Dartmouth Project Combines Linux With TCPA

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Dartmouth Project Combines Linux With TCPA

Posted by timothy on Tuesday September 9, 2003 @08:33PM from the smoosh dept.

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)."

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Re:Sweet by MoonFog · 2003-09-09 20:51 · Score: 5, Insightful

The TCPA is a comitee and is not something that belongs to Microsoft, although they are part of this comitee. IBM are also working on a TCPA technology. Palladium, or whatever it is called now, is perhaps the most "famous", but definately not the only one.
Not the right idea... by hanssprudel · 2003-09-09 21:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

We want to fight Palladium by fighting acceptance of the idea that the computer should control the user and how he can access the data on his own machine, NOT by developing something functionally equivalent that happens to run under Linux.

Building a DRM system of our own, even if it is open and standards based, just strengthens the paradigm that will leed to an Internet where no data can be accessed as plaintext, applications that are allowed read data have to be accepted and certified by the media industry, and computers exist no longer to enable, but to control, their users.

Please protest against Palladium, TCPA, and all the other DRM proposals by refusing to have anything to do with them: not by strengthening their hand.

(And before somebody replies that TCPA isn't about DRM: Bullshit! Look up what an "endorsement key" is in the TCPA vocabulary.)
1. Re:Not the right idea... by amcguinn · 2003-09-09 21:16 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Unfortunately, this kind of thing is valuable in some specialised areas. For high security systems, you want to know that only certain approved code can run.
  
  What we care about is the preservation of general-purpose computers controlled by the user. If we aim to ensure that all computers are controlled only by the user, we will fail, and fail badly, because having, say, a firewall that cannot run introduced code is something so useful that we will not be able to prevent it.
  
  I have hope: firstly, the overhead of trying to deploy this over a large office PC system (the main buyer of general-purpose PCs), will be too high for the benefits.
  
  Secondly, the value of a general-purpose computer that will easily run new software is so high even for the ordinary home user that they will not be entirely replaced by DRM-enabled home entertainment consoles.
  
  It is possible (but unlikely) that this infrastructure will eventually reach the **AA goal of preventing copying of their products. I can live with that provided that our ability to write software for our own computers isn't collateral damage.
2. Re:Not the right idea... by hanssprudel · 2003-09-09 21:43 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The specialized areas thing just doesn't hold up. I have yet to see a single example of this that couldn't be solved by current hardware. A lot of people talk about company employees: but few employees have root on their computers anyways, so what is the point with the TCPA chip?
  
  I'm at work right now, and since my local workstation is a Sun Ray I don't even have physical access data in ways that the operating system and application will not allow me (since they all run on a server somewhere). Why would TCPA be necessary to control what I did with my employers documents, instead of just software?
  
  Even IBM admits that TCPA chips can be circumvented by hardware hacks (expect modchips to start appearing), so it can not be used to secure valuable information. The only logical purpose for this technology is to use it on home users, where access to mod chips is limited by laws like the DMCA.
  
  It is possible (but unlikely) that this infrastructure will eventually reach the **AA goal of preventing copying of their products. I can live with that provided that our ability to write software for our own computers isn't collateral damage.
  
  It is not the ability to write our own software that we will be sacrificing, it is the ability to use that software to communicate with the world. Once the TCPA infrastructure is there, the temptation to use it will be to strong to resist:
  
  - eBay will be able to lock out all but some verified list of applications from accessing auction data, so that application to raise bids at the last minute can't be used.
  
  - Microsoft recently kicked off other application from their IM system for "security reasons". As it stands now, this can be hacked around, do you think they'll hestitate to use TCPA to make that impossible? You think AOL are any different.
  
  - Websites will be able to lock out browsers that can block pop-up ads, or that allow cookies to be cleared, or that lie about themselves in the User-Agent string.
  
  - Games will be able to lock out modified versions.
  
  - Given the common confusion that TCPA is about "security", how long do think it will be until your bank starts requiring it?
  
  I could go on and on. The acceptance of TCPA spells the end of the open Internet, and the beginning of a closed network, where all but a few applications are locked out.
  
  I know what I'll do. Whatever it comes to, I will not have a part of this, and I will simply refuse to accept having a computer that is hostile toward me. The reason I argue this so vehemently is because I hope it won't be lonely out here...
3. Re:Not the right idea... by amcguinn · 2003-09-09 22:02 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The specialized areas thing just doesn't hold up. I have yet to see a single example of this that couldn't be solved by current hardware. A lot of people talk about company employees: but few employees have root on their computers anyways, so what is the point with the TCPA chip?
  
  I don't have root on my win2k PC right now, but I've got a tomsrtbt floppy in my jacket pocket which works just fine.
  
  Now, if the company was prepared to make the large investment in setting up a full TCPA-style architecture to stop me doing that, it would be prepared to make the much smaller investment in ripping the floppy drive out of my PC. As I say, I don't think the ordinary office desktop is a useful area for this.
  
  I think real uses for this are very rare, just as PCs which are configured by their adminstrators to really lock down what the users can do are currently very rare. But they exist.
  
  I know what I'll do. Whatever it comes to, I will not have a part of this, and I will simply refuse to accept having a computer that is hostile toward me.
  
