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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.
Diffie and Rivest had better watch out! Microsoft could easily hit them with DMCA violation charges for questioning Palladium's encryption!
News Flash: "Blue screen of death kills computer and user, details at 9" - Kent Brockman
The inventors of the RSA algorithm (Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Len Adleman) were awarded the Turing Award on Monday. This was announced at the opening of the RSA conference. More information can be found in this article.
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.
Which means it will only work on approved hardware - guess who profits from approving the hardware and drivers? Why would I need a secure framebuffer exactly when I'm already in full control of the code executed on my machine?
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).
To understand why this is not a good thing, imagine if a commercial company had the monopoly of passport and driving license production, and were able to prevent you from using the ID they issued to verify who you were except in "microsoft approved" shops and venues (or countries).
IDs and trust systems should be standards based, not proprietary. They should be secure, and openly peer-reviewed or audited. And the ID should be under the control of the person being identified (or at least issued by a "neutral" government body, as passports are now).
But I've just started thinking about this... so I might change my mind some more. Would that make me a bad slashdotter?
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
Wittfield Diffie is an engineer at Sun Microsystems, one of the only corporations that can be considered a Microsoft competitor. Ron Rivest is a professor as his day job, but gets quite a bit of cash from RSA, and Microsoft isn't using any of the code that RSA provides (BSAFE, etc) in Paladium, so that's a big chunk of change that won't be coming his way.
We here on slashdot may realize that Rivest and Diffie are actually quite excellent individuals in their field, but these kinds of conflicts of interest are frequently what will be pulled out to counter an argument, rather than working from the facts themselves.
Just as a note, contrary to what most people's initial reaction is, the article does not talk about any cryptographic flaw in the system. Diffie is arguing the merits(or lack thereof) of a system that the user doesn't hold the key to; Palladium itself hasn't been proven insecure(yet).
It's not much of a change from now: you don't own your copies of windows nor do you own your XBOX
From the article: The Microsoft approach "lends itself to market domination..."
Does anyone think Microsoft would have it any other way?
DOJ sues MS for violating U.S. antitrust laws. Courts whole-heartedly agree and rule that MS is guilty. Courts do virtually nothing to protect consumers and tech industry, and literally nothing to punish MS. Courts do not implement any *preventive* measures against MS - as required by the law. MS goes on breaking the same law again and again - nobody pays any attention. MS widely announces its plans (as a marketing campaign) to break the same law again in many-fold worse than before - Palladium - nobody cares.
MS has literally and (seems) legally bribed all - legislative, executive, and judicial - branches of government in order to escape and be exempt from the law, even after it has been convicted of violating it. At some point, the government corruption needs to end, but noone knows how; in the information age where most of the "information" is spoon-fed by corporations that are part of the corruption scheme, the masses will never be on the reform side.
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!
The number of bits in the key is not the issue. In fact, most secure protocols like SSL use a decent size so that brute forcing is not worthwhile.
The point actually is that any theoretical construct like a cryptographic scheme or a TCP protocol needs practical implementation in code. And this is where the bugs creep in. And with things like Microsoft, those bugs are as common as snow in Greenland. And so all these hackers/crackers out there working their fingers on their keyboards and peering into bright screens into the fading night can 'hack' Palladium.
Microsoft has taken on itself to make errors wherever possible and remain as human as any one of us. Trust them to repeat their humanity and come up with enough holes in their Palladium implementation to let most hacks through.
This sig is empty.
Ummm, exactly WHY do you think the NSA seems to have suddenly stopped contributing code to the NSA security enhanced linux project?
;)
I suppose the NSA stopping all development on SE Linux is the reason that they just posted updates one week ago to SE Linux, as well as in January 2003, December 2002, and October 2002, all of which took place after this article reported them dropping the project (August 2002).
Not to flame, but just check your sources first next time
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes