Dartmouth Project Combines Linux With TCPA

SiliconEntity writes "A new project from Dartmouth College demonstrates significant advances in combining Linux with TCPA. The software turns a Linux PC into a 'virtual secure coprocessor', which is able to check that none of its software is compromised and even (in a future version) prove its integrity to a remote system. Full GPL source code is available for the 2.4 kernel. This work is separate from the earlier IBM research which also combined Linux with TCPA, with the new project apparently more complete and with a road map towards a very functional Linux based trusted computing system. This could be an important technology for Linux to challenge Microsoft as it pushes forward with NGSCB (aka Palladium)."

Comments

Difference between Palladium and TCPA

[kompiluj]

The difference between Palladium and TCPA (Trusted Computing Platform Architecture) may be not obvious at the technological level but it is very simple - TCPA aims at integrity of kernel and system components - to assure you that your system can be trusted. It is easy to achieve with open software, because the system must defend itself from attacs from outside. Palladium, on the other hand, uses similar technology to make sure that the user does not do anything else than what is allowed by content owners. In that case software openness is impossible - otherwise you could do some harm to their system - attacking from inside...

So similar architecture from technical point of view - but different aims yield different results.

I'm sorry but totally avoid TCPA

[FeatureBug]

You cannot copy the keys inside TCPA hardware. I'll explain what this means (if you don't like reading about technicalities, just skip to the final paragraph)

Every time you buy a new PC with TCPA you will not be able to copy the old TCPA keys on your old PC to your new PC. This means you will completely lose access to your videos and your music which you legally purchased and used on your old PC. Effectively you have to buy another set of keys to regain access to your videos and your music collections.

TCPA and other DRM technologies are being pushed by the publishing industry and hardware manufacturers like IBM who want to sell more of their hardware equipped with DRM to make it attractive to commercial content locked-down publications.

TCPA means LOCK-down, LOCK-out, LOCK-up enabler. Avoid getting anything with TCPA.