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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. :)
Why is it that a $300 billion some company isn't able to hire someone who check the with the trademark office to see if any of the crap they are using is already trade marked?
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
They can run, but they can't hide from /.
Maybe they changed it because no-one had a clue what palladium actually is...
Joe Sixpack - "Muuur, pall-ad-ium? What's that?"
Joe Fourpack - "I think it's food. I eat it."
Bill Gates - "No! That's an xbox 2, with trust built in so you can't watch VCDs, DivX, or listen to mp3s on it!"
Joe Fourpack - "Tastes like chicken."
-Mark
Try saying that fast ten times in a row?
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
Watch this,
Now Microsoft will change Windows XP to Windows NGICI (Next Generation Insecure Computing Interface) thats pronouced ni-ji-se
Help I'm a rock.
In other news, Ikea has changed its name to Good Luck Putting This Stuff Together.
(inspired by Harland Williams)
...oOOo..'(_)'..oOOo...
All your next-generation secure computing base are belong to key signer.
If you cannot convince them, confuse them!
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
My Palladium sucks T-shirt is now worthless and I don't think a "next-generation secure computing base sucks" T-shirt will cut it.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
at least it's catchy
"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."
Released the source to who? I don't remember seeing this anywhere and a little googling comes up with nothing. Seems like you would want to post it to slashdot since open source users are the ones most concerned about the ramifications of pallad... Err next generation secure computing base.
Because everybody want's a secure computing platform, right?
I mean, who wouldn't want a computer that has all its data secure, is immune to hackers, and runs only Microsoft products?
CitrusTV (http://www.citrustv.net): the Nation's Oldest & Largest Entirely Student-Run Television Station
Secure Computing Base
...and sell them Windows and Office.
The Next Generation
Cyberspace- the final frontier.
These are the voyages of the monopoly: Microsoft.
Its continuing mission- to seek out new life and new civilizations...
graspee
I keep hearing that TCPA is NOT the death of Free software. But how can that be?
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.
From here, the trust is handed to the software, and the trust keeps expanding as more software is loaded. Some future version of Windows, let's call it Windows Secure User eXtensions, or for short, just Windows SUX, would be designed to cooperate with this trust model. The boot sector for WinSUX would be digally signed. So the hardware would load and execute the boot sector.
The boot sector loads an OS kernel from disk, the WinSUX kernel. Now the boot sector will not execute the kernel unless it is digally signed. So once the boot sector checks the signature, it passes control to the loaded kernel. The trust keeps expanding. Once the kernel is in control it can run only digitally signed device drivers, thus ensuring security of the hardware, and that only trusted hardware is used. WinSUX can also only run trusted applications, such as Windows Media Player, thus ensuring DRM. Untrusted applications could be run within a sandbox by WinSUX - with certain API's and raw access to the hardware being off limits. Thus only trusted DVD players, media players, etc. will run. There will be no CD audio rippers, because they, being unsigned and untrusted, won't have access to rip the raw bits from an audio CD.
Just as WinXP requires registration to use, WinSUX can do likewise. But with WinXP there are already numerous hacks to defeat the registration mechanism in WinXP. Not so with WinSUX. If you tamper with the code, you invalidate the digital signature, and the boot loader won't run the OS. Or if you didn't tamper with the kernel, then whatever trusted DLL or application you had to tamper with won't get run by the kernel because it's digital signature will now be invalid.
Being able to trust that WinSUX is trusted also allows Microsoft to ensure things that they cannot ensure today. They really could make WinSUX expire after two years and refuse to run. You could not patch WinSUX in order to continue running the OS you paid for.
So it seems like WinSUX does give security to Microsoft and to Hollywood, but not to the user. There still could be remote root exploits in WinSUX, thus allowing hackers to compromise running systems, steal credit card numbers, deface web pages, plant remote monitoring software, launch remote attacks, etc.
So far my analysis has not mentioned open source. Some would say, "If you don't like Palladium, then don't run WinSUX." But this ignores the fact that Palladium begins at the hardware. In order to run any bootloader, it must be signed.
