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RMS Urges Opposition to "Trusted Computing"
Andy Tai writes "In this Newsforge article, Richard Stallman analyzes the "Trusted Computing" initiative and Microsoft's Palladium, points out that such initiatives are really means to ensure your computer can be trusted by Microsoft and Hollywood (you can't do things they don't want), and urges computer users to organize, to support the Public Knowledge and the Digital Speech projects and to use their consumer power to block "Trusted Computing" in its tracks."
Funny, I've yet to come across a working environment where we do what 'right'. Usually we supply a solution for a demand in our marketplace.
.. if it does indeed end all of the sketchy goings on of Windows User A's computing experience. I'm certainly willing to believe that thats a healthy portion of the justification of Palladiums development.
.doc format of pop culture are the kind of tactics that leads to a healthy, progressive techological marketplace in which we all benifit by achieving maximum efficiency out of the resources available .. but thats the shakiest justification of them all. And the DOJ has already supposedly told them that it isn't true.
Windows User A isn't smart enough to 'demand' trustworthy computing, so I don't believe they're doing it because users are asking for it. MS might be doing it because they think its the right way to win back frusterated users (or at least turn their customers' love/hate relationships into love relationships)
However, can you honestly tell me that MS doesn't smell the yumminess coming from owning the 'Word Format' of pop culture?
Granted, maybe they just think its 'right', in the sense that their tactics to own the
"Old man yells at systemd"
Sandboxes and an agent watching the mail spool.
... and be just as accurate as you saying that MS is driven by a desire to disallow fair use.
Sure, but then this is not a part of Palladium. MS offered _zero_ ways Palladium might defeat these attacks. Therefore, it is rightly understood that Palladium has absolutely nothing todo with what we normally think of 'security'.
Stop thinking like a medieval catholic zealot, and start thinking like a modern-day person.
What the hell are you talking about? Do you normally randomly spew incoherant phrases? What do you have against making sense?
Were you at the talk? Are you aware that Brian admitted that the elimination of Fair Use was one of Palladiums goals? This is not in contention. What is in contention: Microsoft passing 'security' off as the primary goal.
"The project began about four years ago as an epiphany among a small group of Microsoft employees who were working to solve the problem of content protection for online movies."
"The end result is a system with security similar to a closed-architecture system but with the flexibility of the open Windows platform."
And to stir up the pot a bit.
The way Palladium eliminates fair use is as follows:
Lets say I develop an application or send a document. And I am not interested in getting a certificate for that application or document. Well Palladium can stop my application or document because it is untrusted. Fair enough, that is true. BUT and this is a big BUT, the control of determining this is not in my hands.
It sort of goes along the warrenty lines. Most people in Slashdot could take apart a computer with their eyes blindfolded. But if you buy a namebrand you will void the warrenty. Fair enough because the company does not know who is twiddling with the computer. The only catch is that I can void my warrenty if I want to. I have that choice!
Palladium will not allow me to void my fair use if a company deems it so. This runs counter to general consumer laws since the person who decides is not the consumer, but the company from where end product came from. This means I do not have a choice.
Big difference. Now about taking them to court? Yeah, yeah, do you happen to have the money to take them to court? The same situation will arise with as with Kaaza. Legally Kaaza is not responsible and hence the companies have to go after those that share. A very difficult scenario. With Palladium the tables are turned in that they can shut off access to one CD and you have to fight to have every CD turned "on". Will society actually go after every instance of wrong doing? Not likely!!!
Now about looser terms? Ha! Time and time again it has been proven that when corporations can increase their profit lines they will do so regardless. Corporations are entities that only care about money and not social ethics. Otherwise we would not have Enron and Tyco messes.
We have these problems now with "stealing" because corporations are gouging for CD's. Here in Europe the big Labels were just fined for price fixing CD's....
