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Cryptographers Find Fault With Palladium
FrzrBrn writes "Whitfield Diffie and Ronald Rivest raised concerns about Microsoft's Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (formerly Palladium) at the RSA Conference in San Francisco on Monday. They are (naturally) concerned about vendor lock-in and having computers turned against their owners. See the story at EE Times."
then someone finds fault with it later.
And now we're supposed to trust 'Trusted Computing'?
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
Diffie and Rivest have always held the idea that personal privay (and personal security) is a fundamental right. Their comments at this forum pretty much express that.
They're cautious for a good reason. Making every PC an Xbox with push content delivery just opens up an ugly vulnerability in your system. I can't wait for the distributed Palladium cracking project!
From accounts of Microsofts other presentations they are there primarily to advertise the future of their technology rather than to actually discuss the future of security with others.
In Microsoft's NGSCB approach, users would have to consciously evoke a secure operating mode that would be turned off by default.
Now as we all can imagine, it won't take long before various applications will not work unless Paladium's controls are in effect. Anything that accesses potentially copyrighted works are the most likely to begin with. Windows Media player, E-Books, and later Office products will be the first to require this.
Microsoft is already pushing to get their media formats to be the default. Websites are frequently given discounted access to Windows Media creation software. Colleges and other low-budget places are frequently targets. They have to agree to use only those formats, not quicktime or MPEG, in return. This forces users to get Windows Media player to watch this content. Later MS will require these sites start saving in the newer, Paladium-only, versions, and we'll have our transition to lockout today.
What can you do to prevent this? Stay with open formats. Ogg-Vorbis. MPEG. XML/OpenOffice.org.
It'll be very interesting to see if this subtle push backfires or succeeds. Ten years ago, there's no doubt Microsoft would have been able to back us into any corner they wanted. But the last few has shown some strong distrust - people no longer take MS's word as law.
Let's hope that trend continues.
Seriously though, read the following:
"The right way to look at this is you are putting a virtual set-top box inside your PC. You are essentially renting out part of your PC to people you may not trust..."
Aren't people who download Kazaa already doing that, since Brilliant Digital's spyware is installed with the program and can use the computer's CPU cycles and hard drive space without warning? It seems that unless there is a big enough hoopla made about Palladium, unsuspecting customers will have no idea of "Trusted Computing"'s true effects and limitations on usage. Just ask a non computer geek Kazaa user if they're concerned that Brilliant Digital has so much control over their computer, and if they give you a response other than a blank stare accompanied with a "wha?" I'll give you a Gummy bear (It's warm from being in my pocket).
Didn't Asimov write up a list of directives for robots, and wasn't one of them that robots should always be subservient to humans?
1. Is palladium optional for the SO? Could Linux or Winshit98 be installed on a Palladium box w/ no ill effects?
2. Is palladium optional for developers? Can "Joe Shareware" still release his software w/out paying an evil corporation for the right to sell it?
3. Is there any way whatsoever in which this would help Joe User or Joe Hacker(not to be confused with Joe Cracker)?
4. Will this be integrated on Sparc and PowerPC or just PCs? Is AMD accepting this BS or just Intel?
5. Who will be in charge of licensing keys for palladium software?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Palladium was intended to be a joint hardware and software excercise. Where you could only run signed code on your boxen. I didn't really understand how this could be benificial as it would basically halt any and all software development (new piece of code has to get signed digitally before it can be run. Can you imagine how frustrating that would be for a coder???). Also, forget about recompiling your kernel, once it's changed, you need to get it re-signed before you can use it to boot.
If MS has it's way with palladium, it will be just like the XBox now where you must pay MS for the boot key for a game to work. I dare say that not only was the XBox an attempt to get into the console market, but also a testing ground for palladium. Given the dismal failure of the XBox so far, this could also explain the truckloads of cash that MS has been burning on the XBox. They WANT Palladium to work and will do anything to make sure it DOES work. It is their final chance to secure complete market domination inside the law before linux makes it's way onto mainstream desktops.
All I can suggest with this sorry state of affairs is to change your hardware now to an etirely different platform. (gamer's won't like this) Move away from x86. There are many architecture's out there that would both benefit from incresed use and R&D funding. Names such as Alpha, SPARC, and my personal favourite, PowerPC are all perfectly good systems, and as we all know, run linux and BSD. So, choose your processor, choose your OS, GET SOME APPS COMPILED FOR THEM! and make a stand to let MS know that you own your systems and that all your boxen are NOT belong to them. Stop talking about it and do something for a change. I have I run a MS-free iBook with OSX and X11 and have never been happier
In Soviet Russia, the monkey spanks you!
Going to a DRM OS will change how personal computers work. People aren't always happy with change, and if forced to, they will review their options. That would be the perfect time for a Linux distro that does a painless install/conversion for Windows users, and installs a "best of breed" set of packages that are either compatable or equivilent to MS Office and friends. (If you really want 101+ different editors, make it an option.)
