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A Critical Look at Trusted Computing
mod12 writes "After just attending a two-week summer program on the theoretical foundations of security (one of the speakers was from Microsoft research), I have been interested in trying to find out if the "trusted computing" initiative was still alive. I got my answer today in the New York Times from an article that was fortunately rather critical of the concept."
As long as Microsoft is there, there is no trust.
I love the image at the top of the article showing the "sample of the code for a more secure version of Microsoft Windows" -- just some random binary file open in a hex editor.
Gotta love the NYT - their editors are on the ball!
Does anyone know of companies planning on building processors without DRM? In a competitive marketplace there would not be DRM because consumers don't demand it and surely would prefer computers that aren't controlled by the market after the sale. But with only two major PC processor manufacturers having a duopoly over the market it isn't very competitive.
for those of you who don't know, Markoff is the journalist who wrote several articles about kevin mitnick in which he "created the myth of kevin mitnick" (in kevin's words). many untrue allegations were presented as supposed facts.
but don't let that discourage you from reading the article.
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"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
As PC makers prepare a new generation of desktop computers with built-in hardware controls to protect data and digital entertainment from illegal copying, the industry is also promising to keep information safe from tampering and help users avoid troublemakers in cyberspace.
Silicon Valley -- led by Microsoft and Intel -- calls the concept "trusted computing." The companies, joined by I.B.M., Hewlett-Packard, Advanced Micro Devices and others, argue that the new systems are necessary to protect entertainment content as well as safeguard corporate data and personal privacy against identity theft. Without such built-in controls, they say, Hollywood and the music business will refuse to make their products available online.
But by entwining PC software and data in an impenetrable layer of encryption, critics argue, the companies may be destroying the very openness that has been at the heart of computing in the three decades since the PC was introduced. There are simpler, less intrusive ways to prevent illicit file swapping over the Internet, they say, than girding software in so much armor that new types of programs from upstart companies may have trouble working with it.
"This will kill innovation," said Ross Anderson, a computer security expert at Cambridge University, who is organizing opposition to the industry plans. "They're doing this to increase customer lock-in. It will mean that fewer software businesses succeed and those who do succeed will be large companies."
Critics complain that the mainstream computer hardware and software designers, under pressure from Hollywood, are turning the PC into something that would resemble video game players, cable TV and cellphones, with manufacturers or service providers in control of which applications run on their systems.
In the new encrypted computing world, even the most mundane word-processing document or e-mail message would be accompanied by a software security guard controlling who can view it, where it can be sent and even when it will be erased. Also, the secure PC is specifically intended to protect digital movies and music from online piracy.
But while beneficial to the entertainment industry and corporate operations, the new systems will not necessarily be immune to computer viruses or unwanted spam e-mail messages, the two most severe irritants to PC users.
"Microsoft's use of the term `trusted computing' is a great piece of doublespeak," said Dan Sokol, a computer engineer based in San Jose, Calif., who was one of the original members of the Homebrew Computing Club, the pioneering PC group. "What they're really saying is, `We don't trust you, the user of this computer.' "
The advocates of trusted computing argue that the new technology is absolutely necessary to protect the privacy of users and to prevent the theft of valuable intellectual property, a reaction to the fact that making a perfect digital copy is almost as easy as clicking a mouse button.
"It's like having a little safe inside your computer," said Bob Meinschein, an Intel security architect. "On the corporate side the value is much clearer," he added, "but over time the consumer value of this technology will become clear as well" as more people shop and do other business transactions online.
Industry leaders also contend that none of this will stifle innovation. Instead, they say, it will help preserve and expand general-purpose computing in the Internet age.
"We think this is a huge innovation story," said Mario Juarez, Microsoft's group product manager for the company's security business unit. "This is just an extension of the way the current version of Windows has provided innovation for players up and down the broad landscape of computing."
The initiative is based on a new specification for personal computer hardware, first introduced in 2000 and backed by a group of companies called the Trusted Compu
COME ON! please, why do they make such claims?! or why do journalists make such claims? i think the establishment/private companies/whatever has been proved wrong on that issue over and over and OVER again. if there's someone who actually thinks their data is totally secure these days . . .
another point: this initiative could be very dangerous. buying OS's with this crap already on them, limiting what you can do . .. so, what, should we stock up on Win2000, XP, and Linux OS's along with our CD and DVD burners?
