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Palladium Changes Name
thelinuxking writes "According to this CNET article, Microsoft has changed the code name of its highly controversial 'trusted' computing platform from 'Palladium' to 'next-generation secure computing base.' Microsoft claims that the name is being changed to reflect the fact that Microsoft is 'embracing this technology in terms of folding it into Windows for the next decade.' Also, an unnamed small firm has claims to the trademark of 'Palladium'. Microsoft denies that they changed the name due to the criticism 'Palladium' has recieved, and released the source code to the core part of the software to show that the software is secure and does what they claim." Notice the PR diversionary tactic: it's being criticized because it does what they claim, not because it doesn't. :)
" Microsoft claims that the name is being changed to reflect the fact that Microsoft is 'embracing this technology in terms of folding it into Windows for the next decade.'"
Why does my stomach get a queezy feeling when I read this??
Hey, I got karma to burn...
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Maybe this $300 billion company figured they could strong-arm the trademark owner out of the name like they strong-arm everyone else in the industry?
Honestly, people ... Next-Generation-Secure-Computing-Base is not DRM. This is only a tool that will allow computer users more security over important documents. Just because Pallad...Next-Generation-Computing...can be used to build DRM does not mean that it should be lumped in with it. Save the knee jerk reactions for IBM and TCPA.
Security is Vulnerability
Because in the past they've just muscled any trademarks they wanted from their respective owners.
Ask the the people from SyNet, which was run out of business from fighting a trademark dispute with MS over their trademark on "Internet Explorer" in the mid 90s.
Couldn't we just call it "the system formerly known as Palladium".
It worked for Prince.
::.. check out some Cell Phone Reviews
They just changed the name so that it would be harder to remember and search for. They could have made up a new term to refer to their new DRM, or got the rights to the name, but they have opted to use the vague "next-generation secure computing base" instead.
You can easily find stuff about Palladium. But searching for next-generation secure computing base turned up a lot of people using these keywords, and with quotes as of yet has turned up nothing.
However Linux doesn't seem to require an integrated hardware/software Palladium or similar technology. MS is trying to stay in the $. I'm sure over the next Decade Linux can get an interface as integrated and user-friendly as Windows and Macs (look at OsX on FreeBSD). Then what will you choose as a computing platform? .. An integrated Windows/hardware/software secure system that you pay through the teeth for, or a less restrictive but equally friendly, cost-effect Linux desktop system? ... especially if you are deploying hundreds or thousands in a corporation. The future can be bright. MS might just force themselves into harder competition by this secure computing strategy. Here's hoping, because it's always nice to have more than one on the playing field.
You know what I think? I think the net has suffered enough DDOS attacks, Worm Spreads, and Virii for the last 10 years because of OS's from MS the this next "Secure" release should be free to anyone who was made unsecure before from MS.
So I want to mail them a copy of Windows 98 and I want this new "Secure" version for free because I already paid for an operating system which was supposed to be more "stable and secure" and now what? This should be free to everyone who had to suffer data loss from the fault of MS.
Or I guess I could get an upgrade to a secure OS for free ... www.openbsd.org ...
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Calling it ' next-generation secure computing base' is a great way of hiding Palladium as a feature on the box of the next Windows. Say I was going to retail to pick up MS Windows' next version. On the box there is either listed in the features which would look more appeasing to consumers?
.NET ?
1) 'next-generation secure computing base'
2) Palladium
From the article "To address the criticism, the company has decided to release the source code of the core part of the software, known as the nub or nexus, so that others can verify it is secure and is doing only what the company has claimed."
Question: What about
How do you make up a catchy slogan -- any slogan -- containing the inconceivably awkward phrase "next-generation secure computing base"?!
This is absolutely the point. As anyone who follows the abortion issue knows (ex-- is it "Pro-Life" or "Anti-Choice?"), much of controlling a public debate is about winning the "terminology" war. How better to obfuscate a debate by blurring the way the topic is labeled and discussed? Is anyone in the general public really going to read an article which refers to Microsoft's dull-sounding "next-generation secure computing base"? Who wants to be "anti-security" anyway?
Notice that "NGSCB" is unpronouncable and hard to wrap your head around. Where as people can rally around a fight against something called "Palladium" there is no easy "brain-handle" in NGSCB to grab onto. They've chosen a bland nothing-name.
The Federal government had a similar problem with "Carnivore" which just sounds ominous. So what did they do? They changed the name to something bland-- DCS1000...something that sounds boring and innocuous, like the model of a breadmaker.
