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Microsoft To Demo 'Palladium' At WinHEC
1010011010 writes "According to Microsoft Watch, Microsoft will be demonstrating Palladium (also known as 'Next-Generation Secure Computing Base') at WinHEC in May in New Orleans. The 'trusted root' is now called the 'Nexus' by Microsoft. Developers wishing to write 'Nexus-aware' applications will apparently have to pay a licensing fee to do so. The product manager for Palladium, Mario Juarez, says, 'It's important to note that nexus-aware applications will not hinder any apps or anything else running in the regular Windows environment.' I'm sure you can all hear the word 'yet' at the end of that sentence. There's talk of phasing in Palladium, starting with Longhorn Server in 2005. I wonder how Microsoft will convince consumers that loss of control is a good thing, and how long the convincing will take. I, for one, am already planning to transition my company away from Microsoft software. Hopefully that won't get messed up by and dumb mandatory-palladium legislation from the Fritz types."
Y'know.....seems that Microsoft wants more and more of your information every day. Makes me glad that I don't have to deal with them very much...I don't have anything to hide, but really....it's just tacky.
I don't like the part about the fees. Palladium does seem to have one strong point in making its applications hard to exploit (even the badly-written ones).
So won't this hurt Linux and Open Source software in general? High fees would keep Microsoft's good competitors (Apache, for instance) away from Palladium, and then we'd have all the unbearable boasting about how IIS is more secure.
That would be a cheap trick... but one to expect.
That's a good point, my college gave copies of vistual studio .NET pro to compsci students free (MSDNAA) So I wasn't aware of that problem. For the price you have to pay for either standard or pro, you figure it would at least work as you expect it to.
While the idea of the technology isn't really all that bad, I question the intent of Microsoft in creating Palladium. If the technology is adapted in its "pure" form, Microsoft will be able to determine what you can and cannot do on your own personal computer - and they will make consumers pay for this "technology." It would be like adding the extra "feature" to an automobile that you can drive only to certain places - and charging more for this "technology." Where can you go today?
I wonder how Microsoft will convince consumers that loss of control is a good thing, and how long the convincing will take
The government's already convinced people that loss of control in the name of "fighting evil" is wonderful, and that it should be accepted openly.
Hopefully people don't follow suit with Palladium, or pretty soon, the government will see that regulation of a person's own computer can be done easily and effectively.
solution: we all start using Linux (or in some cases, use Linux more) and move to Canada (or in some cases, stay there)
note: entire solution does not apply outside of US or Canada, your mileage may vary, see dealer for details, sweepstakes ends 11/05/72. Linux portion of solution applies to all humans, again, see dealer for details.
That gives us about 2 yrs to get linux ready to take over. Can we? Because if not, it will be vary bad. This is our chance. Once people are tied into palladium, they're stuck.
... Just sit back and wait and see what MS does. If you just take it for what it says now there isn't much of anything to go nuts over. Yes maybe something will come up that makes it Evil, though with something like this what one considers evil others consider good. If It turns out to be just as MS says it is going to be, what do you have to fear? You don't like the paying? sure that might not be so great, but then again this is most likely going to apply to major windows apps. You know the kind written by companies that people go out and buy. So adding a few cents to the price won't matter to anyone. I don't think anyone is going to go and pay to have there Hello World app 'Next-Generation Secure Computing Base' certified.
If your afraid of how it works or don't like it don't use it, don't use windows. With just what MS has said most all of what people go on about has no bases and is just stuff from tin foil hat people. Yes MS has done bad things. Maybe they will with this. But give them a chance with it, let them screw up before you chastise them.
The poster has missed the point and has confused two seperate issues into one. (DMR and machine security). If the poster had actually read the microsoft link from his own link he would have come up with the following quote"
" "Palladium" will not require digital rights management technology, and DRM will not require "Palladium." "
DMR is not the focus of Palladium (at least intially.... I say this with a grain of salt as you never know what they future will hold), but rather a seperate microsoft initiative spearheaded by the windowsmedia group and the Office group. I would be far more concerned about what these groups do than what Microsoft has outlined for Palladium.
