Analyzing Palladium

apeir0 writes "The Register has a story which proposes an ulterior motive to Microsoft's new Palladium: a GPL-killer. 'It's the very fact that this appears insoluble to me that helps me realize that MS has put tremendous, careful thought into it. To make the commons Linux-hostile, MS is taking dramatic steps to make it GPL-hostile. Very clever and admirably diabolical.' Is this a valid point or just paranoia?" Ross Anderson has been writing about this recently; we covered his paper a few days ago, and he's now got a Palladium FAQ up. Another submitter sent in this interview with the Microsoft manager in charge of Palladium. The Washington Post has a column. Update: 06/27 22:43 GMT by T : Bob Cringely also has a column on Palladium up, in which he says that several of his fears have been realized by it.

Comments

Re:If if changes the Unix/Linux security model, fi

[EvilTwinSkippy]

What the hell does local root access have to do with network security?

Especially since just about everything under Windows runs at or about what would be root level? Access control lists just dumb down the control panels. At least in Unix when I say that something is running in user space IT REALLY RUNS IN USER SPACE.

Re:Where trust comes from

[|<amikaze]

Hey... that guy's name is Warez!

Sometimes I wish I was wrong

[drew_kime]

It was just two days ago I said:

I give it until the end of the week before we start seeing opinion pieces, some disguised as "independant think-tank studies," suggesting how to fix this. And I'll just bet the best-funded pieces are all going to suggest formal (ie: commercial) structures, not some silly little "standards" that just anyone can follow.

And now what do I see?

It's tough to plug holes in a ship's hull once it is at sea, or to reattach an airplane's wing in flight.
...
Now Microsoft Corp. is saying "Let's start over."

...

"It has the potential to put users in more control over their information if it's done right," said Ari Swartz, associate director of the D.C.-based nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology.

...

I tend to agree with Winkler and with Robert Douglas, chief executive of American Privacy Consultants, who thinks Bill Gates is taking dead aim at one of the biggest roadblocks along the way to the much-hyped world of ubiquitous computing.

"A lot of it comes down to the fact that consumer just don't feel secure using the Internet for their critical transactions," Douglas said. "Gates has realized that unless trust can be built into these systems, the ultimate abilities of the Internet are never going to be realized."

Damn, I hate being right about this stuff.

Re:Where trust comes from

[reverius]

"sign my Microsoft"...

Are you saying that you 0wnZ Micro$oft???