Maima Faith D.

Merin

BSM-3

IT101 M,Th (9:00-11:30)

07-29-10

REACTION PAPER ANTI-TRUST (2001)

Anti-trust refers to government policy to regulate or break up monopolies in order to promote free competition and attain the benefits that such competition can provide to the economy and to society as a whole. (Linfo 2006) I am not a fan of paranoia thriller movies but Anti-trust is an exception. Even though the movie was totally predictable, the suspense really moved me to the point that I shrieked. The story was all about Milo Hoffman trying to unfold the secrets behind NURV (Never Underestimate Radical Vision) success and hinder to meet the launch date of synapse --- a new worldwide satellite communication program which will link all communication devices such as pagers, PDAs and cellphones. He also investigated the death of his colleague, Teddy, and revealed to the whole world by hacking to NURV's sattelites what Gary Winston was doing behind his success in business. Teddy and Milo believes that computer technology should belong to the people and that open source software is the most promising future lies. However, Milo was overwhelmed and felt that Winston's offer is too good to pass up. It also amazes me, that everyone that surrounds Milo was under the supervision of Gary Winston. Milo's girlfriend, Alice, was an ex-convict and her real name in the movie is Rebecca Paul. Lisa, his officemate, was also an accomplice of Gary Winston. Surveillance cameras were installed in every houses of their prospect computer software designers to watch every thing that they do. NURV will recruit them and be part of the team or rather kill them and steal their codes. But in the end of the movie, like other happy ending stories, justice prevailed and the good people won and the bad people go to jail. The leading actor's friend dies because he was assasinated by whoever. But despite of the predictability of the movie and the rumbling of my tummy while watching the movie, I still enjoyed the movie and I will rate it around 60-70%. For me, the message of the movie says that its all about monopolistic corporate power versus open source. Monopolistic corporate power means that big company, lots of employees, no competition organization or rather little competition and all the benefits and fame will all go to the owner/ the one that makes the organization run and according to the movie, Gary Winston is a powerhungry-man. He just can't get enough, and he still wants for more. While, in Teddy's side is open source where people can benefit to those programs that they do and allows modification but there is one simple rule, the program modifide should be also an open source, making it the benefit of everyone.