  Me too. But I think most of the world will be with us, not because they agree with our principles, but because the immediate, practical benefits of being able to run any piece of software on their PC without it being approved by any third party are far too great to sacrifice for the miniscule benefits (in normal circumstances) of "Trusted Computing".
4. Re:Not the right idea... by bruthasj · 2003-09-09 23:03 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Question: Do you currently protest GPG signatures and encryption algorithms? Where do you draw the line between what *you* want to encrypt/control and what *you* want *others* to encrypt/control? Or do you want to pull an RMS and have no passwords to protect your systems, no security to lock your documents that you created and no rights to control stuff that you created? Shouldn't we let people have the right to handle guns and the right to handle encryption/document rights/system verification in anyway shape or form they please? Whether that be individuals, groups, churches, cults, governments, corporations, criminals, gangs, ACLU, EPA, Green Peace or whoever else!
  
  Everything has an avenue of abuse, but that does not mean scrapping the whole thing because it's got a hole for possible misuse. I mean, look at another case in point: P2P networks. Do we sue the thing out of existence? Or do we fix the violators? What are the definitions of violators?
  
  It's all nice and rosy to flat out and protest something that's "unknown", but the fact is the technology is here and big players are pushing for its existence. Unbelievers in the technology will always be a small ragtag of protestors holding up placards in front of large corporation buildings towering the skies of Redmond, WA.
  
  Don't get me wrong, I hate Windows and I'm a Linux zealot, but I just cannot take your protest position at this time. Sorry.
5. Re:Not the right idea... by riptalon · 2003-09-10 08:50 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  a firewall that cannot run introduced code is something so useful that we will not be able to prevent it
  
  This is true but you don't need TPCA to do this. Putting this functionality at the firmware level is sufficient to achieve what you suggest. In fact I would be suprized if it wasn't done already by specialized vendors. There is a difference between not trusting the computer user and the owner. An organisation can have firewalls with secure firmware such that no one can load any old software on to them without the right codes or keys (without pulling the battery on the CMOS, which is good enough, especially if you have a lock on the case). Putting the functionality in hardware is only useful for stopping the owner of the computer from using it anyway they want.
  
  There is no valid security reason for TPCA. All security problems to do with stopping users from doing stuff the owner of the computer doesn't want done can be handled at the firmware and OS level. This sort of hardware solution is only necessary for DRM where even the owner of the computer isn't trusted. TPCA/Palladium is likely enough to spread through the installed base, leveraged by Microsoft's market share, without any help from the free software community. If it succeeds then free software is dead in the long term, so any cooperation with it is akin to attempted suicide.
Re:Difference between Palladium and TCPA by hanssprudel · 2003-09-09 21:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

Not true at all. DRM and other user control systems only need to be closed when they are software based, because otherwise people can change the programs to remove the user hostile code.

The difference between Palladium and TCPA is really that while Palladium is a whole system for a building user hostile computers, TCPA is just an enabler.

What TCPA does is sign a hash of the OS that is loaded with an "endorsement key", embedded in the TCPA by the vendor and unaccessible to the user. Thus the TCPA chip is a able to do two things: it can verify to an outside source (that trusts the vendor) that the machine is a running a specific operating system (ie one that supports DRM and thus can be "trusted"), and it can encrypt data from one operating system so that another operating system cannot decrypt it.

TCPA provides everything that is needed at the hardware level to write any user hostile system on top of it, because the successive verification of signatures prevents any tampering with the code (even if the OS is open sourced). Palladium could be implemented with TCPA as it's only hardware aspect.

Thus, the argument that is sometimes seen here that TCPA would prevent the computer from booting Linux or any other operating system is false (incorrect scare tactics against these systems are unfortunate, they do more harm then good). What TCPA will do, is enable sites on the Internet to not allow you to read the data they give out, unless you are running an operating system that is user hostile and DRM friendly (and not in the "this site doesn't support mozilla" fashion, which can always be hacked around, but in a cryptologically safe fashion).
Re:Difference between Palladium and TCPA by hanssprudel · 2003-09-09 23:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

True .. but tell me:
1) Of what use is a Linux system, if no content can be decrypted on it?

Not much.

2) Will content-providers make content available to versions of Linux which can't be "trusted"?

Undoubtably not. But what format they release the data in is their concern.

It is important to remember that the only political issue here is fighting laws against compulsary DRM and laws against circumventing it where it exists. We should not fall into the whiner trap of trying to claim that we are somehow entitled to "content" in open formats. We are not.

The manner in which we should fight DRM is to explain to be people why they should not accept it. (And we need to start here on Slashdot - look at how many Slashdotters laud iTunes).

3) If you make a "trusted" version of Linux, will it then be modifiable by the user (say, a new kernel-patch)?

It will be modifiable of course, but then you are back to 1).

4) Of what use are Open Source advantages, if you cannot use them?

Not much.

5) Is this a threat to the Open Source development model?

Definitely.
Re:What about an emulator? by hanssprudel · 2003-09-10 00:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

Yes, but you need a root key that is signed by some authority (the kind of keys that are embedded in the chips).

If you can get ahold of one of these keys, then you can simulate running a "trusted" system and cheat the DRM. They won't be easy to get ahold of though. Modchips will probably prove a better avenue.