There is no way that Microsoft is going to sign a bootloader like, say, LILO, the boot loader for Linux, unless it is trusted. Now LILO is open source, and Microsoft could say they will sign a "trusted" version of LILO. That is, if LILO is patched so that it will only execute a digally signed Kernel. So, LILO is patched, it is open source, Microsoft inspects the source, compiles it, and signs it. Now you can use the LILO boot loader and only execute signed Kernels. But all we've done is move the problem. Now I can only run signed Kernels. Maybe major distribution kernels such as SuSE, Red Hat, etc could have signed kernels. But what about Joe User who wants to compile his own kernel? What about developers who compile thirty kernels a day?
Of course, I'm sure Microsoft will find ways to make their own internal kernel developers lives easier. In fact, this becomes one way in which Microsoft can make external OS developers lives more difficult, and give their own developers an advantage.
The fact remains that the only way you're going to get a Kernel signed is if it is trusted. This means inspecting the source to make sure it doesn't have any naughty bits, and promises not to ever execute any other naughty bits. Signing kernels also becomes a new revenue stream for Microsoft.
But some would say: "But Palladium is optional, if you don't like it, just don't use it." Do you really expect me to believe that it will be optional? If it is optional, then all of its benefits completely disappear.
If Palladium were optional, then the following scenario would be possible. Put LILO into boot sector of hard drive. Boot up a specially crafted loader which loads the WinSUX kernel, patches it to bypass its security, and then start execution of the compromised WinSUX operating system. Once a compromised WinSUX can be executed, then all security bets are off. I could compromise its ability to run only signed device drivers. I could compromise its ability NOT to run an MP3 ripper. Compromise its registration mechanism, thus allowing pirated copies of WinSUX. Compromise its ability to quit running when it has reached the expiration date. It would even be possible to compromise WinSUX to allow the reading of material which Microsoft might consider "subversive", such as what you are reading right now.
Does anyone really believe Microsoft would go to so much trouble to ensure security only to turn around and make it optional? Optional means that the entire security of WinSUX and other future versions of Windows could be defeated. (Of course this is true on any non-Palladium hardware, such as a hardware emulation like Virtual PC.)
Let's continue with the analysis of getting open source programs to be "trusted". Maybe Microsoft runs a service where they will inspect another OS kernel to make sure it is trusted, and then they will sign it, so that the trusted LILO will run it. A trusted Linux kernel would have to be trusted not to execute any naughty code. Linux is trusted as long as it does two things: (1) only executes signed LKM's (Linux Kernel Modules), and (2) keeps certain API's off limits to untrusted user space programs. (You'll note that this is just how I previously described WinSUX.)
A Visual Basic programmer could write his own toy programs. But he could never write code that did anything naughty, such as play DVD's. Or he could do so only through secure COM components. System level programming would now become something that only a special "guild" could do. Ditto for device drivers.
Would Microsoft relax these restrictions? If I could run arbitrary LKM's, then all bets are off. I just write a Linux Kernel Module that holds interrupts, wipes memory clean, loads WinSUX, patches it, and then starts the compromised WinSUX running on the hardware. The LILO-Linux-LKM just becomes a means to an end of running compromised patched WinSUX code.
So in short, Palladium cannot be optional. If it were optional, then why bother at all? It guarantees nothing to the user. It only makes guarantees to Microsoft and to Hollywood. By making it optional, then these guarantees disappear.
If Palladium is not optional, then who holds the keys to sign programs? If just anyone can get any arbitrary program signed to run on the hardware, then the entire point of Palladium disappears. (I just need to get a special loader-patcher signed to compromise WinSUX. Or get some other program signed that will run my loader-patcher on the raw hardware.) If only trusted Open Source operating systems can run, then this effectively destroys open source. But Microsoft gets to play the PR game of saying that Open Source is welcome to participate in Palladium.
How can they pull this off? Just require all hardware to implement Palladium in order for it to run WinSUX. Most users will happily buy a computer with WinSUX preloaded. So the public will not understand that by allowing Palladium hardware to become widespread that they have just cemented Microsoft's control over what software that you can run on your computer.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Next-generation secure computing base? As opposed to the previous generations of secure computing bases?