DRM may stop the morons, but soon enough, once a few "l33ts" circumvent it and it gets released into the wild, what's the point.
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we all deal with 'trusted computing' to some extent or other. in any computer system there is a person/persons/entity that is trusted. in the simplest form it is supervisor/admin/etc. as you design a network you describe who is trusted.
when you get a commercial digital certificate you are expressing trust.
in a well designed (large) system you would build in multiple trusts to act as a check and balance. sort of an auditing feature. novell is real big on this.
i find it interesting that the ms model of trust is pretty much putting all your eggs in what is mostly their basket. no auditing, no accountability, etc.
i suspect that we will see more distributed trust as companies and isps become more involved in this.
eric
...that the hardware "doesn't make it more secure" is well-made. The extra chips for the Trusted Computing platform just contain extra instructions to execute--something that can be done exactly as well in software. The only difference with doing it in hardware is that it can't be updated, so that if a flaw is found, you're stuck with it.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
The word "trust" is pretty much the central idea in formal security. And ultimately is comes down to deciding if one person trusts another person. Of course when you mix in technologies, then that expands into trusting the system components. Do you trust the website is the correct one? Do you trust the CA registrar. Do you trust that the web browser isn't lying to you. Do you trust that your keyboard isn't recording all your keystrokes? Its all about trust, and no secure system can avoid the subject. And no formal security method can avoid it either.
So yes, trusted security is very much alive, or it had better be, or we won't have any security. But the big question is whom or what is being trusted? And the big media companies are trying their best to confuse the issue. It's just like their "secure media". Their concept of trust is that they, the media distributors, want to be able to trust your hardware to not trust you the consumer. They also want to also insure that other consumers will not trust you, or you could otherwise become your own media producer and distributor and compete with them. If DVD players only play content that is digitally signed by the cartel, then you are barred from competing because you can no longer produce your own content that other's hardware will trust. But on the other side I want to trust that my computer is not infected with a virus; I want to trust that my legally copied media is not corrupted by the media police. Trust is the just the tool.
Trusted computed could be a very good thing, but you absolutely must define what you mean by trust before you can begin any discussion or evaluation, or to say whether it it "bad" or "good". From a purely technical and formal perspective trusted computing is the next step forward. From a society's perspective the answer is not so easy.
definition depends on who you ask.
it originally meant protecting user keys via a secured tcpa chip (not drm). then microsoft started their trustworthy campaign and included palladium's announcement and that somehow changed the definition to include drm. so please, keep that in mind. palladium and tcpa are not the same thing.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Creating an even more closed system will cut off the hand that feeds microsoft. There will be no more small developers in windows, which means MS will have no one to rip fresh ideas from! They seem to forget where they came from. Thank god they finnally will paint themselves into a corner.
If the Wintel crowd were serious about security, they'd push for a hardware architecture that supports secure microkernels really well and put a very partitioned OS on top of it. But no; it's all about boot-time lock in.
I just wish people would remember all the _good_ parts of trusted computing. So far as the TCPA goes, DRM isn't even a part of it. It's just a standard hardware interface for encryption and key storage. Whether that's used to sign OS's, implement DRM, or simply secure Apache, is up to the OS. Yes, it _can_ be used for all that. But hell, a BIOS _now_ can be set to only boot an OS with a certain fingerprint - how the technology is used is independent from the technology itself. TCPA is a (possibly) good thing. Palladium/DRM, that's the real evil (from the consumer and OSS viewpoints, anyways).
Does anyone believe for a minute the US will allow Microsoft to ship, worldwide, a truly secure "solution?" Of course not - even in the (very) unlikely event MS actually ships a Pall-Windows without cryptographic backdoors no one will believe it. All those foreign countries are gonna have to choose between adopting linux or being Bill's bitch, and they're gonna have to get motherboards and CPU chips from somewhere. And once they're running linux the only remaining half of the "wintel" brand has lost its grip on the market. If AMD and intel won't ship pal-free chips you can be sure there are other semiconductor companies just chomping at the bit to take their places. And in the meantime we just might make networked computing a bit more secure.
Industry leaders also contend that none of this will stifle innovation.
What the Industry Leaders mean is that the Industry Leaders will not be stifled. The rest of the industry should just not worry their little heads. It will all be done for us by those who know best.