Palladium is (or at least what is hoped, again i say this with a grain of salt, we'll only really know once the deliverables are shown) a combination of two big ideas. The first is to provide a system in which a user can trust stuff and allow it to run with sensitive information (eg, user data) and provide a sandbox where they can run stuff that they don't trust and know it won't do anything of consequence.
The second is to bring the PC hardware/Software to a more sofistated level, bringing up the bar as it would to what is now held by some of the mainframes. This serves two fold a purpose, one to weed out old hardware and hardware manufacturers that people keep using over and over that perhaps just don't have proper drivers which haul down the machine. Secondly, give greater credibility to the Wintel platform in all they're little political/business/OSS/User heart battles. At the end of the day, any time a user/admin/whomever sees something not function correctly (eg, system crash, failed performance of hardware eg... scanner won't scan) the first impulse is to blame Windows reguardless what caused the problem. I'm all for the improvement of the overall improvement of windows as any system that is improved makes a cost saving in both time and money at the end of the day.
There has been much speculation as to what Pallium will actually be. Most of it has been nonsense runned off by people with FUD as they're agenda. Little is known about what exactly will Pallium eventually encompase.... But what I do know is this. If it turns out that user restrictions are placed and people suddenly stop beind able to do certain things... then Microsoft will get a hit to they're bottom line and OS's like Linux and Mac OSX will suddenly have a massive inflow.
Give the public a little credit... The market doesn't have an absolute hold on them and if windows doesn't suit they're needs they'll jump off as though the ship is on fire. It's not like there aren't other capable alternatives. If there wasn't windows would have been regulated long time ago just like the telcos. But do you really think microsoft would alient people that much (or abolish competition for that matter) to be able to hurt themselves? I think not.
That's exactly the point. Microsoft is a company based on marketing, not engineering. That's why they almost always hire new college grads as programmers...anyone with any actual development experience would see right through all the marketing hype and realize how much thier products suck.
Actually, I would argue that Sun has the exact opposite problem. Love it or hate it, Java has made a huge impact on the software industry, but Sun has been thus far unable to greatly profit from it because they're all engineering and no marketing. If Sun recruited some of those evil, undead marketing gurus over at Microsoft, they could make a killing. If Microsoft hired some lab-rat engineers over at Sun (and actually gave them some resources), they might actually be able to deliver on 1/10 of the shit they promise....
The first thing i thought was: "So, it starts."
... It keeps getting better all the time.
Then I read some comments. You gotta pay to write software for windows. What crap! They have the desktop computer section by the balls, and they keep squeezing for more money.
But the more they squeeze, the more people get sick and leave. So in part, I welcome this. Maybe a few more people will get the idea and switch to something freer....something that ends with "ix"
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
There are several other places to find it; I just googled it again. And get a dead-tree version for your Dad, too (that's where mine went).
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
They are wrong.
My home is "shared" with a Nerf arrow launcher, a Sonicare toothbrush, a Panasonic TV set, and a Revere tea kettle (among other things). Neither Nerf, Sonicare, Panasonic, or Revere have the right to enter my home and tell me how I can or can't use these articles. Why? Because they gave up all rights and claims to those articles when they sold them to me.
Yet, somehow, software vendors have gotten it into their minds that they not only have the right to impose constraints and restrictions on their customers post-sale, they think this is normal, even a positive thing. They are utterly incapable of seeing the yawning inconsistency between what they claim is happening (a "license" to use the software) and what is actually happening (a cash-for-goods sale).
If we were to presume the software vendors are correct in their beliefs -- if we were to accept that a retail marketplace seller can impose restrictions on a buyer with little more than a shrinkwrap "agreement" -- then lawful innovation becomes impossible. The TV show Junkyard Wars would be illegal, as all the articles in that junkyard would have been obtained under contractual restrictions forbidding their use for anything other than what the vendor deemed proper. Using an old camping tent as a parachute for your rocket would land you in prison, because the vendor only granted permission for it to be used for outdoor camping activities. Likewise, using the Unreal engine as a basis for architectural walk-through simulations would get you carted away.