I'm sure the Department of Justice's Total Information Awareness will be renamed shortly to some anagram with no vowels like the "next-generation secure nation base 2003LJFBF". When you see they've changed the name, remember you saw it here first.
Incidentally, Time has a good article about how the White House is trying the same kind of thing by reterming thinning of trees as "management-caused changes in vegetation". While they can't do an all-out assault on the environment...
"They are rejecting the full-frontal-assault approach that gets a lot of media attention in favor of death by a thousand strokes of the pen," contends Stoermer. The Republicans are also learning how to spin environmental issues in their direction. In a confidential document distributed to G.O.P. Governors and members of Congress just before last November's elections, Republican pollster Frank Luntz advised party members to refer to themselves as "conservationists." The document said, "The first (and most important) step to neutralizing the [Republican environmental] problem and eventually bringing people around to your point of view on environmental issues is to convince them of your 'sincerity' and 'concern.'"
It's all about baby-steps and controlling the debate through language. As far as I'm concerned, whatever Microsoft now calls PALLADIUM, we and the press should not let them get away with it.
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Don't mistake me for a Microsoft hater - I'm sure there are many worthy concepts and ideas in Palladium (for lack of a better title), and I can't really have many complaints about some of their applications, but due to previous experience and bad business practices, they have got themselves a bad reputation among many /,ers and techies.
Tim
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
"Notice the PR diversionary tactic: it's being criticized because it does what they claim, not because it doesn't. :)"
It is being criticized by people who care about freedom... but the people who pose a more serious barrier are European and other governments.
The PR is focussed at the SERIOUS objections... not what you or I might find uncomfortable or politically objectionable.
Here's how I understand Palladium. It is implemented beginning at the hardware level. The hardware refuses to execute a boot sector that has not been digitally signed. Therefore, only "trusted" boot loaders will work.
I don't think this is fully correct. I believe it will boot unsigned code, but this fact will be noted by the hardware, and when you try to run your favorite copy-protected game it will query the hardware and find this out - and not run (chances are the code will be encrypted using a key embedded in the hardware, so you won't be able to get it to run by patching it either - it will only be decrypted if the hardware trusts the OS you're running - and such an OS would probably block your debugger from intercepting the key).
Anyone who wants to run linux probably won't have trouble using a palladium-equiped machine. However, they won't be able to view some content online, or use software designed with next-gen copy protection. To somebody who is into pure open-source, this is a non-issue - they don't run proprietary software anyway. To somebody who wants the best of open source and proprietary software, it will be a problem. (Ie - forget running lindows - it may run some software, but it probably won't run anything copy-protected.)
If you're content to run linux and openoffice and zangband, then I wouldn't worry too much about the various trusted platforms they're talking about. But if you want to run the latest propreitary video game, you'll be stuck running windows, or perhaps a particular signed distribution of linux (where you could probably compile all the user-space programs you want, but you couldn't touch anything that runs in kernel-space).
Catchy name, eh?
How about Palladium? Many people already know what it means, and it's (somewhat) memorable.
Just because Microsoft declares the name to have been changed, doesn't mean anyone needs to listen.
Some of you developers don't actually realise that piracy helps you. A lot. There are many programs that wouldn't have got off the ground if they'd never been pirated. People that did pay for the software wouldn't have heard about it. People who cracked it to try it out for a while, and ended up paying for it because they liked it, wouldnt have done so. And so you people would be poorer. Honestly, some of you developers are just as pathetic as the RIAA. "Save our profits!"
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
If the industry made a system board that could boot nothing but windows or "trusted" boot sectors, the outrage would be very very loud. I don't think any system board manufacturer wants to take that risk, especially with lots of corporations now using Linux and BSD in the server room and on the desktop.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
Just playing a shell game...change the name...change the perception
In other news:
The legal system today changed the term "rape" to "unauthorized cavity access"
We will never know what percentage of the too-numerous-to-count security holes are actually caused by malice.
Even if they caught the person, they would have a very hard time proving it wasn't just ineptitude. MS code being so bloated doesn't help. Lets assume Windows is 1GB of source, which isn't unlikely, that's about 25 million lines of code.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Or maybe the other company figured they could make some easy money in an out-of-court-settlement by preemptively filing a trademark on a name they knew Microsoft was using but hadn't trademarked yet. It could happen.
Won't they feel silly when they discover that "Palladium" was just a code name, and MS never had any intention of trademarking it as a brand name anyway!
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?