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Actually, 'trusted' applications do not run in a protected data space. 'Agents' run in a protected data space. If someone is able to spoof an agent or install a trojan agent, then Palladium goes to shit. Now, it might be more difficult to spoof an 'Agent' but you know someone will find a way.
I was not impressed at all with the mechanics of Palladium. I do not doubt there are some incredibly brilliant people working on it, but they are attempting to solve a hopelessly complex problem. Most of this complexity comes from the business rules that define Palladium. I have no doubt that these people are capable of building a fortress of an OS from the ground up, but the execs are putting an enormous amount of criteria on it ie, Palladium must run with legacy applications and third party legacy apps. That requirement alone makes Palladium look like a big pile of spaghetti.
"As soon as they start to make high quality movies available for download, what's to stop people from sharing them on Kazaa? "
I thought I had already covered that in my previous post. I guess I can go into a little more detail:
Pay them money, and you can get the video pretty fast. Go through Kazaa, it can take hours, even days for it to come through. In other words, Hollywood actually provides a service.
Secondly, what's to convince me to share a movie? "Dude, if you want the movie, go buy it." I wouldn't have to keep my computer constantly busy to share it. Sharing files on your computer is a chore. It disrupts your net connection, drains on your computer's performance, and it's just not worth it if a reasonably priced alternative is available. The MPAA doesn't even need copy protection (restriction) to make it unattractive to transfer movies. All they need to do make the movie bigger (i.e. higher resolution or less compression) to make it even less attractive to send around. Most'll download a 2-gig movie at 100K/s before I download a 600 meg movie at 15K/s. Those who are willing to trade the files despite the availabilty of that service are over-exerting themselves to save a few measly dolllars.
Third, they could offer streaming. This may or may not be interesting to everybody, but I certainly like the idea of hitting 'ok' to submit my payment, then moments later the movie starts. It sure beats waiting a while to download the video. If they were smart, they'd have a streaming solution that stores to your hard-drive as well for an extra nominal fee.
There it is. There's a business opportunity right there. But Hollywood would rather stop you from doing things that they think is harming sales than take a risk and potentially make more money from you.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is wrong -- Chris Hellwig wants him banned from LKML. Alan Cox, Roman Zippel, Adam Richter, Jeff Garzik, Andrew Morton, and Larry McVoy want not to have him banned (for reasons of free speech and the efficacy of killfiles for those who don't want to hear him), and so far no one's piped up agreeing with Hellwig. It would be correct to say that "a kernel developer" wants to have him banned.
"Palladium is not DRM. Palladium is hardware enforced encryption."
Palladium is a set of digital rights for what processes on your computer will and won't do. Go read the FAQ here and tell me that doesn't sound like DRM.
"No one is forcing you, or will force you to use anything related to Palladium (well maybe your boss, but he's probably a jackass)."
Question: Can you still run Windows 95 in today's world? You can't say yes without saying "as long as I give up a few things...". If you're a Windows user, you are not running Windows 95 or Windows 3.1 comfortably.
"False. Windows XP can phone home for you, or you can do it yourself. Big deal. "
False? You restated his point and said 'false'. Heh. And yes, it is a big deal. MS can not only deny you from using Windows XP, but your computer's existence is dependent on them remaining in business. They'll eventually cancel support for XP (like they did with Win95), and you'll have no option to continue running it. MS has turned Windows into a subscription model without anybody really realizing that.
"That check box clicking thing got you down? Whats wrong with software that offers to keep itself current? On the one hand you say MS sucks for its security problems, and then on other hand when they design software to help reduce exploitability after a compromise is found you freak out. You cant have it both ways."
Narrow view alert! Heh. What if the auto-update dealie is hijacked? What if the update will break something else on your machine? What if you already fixed the vulnerability another way and don't want to potentially add new problems to your machine?
"I have no idea what you are talking about, but its definately not related to Palladium."
DRM cannot work without Palladium. Palladium will give DRM the toolset it needs in order to work. In a sense, Palladium is DRM (or at least it does the same job), and it is very much a concern.