The biggest argument made against Lindows was that people who bought the system would be turned off once they got it home and realized it wouldn't let them do what they expected. In this case, running MS Office, games, etc. As a result, Lindows has since abandoned much of their early claims about MS-compatibility.
What happens when a someone gets one of these new Trusted systems home and realizes that they can't use it as expected? What happens when it doesn't let them them burn audio CD's or play previous burned songs on CD-R/W's? What happens when they have trouble just opening word processing or spreadsheet files, because they are not considered "trusted"? Even email could become a problem.
I see this whole "Trusted" initiative by Microsoft as a potential boon to open source software developers and even "white box" computer manufacturers.
Word will get out: "Don't buy any of the new Hewlett-Packards with that new Windows. They just don't work!" Microsoft has already turned many corporations against them with the new License 6.0 scheme. "Trusted" computing could turn many home users against Microsoft and all of the hardware manufacturers who have thrown their lot in with them.
Large corporations have historically always got what they wanted, unless of course the government had steped in. I'm no longer so concerned if this technology will be implemented. I am now concerned about HOW the computing community will deal with it. Gates already said he doesn't plan on deploying trusted computing technologies immediately. Why wouldn't he want to deploy this technology that can supposedly stop all forms of piracy? People will not buy computers that do not do what they ask. MS will wait until their TC enabled OS is prevailent on most PCs, and then send a signal from Redmond enabling it. There will be no way out. People will have to learn to live with it. After all they paid hundreds of dollars for their PC, right? You can't stop progress, but you can try. UltraSkuzzi The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. -- Winston Churchill
~UltraSkuzzi
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I believe "Reliable and Secure" computing is what people want for home computers. The term "Trusted" computing is usually saved for military computers, etc, that are following the Rainbow books' criteria. Also for systems trying to get a Common Criteria rating. "Trusted" computing includes two-man controls, the kind that prevent one person from launching a bunch of nuclear missiles. The NYtimes version of trusted computing means computers that the RIAA and MPAA can trust not to let you download their stuff. It might even include letting the RIAA and MPAA destroy your computer if you do (based on what some senators want to pass as law)
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
Beyond changing the appearance and control of Windows, the system will also require a new generation of computer hardware, not only replacing the computer logic board but also peripherals like mice, keyboards and video cards
Like most new Windows features, I don't see anything in this that the consumer actually wants, I think it is just a way to force yet another upgrade on us.
-- the only thing we have to fear is really scary things
The National Security Agency's "security-enhanced" Linux is an attempt to make Linux into a "trusted" computing platform, but that has NOTHING to do with DRM and other MPAA- and RIAA-borne stupidity.
Security researchers are putting a lot of effort into defining trust relationships and developing guidelines for applying the term "trusted" to software. Has the software design been verified? How about the code? Who verified the design and audited the code? Have there been security problems in the past? Is the concept fundamentally compatible with security?
Then along come the MPAA and RIAA, and they convince Microsoft (among others) to start talking about a totally fucking DIFFERENT definition of "trusted". Whereas the OLD definition of "trusted" involved concepts like integrity, secrecy, reliability, and auditability, the NEW meaning of "trusted" is essentially "crippled".
As somebody who studies security for a living, it irritates me to see the two concepts confused. Microsoft's DRM-enabled operating systems will NOT include the features I've outlined above, and a highly "trusted" operating system could very well include software that allows you to "rip, mix, and burn" just as people are accustomed to doing today.
Really, just who is "trusting" the DRM operating systems? Not the users-- I imagine there will be just as many viruses and exploits and bugs as before. Not software developers-- Microsoft hasn't really announced any plans to do things like, say, encrypt the swap space or integrate stack protection into their linkers, loaders, and compilers.
In fact, the only people who are really trusting the DRM operating systems are the content industry associations. Which makes sense, as Microsoft and company are essentially doing the whole "trusted computing" thing at the behest of the MPAA's congressional whore.
Please, folks, let's call a spade a spade: the DRM-enabled operating systems are NOT "trusted". They're "content-industry-friendly". They're "crippled". They're a lot of things, but they're not "trusted".
Let's start asking for some precision of language, here.
And of course everything Mitnick says about Markoff is true. Everybody knows Mitnick is an innocent victim! But despite his innocence, he bears no malice to any of his accusers!
"...one of the speakers was from Microsoft research..."
