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The Power of Palladium
phriedom writes "Salon has coverage of Palladium which gives first page coverage to the idea that Palladium is designed to kill open source software. My favorite part though is on page two, where the Microsoft apologist says that ones view of Palladium 'depends on what you believe Microsoft's long-term aims are. If you believe it's to stimulate commerce and stimulate security, it's a step in the right direction ...and if you're perhaps given to suspicions that Microsoft always makes decisions with the aim of frustrating competitors of the Windows empire rather than for the good of consumers, you might have a different view of the same architecture.'" Wired also has a story claiming under-the-hood exposure to Palladium, although it doesn't seem to have much information that hasn't come out already.
Update by J : Steven Levy's Palladium story, which we linked to in an
earlier article,
has allegedly been
pulled from MSNBC's website.
Anyone know if there's a simple explanation of this?
"perhaps given to suspicions that Microsoft always makes decisions with the aim of frustrating competitors of the Windows empire rather than for the good of consumers"
Yes, I believe that was the verdict.
in 16 days... all of them saying the same thing...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
For all its faults, Microsoft is not known for kicking its customers in the teeth.
Is there some other Microsoft out there? The one we all know and love is well known for kicking its customers in the teeth.
This guy obviously has not done any research into Microsoft's history.
It should be very clear that Microsoft is very much interested in using experienced gained making a closed system with licensed developers (the X box)and approved software and moving that to the business and consumer desktop OS.
This is the ultimate in hubris. They are in the penalty phase of a federal decision that seeks to punish them for doing the exact same thing with their restrictive licensing. Now they want to have even more restrictive licensing enforced by software and hardware that makes certain nothing unauthorized by them runs on windows.
Or Maybe they are just shooting the moon on this one, so their other business practices look nice in comparison. Either way this stinks.
When was the last time MSFT ever wanted to stimulate commerce, except in the purchase of its own products and products that allow people to purchase its own products?
Just like Ford authorizing or forbidding use of the specific replacement tires for their vehicles, except this would be like Ford turning off your car if you have not used authorized tires.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Oh, wait. They were. So perhaps it's not unreasonable to be suspicious of their motives.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Are you kidding me? Planned obsolescence? Squeezing consumers dry with each "upgrade"? Bundling an insecure scripting language with almost EVERY product it produces, thus singlehandedly giving the antivirus industry a job? Snuggling closer to content providers every day at the expense of individual users' rights? Further solidifying its monopoly, even after it was supposedly "disciplined" by the DOJ?
Maybe this guy sees something I don't. ;)
PrisonerCX
I am still waiting for Cairo.
If they can't get an object oriented filesystem to work, what makes you think this will work?
"Modding me as flamebait or troll just means you admit I was right."
so all those FP and goatse guys are "right?" eat shit, asshole.
It maybe a funny post, but it is an extreme view of the way we're going. Just look at the trends.
Media corporations and advertisers are accusing TV viewers of theft if you skip commercials with a PVR, or by going to get a snack or going to the bathroom.
Likewise, media corporations are claiming that if they make $X billion in a year rather than $X*2 billion in a year, they are being threatened by theft (piracy), rather than blaming it on their lack of ability to make anything remotely entertaining.
Disney essentially paid Senator Hollings to write a bill that would require you to have "policeware" features in your computer, TV, stereo, etc. They also apparently made some anti-MP3 propaganda where a rap star's paycheck is reduced to $3 a month because of Napster.
President Bush encourages people to go out and spend their cash rather than save it, despite the fact that many people are having a hard enough time paying off their executive-greed-inflated bills.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
1. Write an application that runs unsigned applications. Sign that app, never sign anything else again.
2. OK, let's say you have to sign every process. That means you have to sign every version of a DLL. MSFT won't just be alienating OSS developers if that happens.
3. Under this regime, security is only as good as the CA. Sure, some CA's will charge a lot of money because they are "reputable", but how hard/expensive is it to run a certificate server anyway? From what I've heard, not very. It's just that nobody does that now because there isn't a need. Something like this would just cause orgs like the EFF, GNU, perhaps others to run free CAs, or even CAs the are dummies designed to fool the OS into believing the software is signed. Then the orgs and MSFT can sue eachother for a few years, and by the time the case is settled it'll be a 1 inch blurb in the business section and a few lawyers will have new Lexus automobiles. Nothing new here.
I don't know about you guys, but I never even bother reading those little pop-ups that come from signed code, even when it has an error, and I have never been compromised by such code. Why? Because trusting code you get from ibm.com is safe, and trusting code you get from deadalienhacker.org isn't. In other words, security is verified by the reputation, integrity, and character of the authors. My... what a novel concept. :)
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
You could always use other hardware and another OS.
Nobody is forcing you to use MS, they just might offer the only practical solution.
There is nothing wrong with being a far better supplier then everyone else, and MS has done an excellent job of providing a solution people want to buy.
can be found in a story here (//www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/7/9/17842/90350) in which Peter Biddle is a MS manager involved with helping to develop technology to keep control over content on DVD and other devices. This seems to be the same Peter Biddle quoted in the Salon article here and introduced in this way: "According to Peter Biddle, a Microsoft product manager, Palladium is nothing more than an elegant solution to the vexing problem of keeping people secure on the Internet..."
Why would an employee who specialized in content protection for Sony/Time-Warner etc. suddenly be interested in keeping "people secure on the Internet"? It seems far more likely to me that he'd be much more interested in DRM and control.
Why wouldn't we trust Microsoft? The better question is "Why would we trust Microsoft?". MS is a convicted monopolist (the only thing left is to determine the penalty) and a convicted copyright thief. MS has had a pattern of never inventing or creating anything but instead either buying or stealing it. MS has never before acted in the public good but only for the good of MS. Why would it change now? The answer is, I'm afraid, "It wouldn't.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
That would work fine for all of us that keenly look at the details before we install applications. However, if all you had to do was click "ok to authorize" then palladium would be useless, since your average user will blindly click ok to anything. ...
" if I'm allowed to authorize anything I might write or DOWNLOAD..." makes my point exactly
Your last statement
For the record: I hate this whole idea, I have read a good deal about this, and always come to the same conclusion: Microsoft is NOT about making good software, they are about SELLING THEIR software. In other words, this has to be about money, either for Licensing keys, or by adding restrictions that keep folks buying their software.
Microsoft argues that Palladium can always be switched off by users who think it's bad news. If Palladium becomes ubiquitous, critics respond, that may not be an option.
"If you turn it off, then you are an island," says Perens. "You can't communicate with others. Everyone will be using this DRM, and you can't view Web pages."
This is a real worry - not that you won't be able to turn it off, or run Linux/*BSD/whatever and ignore it, but if you do that, then all of the content (email, web pages, documents, etc) created by all of the people who have not turned it off will be unreadable by you.
It's like avoiding email - sure it cuts down on your Spam, but it also cuts down on the legitimate messages you get.
And that's where it gets scary. I'm a UNIX administrator, but I keep a Windows system because there aren't as many games out there for Linux. The same thing - you may want ot be a holdout, but if you can't read 90% of the email or view 90% of what you want to see on the web, you may adopt it just because your other option is "almost nothing".
=Blue(23)
LITTLE GIRL: But which cookie will you eat FIRST? C. MONSTER: Me think you have misconception of cookie-eating process.
...even so, I'm not going to enable that abomination on my computer even if I am running Linux. They can wrap that crap in whatever kind of package they want, but I'm not going for it. You can dip a rat in chocolate, but I'm still not going to eat it.