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Isn't that exactly what everyone said about IBM and TCPA? "It isn't DRM. It only gives you more security over your documents, and just because DRM can be built on it doesn't mean that it should be criticized with DRM. That's for Palladium..." I've heard all this before.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
All our efforts to get "palladium = bad" into the heads of non-techies are wasted.
"next-generation secure computing base = bad" is a more complex a message that does not make a neat soundbite
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
But this new name just doesn't have the same ring to it. How do you make up a catchy slogan -- any slogan -- containing the inconceivably awkward phrase "next-generation secure computing base"?!
The resistance needs catchy terminology, even if the Evil Empire doesn't.
I suggest, as a start, that "next-generation" is superfluous: Perhaps even the word "base" is as well, as long as the "Microsoft" is still in there: This presents the problem, however, that people may confuse the already-meaningful phrase "secure computing" with digital rights mangling.
One safe route, perhaps, is to insist on calling it "DRM", even as that phrase takes on an increasingly negative connotation and Microsoft attempts to disown it.
"next-generation secure computing base" or, as it is known in-house, "Bend Over(tm)"
Rumagent
The pics on the site particularly shows a document being access and permission from an agent is needed to view it. Now what is the diffinition of DRM ?
Could TCPA be used for drm? The answer is yes and no but that is what its not designed. There are no apps I am aware of that use it. Its just a soldiered on encryption chip. Its also an industry standard and highly documented.
Could palladium be used for drm? The answer is a certain yes. How do I know? Look at Bill Gates comments, the discussion of the next generations of Windows, and the link I gave above. Palladium was designed as a proprietary drm solution from the ground up to turn a pc into a cable box to applease hollywood and cut down on piracy. You have the next generation of Windows that has everything to the filesystem encrypted and even all the peripherals are encrypted. Everything is setup as a trust relationship? You have to ask yourself why is a whole trust relationship needed for simple encryption?
TCPA is an open standard while palladium is secret and in combo with the DMCA illegal for anyone but Microsoft to use! In palladium every component has an encryption chip and the nexus chip on the motherboard only views the keys from the application agents and other the peripherals. Bill Gates called these agents using the nexus chips "bouncers" back in 2000 when discussing some of microsofts research with secure computing. Bouncers?? He also mentioned during the 1990's that he wanted china to becomed hooked on Microsoft products so during the next decade he could find a way to "make them pay".
So lets summarize here:
1.)Instead of a master encryption chip, the master in palladium (nexus)deals with trust relationships between all the different keys in the peripherals. To make sure nothing is tampered with. It also only partially decrypts the data. All the other peripherals like the hard drive and video decrypt the rest. Yes even the video card is encrypted to prevent you from recording movies!
2.)Bill Gates calls the software agents that communicate with the nexus "bouncers".
3.) Microsofts own pics show documents being "trusted" to view on a pc.
4.)Micosoft mentioned that NTFS will go away and be replaced with an encrypted filesystem so palladium can take advantage of it. Yes palladium ready hard drives are already on the market! My guess is even the hard drive will be palladium ready to make sure the user can't read it.
Folks if this is not drm then I do not know what is. Hell, coding for your digital cable box might be easier then coding for your palladium machine. That is unless you use Microsoft tools only. This does assume that it can not be turned off. TCPA can but since palladium is only vaporware right now I can not say.
Please TCPA please take over before palladium. Macs are expensive and I do not want to switch. However if Windows only works with palladium then I guess its time to start the voodoo Steve Jobs worship. If you read my other comments you will notice I am pro TCPA. I just do not trust Microsoft. Microsoft wants apple out of the multimedia market for years and directX really did hurt them but they are still there. Infact directx was made according to an insider soley to hurt apple. Hollywood, content makers, and the porn industry, backing palladium might just kill it out of its core market and seal its fate.
The big consorturium of TCPA likes Linux and has no intention to find anyway possible to kill competition. I am sure they will be more lenient in regards to signers and gatekeepers.
http://saveie6.com/