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Palladium, 'Trusted PCs' in the News
Reuters is carrying a fairly lengthy article on Palladium and 'Trusted Computing'. Worth reading - remember that what the Reuters/AP wires carry is all that most people will ever know about any particular issue.
Palladium involves new security components to be built into Windows, but it also depends heavily on hardware makers--including Intel and AMD--building in Palladium functionality to their products.
And a nice big ad for MS Visual Studio in the story too, how ironic.
As proof, Anderson points to a patent called "Digital Rights Management Operating System," for which Microsoft has rights
One of the first times a software patent might actually be a good thing. At least stifling competition and innovation in this area will give us a chance to focus our efforts on what is inevitably going to be a fundamentally flawed MS implementation of DRM.
Biddle and a TCPA spokesman deny the assertions, saying that no monitoring, reporting or censoring capabilities are designed into the systems, and people will be able to choose whether they want to use the security features, or not.
Talk about bullshit. DRM is useless if the user can turn it off.
To some, the TCPA plan is reminiscent of Intel's proposal in the mid-1990s to put a serial number on its Pentium chips. Public backlash caused Intel to abandon the plan.
Last I checked, the serial numbers are still there, and even though you can turn them off in the CMOS on some motherboards, software can turn them back on, so I hear.
By contrast, in trusted computing, special security chips and other hardware will work with software to verify the source of data and that it has not been changed, and to create safe zones within the computer for storing information.
Talk about a stupid solution to a simple problem. It doesn't require special hardware to protect the integrity of files, just proper software design. The earlier story on microBSD showed an implementation of software based integrity verification.
Technology companies must carefully balance individual rights and corporate interests, says Bruce Schneier, cryptography expert and chief technology officer at Counterpane Internet Security, a network monitoring firm.
Consumers used to vote with their dollars, no "balancing" was necessary. MS is betting on using monopoly power, and ignorant consumers to pull this one over on the public. Educated consumers are a necessary part of the free market, with technology becoming so complex, and specialization at an all time high, this may point to a larger problem, a complete breakdown of the free market, due to the lack of educated consumers.
"Microsoft wants the Chinese to pay for software," said Ross Anderson, head of computer security at the University of Cambridge in England and a renowned software expert.
Yeah, cause we all know those fucking chinks just leech off westerners. That is a pretty controversial thing to tell an AP reporter. To be fair, it was probably taken out of context.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
could be either the salvation of electronic commerce or the bane of consumers, who view the Internet as their digital information playground.
*emphasis mine
I think the implicit meaning here is that consumers think the internet is theirs. when in fact it is not.
What will happen when corporate america convinces the world that it owns the internet?
Is that such a bad thing? You wouldn't see a story that well balanced on TV. TV news offers nothing except one sided stories. Then of course you have specialty news sites like Slashdot or The Register. Can you tell me with a straight face that The Register offers fairly balanced articles?
Reuters, the Associated Press, and local newspaper staff writers are the last bastion of fair reporting. You have to admit that this article was very fairly written. It offered no opinions of it's own, and reported both sides of the argument without trying to say which one was "right". If Joe Sixpack were to read this, he would be free to make his own opinion based on the facts, not have one shoved down his throat. I think we should be thankful that fair reporting still exists in this corporation dominated society.
In 1998 during an interview with Money Magazine, Bill Gates said, "Althought three million computers are sold in China each year, people don't pay for their software. They will soon though. They will get sort of adicted to it and we will have to find a way to collect in the next decade."
Needless to say, this is extremely offensive to the Chinese for historical reasons (think Opium War). Lol, between Gates and "Our products just aren't engineered for security" Valentine, I wonder how Microsoft stays in business...
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Of course, Palladium has absolutely nothing to do with DRM. Microsoft just patented it by accident. And if DRM happens to be built in to your OS, well it's just 'unfortunate'.
When Microsoft came to talk to us about Palladium, Seth took some notes and did this write up.
-- Are you an EFF member yet?
Excuse me, but this "Chinese" that Bill wants to pay for his stuff, does that include the Taiwanese who manufacture half the hardware used to run his stuff?
And what happens when America locks down its computers? Does Taiwan sit back and say, "Yeah, okay" - or do they start building boxes without the Palladium hardware and maybe even their own CPUs and start selling them worldwide (and smuggling them into America will be the next big "Drug War" issue!) and take over the computer industry from Intel? While Linux is taking over the software market from Windows by ignoring the issue?
Go ahead, Bill! Feel free! Don't let the door hit your butt on the way to the poor house!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
If entertainment is the killer application, and DRM is going to be the critical enabling technology, then the PC has to do DRM or risk being displaced in the home market.
