EFF Position on Trusted Computing

Seth Schoen writes "EFF has just released our analysis of Trusted Computing. We find that the technology could benefit computer security, but must be fixed to ensure that the computer owner is always in control. We also propose a specific way of fixing it. There's coverage of our position at news.com. More articles should be up in the near future at the new EFF Trusted Computing page. Thanks to all the people who helped us understand this technology!"

Comments

Bad assumption

[Jason1729]

This seems to be assuming "Trusted Computing" is intended to benefit users.

The real reason it exists is precisely to take control away from the computer owner and give it to the content owner. Given that, what is the point of the EFF proposing "fixes" to help keep the computer owner in control, when its primary design goal is the exact opposite?

Jason
ProfQuotes

Re:Bad assumption

[pla]

Given that, what is the point of the EFF proposing "fixes" to help keep the computer owner in control, when its primary design goal is the exact opposite?

Because it throws the ball back over the fence to those trying to force DRM on us.

In essence, the EFF has given these folks an ultimatum - "You want a trusted computing environment, but not the public backlash? You can fix it like this. Now put up or shut up".

Up to this point, the Palladium group et al could safely ignore most of us, since all of us opposed to DRM have basically just whined about it. Now that someone (and a respectable someone, at that) has offered them a way to get what they claim they want, choosing to ignore that will very tangibly clarify the real intent - If they ignore the EFF's recommendations completely, they all but publically admit they only care about stripping users of the right to use their own machines, rather than creating some fictional "safe" computing environment.

Re:EFF's position is outrageous

[Highrollr]

Having my computer do what I want it to doesn't seem particularly outrageous to me.

It's a game -- flush out the rats of hidden agenda

[Morgaine]

The point of the EFF doing this is precisely to underline the fact that big business is attempting to take control of the end-user computing platform away from the user.

You see, the problem is not so much that big business is doing this, but that it is doing so by subterfuge rather than out in the open.

The EFF is just flushing out the rats here. If business were trying to take control of people's property openly then the EFF wouldn't need to put on an act of innocence and merely be "identifying dangers" as the proposed solutions as if business wasn't aware of them.

It's a good strategy. Big business can only respond by saying either "Oh yeah, we hadn't realized" (LOL), or else it can reply that this was indeed the intention. In both cases, the user wins.

My bet though is that the EFF will be met by total silence.

I want a secure computer

[kfg]

Not a "trusted" one.

Just as I wish with my house. I want my house to protect me, my papers, possessions and privacy. I want it to be nobody's business what my house contains, even to the point of being able to protect myself against legitimate legal prossecution.

Oddly enough, that's what the Constitution was written to provide my house with.

It is up to me to secure my house with whatever technological measures are available to provide that security and understand how to use that technology. I'm perfectly willing to take the same responsibility for the security of my computer. Just provide me with the tools. Then go the hell away and leave me alone.

The second my house starts deciding for me what I may or may not keep in it or do inside it I get a new house.

The day my computer decides it doesn't "trust" me with what I'm storing in it or doing with it I pull the plug.

Fortunatly for me there are already hundreds of millions of "untrusted" computers already out there in the wild that do everything I might require my computer to do.

KFG