AMD Opteron to support Palladium

Jim Norton writes "This article is just a reminder that AMD is just as guilty as Intel in supporting TCPA / Palladium. AMD has announced that Opteron will be compatible with the Palladium Initiative and that AMD is part of the 'Trusted Computing Alliance'."

Comments

Mostly a political gesture

[fault0]

It's not that companies like AMD and Intel particularly like this effort. As hardware/chip/part manufacturers, it's just more work for them. They support the inititive because they need to stay on Microsoft's good side in the up coming x86-64/itanium battle.

Re:Opt out

[Verteiron]

That won't happen directly, it's too obvious. What could happen is this:

Law 1) Make it illegal to disable DRM unless the companies say you can (this is already in place).

Law 2) Make DRM mandatory in all hardware devices (currently being pushed hard by the ??AA).

Law 3) Require DRM hardware to ONLY run DRM-compliant software (not too hard to imagine).

Boom. That's the end of legal free (and Free) software in the USA. It would also be the end of programming as a hobby; programming would require expensive signatures in order to be allowed to run.

You're kidding, right?

[Noose For A Neck]

Palladium means that anyone who wants to be able to view Palladium-protected media will have to have Palladium-compliant hardware. It's a goddamn goldmine for Intel and AMD! Imagine all the people who wouldn't otherwise bother to upgrade buying new chips so they can watch their DVD movies or whatever. That's a large amount of sales.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Featureless]

A risky business. If customers become unhappy with "trusted computing," perhaps because it's main "feature" is restricing their activities or violating their privacy (and believe me, palladium will do both), they may reject the new hardware.

"Intellectual property politics" may be too complicated and confusing for most people to understand, but when it's sitting on their desktop, they will figure it out quick.

Customers (especially home users) may resist buying the new equipment, which both Intel and AMD are in a poor position to afford. Apple (which has, by the way, put a large amount of effort into promoting open media - rip/mix/burn, ipod, etc) might not play ball with trusted computing, and reap huge rewards in new marketshare. Finally, free operating systems, especially Linux, might be catalyzed by the vast new community of people looking to take advantage of the next generation hardware without the restrictions of "Trusted" Windows (talk about an oxymoron).

Finally, lest we forget, palladium security will be broken, perhaps even before it is released. DRM is only a cage. Things only need to escape once.

Palladium is a giant loser, except possibly for Microsoft, who will use it to invoke the DMCA against open source authors who attempt to interoperate with their "secure" system. Against that, we can only hope the anti-trust judge is up enough on the issues to head off the issue with meaningful requirements (and enforcement) of an interoperability policy.

Re:Well I guess we can't win

[Com2Kid]

If you turn it off, you will be unable to use Palladium protected media,

For some reason I have the strong suspicion that most pirated videos or MP3s will NOT be Palladium protected. . . .

Call it a huntch. :-D

Re:Well I guess we can't win

[Powercntrl]

With any Palladium system, you will be able to disable Palladium in BIOS, so it _doesn't matter_ if a system supports it or not. If you turn it off, you will be unable to use Palladium protected media, just like pre-Palladium systems.

...and with any DIVX enabled player, you could just watch DVDs and never touch a DIVX disc, right? That is of course until DIVX "enhanced" players have a majority share in the market - then DVDs would have disappeared. Likewise, when most PCs support palladium, it will start becoming mandatory. Want to play that new FPS game online? It needs to run in a trusted enviorment to make sure you're not cheating. Want to run the latest version of MS Office because MS changed the document format yet again and you need to open documents from work? MS Office now requires Palladium support enabled to run. If you're presently not using a MS OS, it may be easy to overlook the significance of Palladium. Just remember, if you don't speak out for the Windows users because you're not a Windows user, just wait 'till big brother comes for you because "only hackers/terrorists/child pornographers use non-palladium hardware/software".