I trust Microsoft R&D to come up with good security concepts, but I don't trust Microsoft to implement the good security concepts without having giant security holes in them. Then they can make programs that monitor/protect the security holes in the other security programs, and they will have holes, too. This would be an infinite recursion, BTW.
I can see the ad now:
Security programs with security problems. Only from Microsoft.
The very things that computer users want to be protected from--viruses and the tons of spam messages--are not addressed with these "improvements".
As eloquently outlined in the Times article: the new encrypted computing world, even the most mundane word-processing document or e-mail message would be accompanied by a software security guard controlling who can view it, where it can be sent and even when it will be erased. Also, the secure PC is specifically intended to protect digital movies and music from online piracy. But while beneficial to the entertainment industry and corporate operations, the new systems will not necessarily be immune to computer viruses or unwanted spam e-mail messages, the two most severe irritants to PC users. "Microsoft's use of the term `trusted computing' is a great piece of doublespeak," said Dan Sokol, a computer engineer based in San Jose, Calif., who was one of the original members of the Homebrew Computing Club, the pioneering PC group. "What they're really saying is, `We don't trust you, the user of this computer.' "
In "trusted computing" the public gets no security; the FAT entertainment industry gets fatter; and the common man is unduly scrutinized.
Let's hope our everyday "Joe Consumer" rebels. If Intel comes out with a chip with this trusted-Big-Brother component, I hope the American consumer leaves it rotting on the shelves.
Money talks, b.s. walks. If the public refuses to buy this garbage which is hyped to protect them, perhaps the companies will look at this trusted computing issue again and drop it in the trash can it belongs.
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
We break it on an old Athlon or Pentium IV and release the cracked/decrypted version on Freenet.
The system used will always be breakable unless they can find a way to rid us of non-compliant technology, and the technology in my house will always be non-compliant.
OTOH it looks like this stuff will only effect Intel and MS products. Personally, I have always used Apple products myself. It has protected me from MS viral licenses. It has protected me from Intel's occasional desire to track all users. It is now protecting me from silly DRM schemes that do nothing but protect antique business models. Apple has done more for security by allowing the user to turn off HTML in mail.app that MS could possibly hope to do in a decade.
The same could be said for GNU/Linux and other non-MS users. For these users there are only three concerns. First, laws could be passed to require certain attributes in entire classes of software. For example, as the article suggests, all email and music might have to be signed with a CPU generated hash. Of course all advanced users know that such technology could be circumvented, and, even with laws against circumvention, such actions will routinely occur.
Second, the makers of Intel clone chips might, and probably will, succumb to pressure and include security features. This would be bad because right now OSS is very tied to Intel class chips. The solution to this is to build open hardware platforms around non-Intel class chips, and create OSS projects that run on such platforms. Intel may be a slave to MS, but AMD and others might be more scared of lost sales due to OSS moving to Motorola and IBM chipsets. In five years if OSS is still tied to the Intel instruction set, and Intel is only making chips that spy on the user, there will be no one to blame.
The third issue comes from a quote in the article
the system will also require a new generation of computer hardware, not only replacing the computer logic board but also peripherals like mice, keyboards and video cards
from this we can infer that MS intends to push DRM to all hardware connected to the CPU, which, of course, is the logical course of action. The issue is as above. OSS runs mostly on what is essentially MS hardware. If all MS hardware requires software that is cryptographically signed and externally validated, probably by MS related service, one wonders if OSS will exist. If OSS does exist, one wonders if it would have any purpose the user was still ultimately tied to MS licenses and security schemes.
This has always been the danger of the single environment ecosystem. The OSS people seem to forget how inherently dependent on MS whims they are. One wonders if some diversification might be in order.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
AC comments get piped to
...what you think.
Face it, the software market is pretty much saturated from their perspective, and there isn't much room for growth on the desktop compared with previous years.
What MS discovered, about two years ago, was that they could sell a completely different product. What MS discovered was Radio.
Radio doesn't make money by playing songs. Radio makes money by selling its listeners. Now, take a re-think of the Trusted Platform from that perspective, and what it's purpose will be completely obvious.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
With most of the world's electronics manufacturing business in China anyway, I guess this means we'll all be running Linux on Chinese developed and manufactured hardware in a few years, while Microsoft, Intel and AMD all sit around in the wreckage of their once profitable empires wondering what went wrong.
Here's a hint guys: You forgot what made the PC platform great in the first place: Freedom.