With the right package at the right time, the MS DRM "trusted" OS could be Microsoft's PS/2.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
but due to DMCA laws cannot tell anyone about it, and therefore the faults will never be fixed, because the schmuckos the programmed the damn thing are too damn stuborn, and full of themselves to admit to there being faults in their code, and refuse to fix anything without proof of the faults first.
Damn good point. Your comment gathers up and bundles rather nicely the hard cold facts. And of course, once MS has made this REQUIRED to use any software of any consequence, I am sure the price of Windows will jump again.
THIS is EXACTLY why I am working very hard to learn Linux on the Desktop and hone my *nix server skills as well. It isn't a matter of 'bad old MS' to me as much as it appears that they are on the verge of imploding, and they don't realize it. Its a simple matter that I think Linux will end up overtaking MS not on merit, but by simply having less DEmerits at the same time it becomes 'as good enough as'. When the change happens, I want to be up to speed, and ready to capitalize on it. (read: make $)
Free people don't like this kinda shit, it sounds so, well, unfree (as in speech). As the computer gets cheaper, windows gets more expensive, Linux gets better (RH9 is about as good as win95 to me, which is a compliment) it WILL put pressure on windows. Unlike others, I do NOT think that Linux will gain a percent of market share here and there. I think that it will happen in a very short period, BANG, and over 2 years, half of everyone is no longer using MS. History shows this is the most common method for change.
This is why I am not a MS basher (Really, I use Windows). I don't have to be, they are becoming their own worst enemy, and beginning in 2 or 3 years, they are going to be very shocked in a very short period of time.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Palladium itself hasn't been proven insecure(yet).
That depends on what the meaning of the word "secure" is. Or to which party (i.e., user, vendor, etc.) the word "secure" applies.
With Palladium, I won't be able to inspect the memory or other operational aspects of any program that is running in the "nexus," and which doesn't give me permission to do so. Supposing some kind of virus or, more likely, spyware starts running in the nexus layer, I have no way (short of pulling the power plug) of preventing it from running. That doesn't sound like the kind of "security" I'm interested in.
Microsoft is infact targeting the home users as well, but through content/service providers. Basicaly they are trying to provide a securied (for the provider mind you, not the end user) platform/enviornment where a provider of say, music files, or films for example can be sure that only software aproved by them will be running and able to use (play back) the data they provide.
For example company big$co wants to sell data file D to john doe. big$co gives a copy of D encrypted with the secret key on john doe's Palladium enabled comp to john. (notice i dont say John Doe's key as this is not the case. thats exactly what Rivest and Diffie are, rightly IMHO, complaining about.) The secret key in the box can only be accessed through the trusted OS (nexus) which in turn makes sure that only trusted software (i.e. some app provided (and sold) by big$co). Since the pladium part of the system will only boot if the nexus is trusted (i.e. hasnt been tampered with, and thus hashes to a predefined and stored value) and the nexus checks that only trusted software talks to it, the enviornment is controled by big$co and Redmond.
The reason i say this is how they are targeting the end user is because they are trying to create an environment which is favorable to content providers such as big$co. Thus there should then be more such companies, more offers, and more content. This in turn should provide some kind of killer ap (should as far as Microsoft is concerned ofcourse). And thus the end user now HAS to get a palladium comp, if they want all the content.
one problem with this setup which is partly what rivest and deffie were argueing, is that if john doesnt own his key, what if say he buys a new computer or his old one just plain breaks for example. all his payed for content becomes worthless. this is ofcourse mearly one example of what is so grossly wrong with all of this, never mind the moral issues that u dont own ur computer anymore.
"In Microsoft's NGSCB approach, users would have to consciously evoke a secure operating mode that would be turned off by default. New instructions in the CPU as well as changes in the memory controller would help carve out a protected space in main memory to load a small, secure operating system kernel. "
Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't *nix been doing this for oh say 30 years?
When you read that the user doesn't hold or control or own the keys to his computer, you naturally assume that someone else does. This is not true. No one owns the keys.
The keys are generated internally in the secure hardware. They are public and private keys, and the private keys never leave the chip. Neither Microsoft nor the user nor the chip manufacturer can get at those keys.
These keys are used by the secure hardware to lock data and to report a hash of an executing "secure" program. Because no one else has the key, neither the user nor Microsoft, no one can forge such a message (modulo the issue of breaking the hardware security).
This is how Trusted Computing has to work. If anyone could get access to the secure keys, then they could misuse them and make false statements with them, and there would be no trust and no security. Only by embedding the keys in a well-defined piece of hardware, with predictable and known behavior, can the keys serve to transfer trust to other software.
So when we see these complaints about the users not controlling their own keys, keep in mind that the point is not to put control in someone else's hands; it is to make it possible for the hardware to make trustworthy and believable cryptographic statements. The keys can't be owned or controlled by anyone, for this to work.