You know what I say? LET IT. Let's face the facts:
PC sales have leveled off. The market is at saturation. There is no "killer app" that will make anyone who does not presently own a PC go out and get one. If they don't own a PC by now, they DON'T want one and nothing will change that. The majority of PC sales are now replacements for existing obsolete/older machines and machines for new population members. It's the same situation the car manufacturers face, and they're used to it. The IT companies are just freaked because it's no longer a growth market and they're having to adjust.
Interactive TV, network appliances, video phones and flying cars. All ideas that sound good and futuristc, all without mainstream acceptance. It is quite possible "The PC as an entertainment appliance" is just as doomed to becoming a niche market as any other anticipated "killer app" that awaits over the horizon.
Tivos aren't exactly flying off the shelves. Yes the Tivo is a neat geek toy. The public at large doesn't care. They already own a VCR.
I don't want to wait for a movie to download that I can only watch on one PC. I want the DVD that I can play in my DVD player, my friend's DVD player or bring it with me and watch it on the TV in my boat.
I don't want to wait for an entire album to download that I can only listen to on one PC. Just like DVDs, I want the actual disc.
There is a place I can already get what I want, and it's nearby where I shop for food and they also sell clothes - it's very convienent, it's called the local department store. If the digital intellectual property the media companies are so interested in protecting was only less expensive, they wouldn't have to worry about protecting it. I'd much rather buy it.
How many people are actively boycotting the MPAA/RIAA because of this shit?
Taken a step further, how many people actually feel good starting up the ol' P2P client and ripping the media companies a new one?
I'm not advocating piracy, what I'm merely pointing out is that maybe the increase in piracy is due to the fact that all this digital rights stuff is making people feel a little bit better about not paying for music and movies. Instead of decreasing piracy, all they (the media companies) might really cause is MORE rampant piracy and the rise of prices of "open" hardware on eBay.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
"If we're going to get content on the 'Net, somehow we're going to have to reward the people who put it on there," said Dave Farber
Yeah, this is such a problem. I mean, right now, the Internet contains more content than me or even a large group of people could possibly hope to consume in a lifetime. And don't even start to say that most of the content now is garbage. That's (one) very much a matter of personal taste and (two) ignoring the fact that an essentially infinite amount of good information plus an essentially infinite amount of garbage still supplies you with plenty of good content...and search engines help us tune out the garbage.
media companies complained they wouldn't release high-quality versions of their published content to personal computers because of piracy concerns
Books and movies are available from libraries. I'm sure they hate that too. But I think the reason they complain about the Internet so much is it's an unbelievably large library without even so much as a librarian to regulate the usage of anything. Corporations want to start commercializing the information content of the Internet, instead of settling for selling physical products online. They are blinded by the opinion that if there is a way they can make money, then they have a right to make money that way. Thus they feel we must start to regulate all the information on the Internet. Bastards.
"I like to call this controlled computing rather than trusted computing," said Chris Hoofnagle
I like to call this crippled computing rather than controlled computing.
What may be perceived as minor intrusions in a Western corporate setting might have Big Brother consequences for computer users in countries with more controlled environments like China and Saudi Arabia.
Huh? WTF does this mean? That we can trust the Western corporations not to abuse power? That Western citizens are apathetic to the notion of a Big Brother? Any way that I read this it makes no sense.
"[DRM is] not something that really is part and parcel of what Palladium is," Biddle says, adding that it is related to optional add-on features that customers could elect to use.
This is tantamount to saying here is our new computer product, which you can use with this set of optional handcuffs. Go ahead, try them on, you'll like them. What? You don't want to use them? Hmm. Okay guys, bring in the service pack! Now it's mandatory.
"Security is more social than technical," Schneier said. "There are a lot of good technical controls in Palladium, but it's unclear whether they'll be used to protect personal privacy or limit personal freedom.
Finally someone with a clue. I might add that convincing the general public that the Internet lacks content, that they need Palladium, that they should use the "optional" features -- is all social engineering. There is no technical justification for any of it, but since the gap between someone who understands the true potential of a computer and someone who just uses email is so huge, it may not be that difficult for them to convince Joe User that his computer should be "secured" for his own protection. If people are ignorant of what they're losing, they won't cry foul when they lose it.
*Sigh* Back to searching for the scarce crumbs of useful content on the Internet...
I'm serious, talk to your less-geeky friends and family. This is not a rant. Spread the word in plain english, then the common folk know they don't need to upgrade to an operating system that will simply restrict what they do.