Call it freedom to innovate, freedom to fsck up a computer beyond repair, freedom to write a virus or freedom to swap files. Whatever. But try taking our freedom away and you will face the consequences.
Now that would be a deliciuos irony, wouldn't it. America and the West taking away the freedom of all computer users, and the Chinese coming to the rescue and restoring our freedom.
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
I suspect however that it will become increasingly more common for these types of things to surface as journalists and reporters LOVE to take the side of the consumer and go after the "greedy corporations". It makes them look very good in the eyes of the people, who they are trying to gain popularity with. It will only snowball from here my friends, it's just a matter of time till things work themselves out.
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"The company is dealing with both technical and marketing challenges presented by the new software security system. For example, Mr. Juarez, the Microsoft executive, said that if the company created a more secure side to its operating system software, customers might draw the conclusion that its current software is not as safe to use. "
he went on to explain:
"What I mean is that we cannot have our customers using deductive reasoning to come to an obvious conclusion which might jeopardize our market share (control). Could you imagine the implications? We would rather them just trust us - and relax - big broth.. uhhh... I mean Microsoft has it all taken care of"
"I mean, do we REALLY need 3GHz machines? "
Yes. To do any sorts of useful video editing, you need fast machines; in fact, I'd argue that 3ghz is the minimum you need.
Computer speed has historically been turned into new, useful applications; applications that can't even be considered until computers are fast enough.
Consider MP3; it could have been implemented 20 years before it became big; the theory of lossy compression was understood by researchers, but it wasn't terribly practical until faster computers appeared.
And this is on down the line... think about as I mentioned before... video editing, real-time video effects in games, speech recognition, pattern recognition; each needs more and faster processor power.
I'll grant you, if you want to do email and browse the web, then you're in luck: a 450mhz PII will suit you nicely, and a wonderful machine can be purchased for under $200 for that purpose. But that's pretty myopic; people want faster computers not to read email faster, but because they want to run new applications that are only possible with faster computers.
So I'd argue there is a significant problem if the world's CPU and chipmakers will only produce "trusted" versions of their product.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
"Here's a hint guys: You forgot what made the PC platform great in the first place: Freedom."
You're right.
I was there for the beginnings of the PC. We built them and bought them, even when they couldn't do much because we believed in the dream of freedom and computing and saying "fuck you" to big companies with their vision of how we should use their computers.
Now 2 generations later, we seemed bound and determined to give it all away, just so we can watch "Star Wars" on our PC. And pay every time. And throw people into jail if they refuse.
Its very upsetting to those of use who started the revolution.
PressPass: What function will the advisory board serve?
...Microsoft has long realized that to achieve needed systemic change, it's important to involve academia early on.
The goal is to learn from each other....
BUT, we also view this board as a two-way education channel. Ultimately, we'd like to see academia work with the industry to inculcate more security concepts into a technical education, because it's not just a technology problem or a computer science problem. ***It's a social problem***. If we at Microsoft work with academia to make sure they have the resources, time and information to infuse Trustworthy Computing concepts into education, the result will be graduates who are much more adept at understanding a secure computing environment.
This is what trusted computing will be like. But instead of your employer limiting you at work, it will be Microsoft limiting you at home. "Where the fuck do you think you're going!?"
No, that's not correct. Doing this would reduce the sales of Microsoft software, and Microsoft's goal is to sell more software rather than less.
Instead, trusted computing will add new capabilities to your system, while still letting you do everything you can do today.
These new capabilities will allow "trusted" applications to report their identity unspoofably to remote servers. The servers can then refuse to supply content to users who aren't running software which will enforce DRM rules.
So you will still be able to do what you can today; but maybe everybody else will be able to do a lot more, downloading legal content under DRM restrictions. It's not so much that Trusted Computing will restrict what you can do; it's that it opens up new possibilities, but only under rules that are effectively enforced.
From the article:
Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, told a technology conference in Washington on Wednesday. "This technology can make our country more secure and prevent the nightmare vision of George Orwell at the same time."
Yes Bill that's right. You can usher in the technology that may bring about Orwell's vision and at the same time help it slide through by simply claiming the exact opposite from the other side of your mouth.
Dyuh... It's somehow related to the truth, perhaps that means I should believe it.
In case you've missed the forest for the trees, this isn't just about running DRM-protected apps/content on the little boxes on our desks and laps.
