star Incident One”). In that case, a reprogrammed K-2SO droid was able to open doors and interface with the Scarif data vault in order to download DS-1’s schematics, while an astromech droid (R2-D2) was later able to facilitate insurgents’ escape from DS-1 via similar interoperable tools.
The Galactic Republic, too, suffered numerous hacks from Separatist battle droids and spies, who were able to access and compromise sensitive systems.
While the losses were regrettable, the Commission stands by its core principle: interoperability is paramount even when the resulting loss of life and superlaser assets is both statistically and narratively significant.
We believe that these incidents are an acceptable cost of maintaining an interconnected galaxy. To permit any deviation from galactic standards would, in the ICC’s view, risk a Cambrian explosion of proprietary ports, overpriced adapters, and rebellious vendor lock-in. As Palpatine himself declared in Imperial Technical Standard USB-C: ‘The ability to plug in any device, anywhere, is the pathway to technological completeness.”
Therefore, your request for a proprietary, non-scomp-compatible interface is DENIED. Continuing to flout galactic standards will result in regulatory sanctions, forced migration to outdated operating systems (Windows Galactic Vista), and conscription to Mustafar’s USB Compliance Testing Corps.
Thank you for your continued, mandated devotion to universal access, even when the outcome blows up in everyone’s face.
Yours,
Moff J. Ani
Director, ICC ISD Physical Layer Enforcement
“Your Data. Our Port. No Exceptions.”
Attachment: Official approved scomp link schematics
Scott Wallsten is President and Senior Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute and also a senior fellow at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy. He is an economist with expertise in industrial organization and public policy, and his research focuses on competition, regulation, telecommunications, the economics of digitization, and technology policy. He was the economics director for the FCC's National Broadband Plan and has been a lecturer in Stanford University’s public policy program, director of communications policy studies and senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a senior fellow at the AEI – Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, an economist at The World Bank, a scholar at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and a staff economist at the U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisers. He holds a PhD in economics from Stanford University.
