Totalitarianism. Urban pathology. The death of creativity. These are the fears that keep John Perry Barlow awake at night. The co-founder of the 12-year-old Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) tries not to be bleak. But he sincerely worries that Microsoft will usurp e-commerce and AOL Time Warner will seize media, and the two forces will extinguish dissenting voices in a "diabolical" plot to own the economy and the human mind.

But Barlow, perhaps best known as a lyricist for the Grateful Dead, isn't entirely forlorn. He's optimistic that courts will soon strike down the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a 1998 agreement that banned online distribution of companies' intellectual property. And he's hopeful that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates--the smartest man Barlow says he's ever met--will hatch a plan to control the Internet that is so ridiculous that it will spark a public boycott that ultimately will topple the software giant.

After totalitarianism, what's the next biggest battle brewing in cyberspace?

There are a lot of things connected to totalitarianism, such as the ability to affect the technical architecture of the Net and the increasing number of standards and protocols that are being passed down by the likes of Microsoft. I worry that the Net is closing. I would say that (Microsoft e-commerce initiatives) .Net and HailStorm are huge threats and really diabolical. The problem is that hardly anybody recognizes it because they don't know what .Net is or how it works. They don't know that Microsoft is trying to own all of your transactions, literally.

To play devil's advocate, isn't Microsoft simply selling a product that millions of people are willing to purchase at their own will?

Oh, come on. People aren't willing. Microsoft is giving people what Microsoft wants because it has a monopoly, which isn't based on the value of the product but rather a positive feedback loop in the information economy: Everything is compatible with Windows, ergo, Windows prevails and continues to prevail regardless of its liabilities. It's No. 1 because it's No. 1, period, not because it's valuable. In fact, it's become totally diabolical.

You paint a pretty gloomy picture. How can we stop Big Brother Inc.?

People could simply boycott the products. Frankly, I think anybody's a fool to put (Microsoft operating system Windows) XP on their computer. It's like installing a continuous, 24-hour monitor on your mind. But people are doing it like crazy because they don't know any better.