Now that Big Biz has swallowed web-based networking and software management, it only follows that in the future ISP's will be required to enforce DRM by not allowing noncompliant connections. Read: our way or no way, Skippy!
End result? Microslut, through the magic of DRM, finally has everyone by the short hairs.
When it reaches that point, what good will OSS do anyone, except maybe having a low-cost species of the same freedom-choking anaconda?
Funny, I can envision a world where completely unfettered exchange of ideas devolves back to the one medium that isn't software-dependent: print.
At least until Gates et al decide DRM 1984 isn't enough and implement Fahrenheit 4.51
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
I'm thinking of video editing where you need to change the exposure. That takes serious processor power.
Just cutting and pasting video, you're right. But when you get more processor power, there are a lot more things you can do (special effects, blending, convert to and from various formats).
My point isn't really about video editing as such; the point is that we aren't "done" in the CPU department.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
To counter your point, modern versions of Widows do use the CPU protections to stop programs from doing anything they want. They cannot randomly jump into the kernel or change it.
However this reinforces your point:
1. The CPU protections are hardware protections that stop "bad" programs (outside the kernel) from messing with "good" ones (inside the kernel).
2. This hardware protection is absolutley bulletproof, far more reliable than the more complex Palladium. As far as I know there are no viruses that rely on a bug in the microcode to turn off the CPU's hardware protection state.
3. It is obvious that despite this demonstratably perfect hardware protection, Windows system (and Linux ones) are not immune to viruses.
The reason it fails is that such hardware protection does not stop bugs. Every single virus and attack relies on telling some software that somebody "trusted" to do something that it was not expected to do. The fact that the software is "trusted by Palladium" and by 1024-bit one-way encryption does ZERO to make it less likely that it will do something unexpected.
In fact Palladium may make it worse, by encouraging far more stuff to be "trusted" (just like one security problem is that there is too much in the kernel). Claiming Palladium is a "micro" kernel is rubbish, as the current CPU hardware protection is probably a few hundred transistors in a tiny dot buried inside the processor chip and is more micro than anything Microsoft is dreaming up, and it is already proven that it does squat for protecting your machine.
The other bad effect of Palladium is it may make it impossible to fix the problems, especially if it prevents unsigned filters from being installed between the network and executables.
Palladium is 100% designed for DRM and that is 100% of it's purpose. Well on current machines a virus writer can probalby get Outlook to do all kinds of nasty things, but most involve email, they cannot get it to decrypt and play a DVD. Right now you can play a DVD by running another program. Palladium will not allow that program to run, so the only possible way to play a DVD would be the equivalent of fooling Outlook into doing it, and Microsoft and the RIAA knows that is impossible.
Some Palladium defenders keep pointing out that the chip will provide hardware encryption calculations. The problem is that it has to so that trusted stuff can be decrypted without anybody being able to access the secret decryption key. So it is trivial to add a little extra access to that hardware that is already there. Considering this is the same industry that thinks it is a good idea to have the actual waveforms produced by modems and speakers be generated in realtime by the processor rather than add a $5 chip to the machine to do it, any suggestion that they are adding this expensive chip for any benevolent reason should be dismissed immediately.
Without a DRM-compliant public key, you won't even be able to log on to your ISP. No Usenet, no BBS, no telnet, no nuthin'.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
Your rant is understandable to a certain extent - I've had to get around proxy restrictions on some client sites to read my corporate email. But that's how it is. Their network, their pipe, their computers, their money, their rules. Work at home or go into landscaping if you don't like that sort of thing. Further, your post implies that, since this is a "pure Windows shop" your company's policies are somehow dictated by the evil Microsoft borg. Tell you what - get the password for the domain administrator or your own box's and override the policy settings. What? You don't have the password? Well, I'm sure there's a reason for that.
Just don't whine and make assumptions about how "this is teh sux and it gets worse and it's all m$ fault". Thanks.
Of course people will just be able to record the analog output anyway. Then the RIAA can bring back the pointless "home taping is killing music" campaign from the '80s. In those days every kid on the block had 10's to 100's of home taped albums.
The RIAA really should just face the fact that there is nothing they can do. Most people wouldn't have paid for the music they download for free. Those who pirate music are usually high school/college students who have time and no money. Most people who work hard can't be bothered to go to the hassle of pirating music when they can buy it.
Diomidis Spinellis
Code Reading: The Open Source Perspective
#include "/dev/tty"