Thus, the analogy must be deemed to fail. There is no "sharing" going on here, because the software was sold to end users. Once sold, the end user gets final say over how it's used. Any other interpretation raises caveat emptor to unreasonable levels. I should not have to take Lawrence Lessig with me every time I go shopping at Fry's.
Besides, the computer industry got plenty vigorous and prosperous without these restrictions. No one has yet presented a convincing argument why that should change.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
, for one, am already planning to transition my company away from Microsoft software
But this sort of thing is brilliant for companies, as it cuts down on the damage a employee can do on their PC. It also restricts what data a sour employee can walk out of your company with.
I for one would like to be able to see a OpenSource application that works like a central repository and customises documents via steganograpghy whenever an employee checks out a sensative document. Then leaks can be tracked down to who checked the document out, and investigations proceed from there.
Apple did it and it has only 5% of the market. Let that be a lesson.
(Disclaimer: Well, not really considering I have swtiched may laptop to an iBook and am loving the BSD-based little thing.)
I love the way that everyone is just flaming Microsoft, without any knowledge at all of what Palladium is or what the Nexus is or what the implications are of the system. I'm glad I'm not an open source sheep...
Nick...
IBM and Intel, and a few other hardware manufacturers, probably with support from Microsoft, tried something similar back in 2000.
Then it was called Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM). This was hardware based system that encrypted the data on hard disks. The idea was that they would sell hard disks with hardware based encryption and key management. The goal was to provide a platform for DRM. One description can be found at The Register.
There was a lot of noise in the press for a couple of months after the announcements as the public opposition was voiced. Then the initiative quietly died.
It's not surprising that CPRM dissapeared, since no one could force you to use CRPM based hardware. Why would customers go out and upgrade/replace their perfectly good hard disks with something that imposes (to the ordinary user) complex and difficult to understand restrictions? Particularly when when normal unrestricted hard disks would still to be available.
I suspect (and hope) that Palladium will suffer a similar fate. Most people resist forced upgrades. Over the years, Microsoft has tarnished its reputation by continualy forcing users to upgrade. As the Windows cost/ownership hassle has increased, the minority of non-upgraders has grown and now includes even a few major corporations. Worse, it's also caused some previously loyal customers to switch to Unix and Linux.
With Palladium, the upgrade will require a new Palladium enabled PC, not just more memory and a faster CPU. This, combined with the restrictions, will make people even more reluctant. If Microsoft actually forces the upgrade, say by discontinuing support and sales of previous Windows versions, they risk a customer revolt. Microsoft realizes this (as evidenced by the recent Palladium name changes and smoke and mirrors announcements) and is treading cautiously.
My personal belief is that DRM is an unreachable utopia. It only takes one person to crack an instance of DRM protected media or indeed the DRM system itself. Once this has happened, then there's nothing anyone can do, technically or legally, to stop distribution of the unprotected digital content. Given the financial incentives there are plenty of clever minds willing to devote a lot of energy to cracking DRM systems. I'm not saying this is legal/moral, I'm just pointing out that it's inevitable that DRM systems will be attacked.
In the end, forcing copy protection schemes on users doesn't solve the problem and just ends up annoying the users. Examples of failed DRM are all around us: DVD's, Adobe's e-books, etc. Remember 'dongles'? They failed too. As Bruce Schneier says, encryption doesn't stop anyone, it only slows them down.
Alan Hodgkinson
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
"I wonder how Microsoft will convince consumers that loss of control is a good thing, and how long the convincing will take."
Since when does Microsoft have to convince anyone of anything?
Joe Fourpack will just buy his Dell with Palladium preinstalled. No convincing required.
The price is right. It's secure, right? It's from Microsoft, so it must be high quality? It's got shiny graphics, so it must be high quality?
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!