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Phoenix's BIOS Roadmap
An anonymous reader writes "Phoenix Technologies Ltd. unveiled a vision and roadmap for a next generation of system BIOS firmware that the company calls "core system software" today, at its Strategy 2004 conference. As defined by Phoenix, CSS is a new category of core system firmware that transcends the boundaries of traditional BIOSes and to deliver "extensible firmware that provides the critical foundation of trust, manageability, and connectivity required for networked computing," in a broad range of devices including desktop and laptop PCs, servers, and handhelds gadgets. Specific technologies that Phoenix is integrating into its d-NA CSS firmware include: support for the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) specification, remote diagnostics and error-checking, intelligent configuration checking and integrated system policy management, automated provisioning of servers and server virtualization, "radically enhanced" device power management, embedded TCP/IP, remote management functions including dynamic provisioning, load balancing and software resource control, and an XML and SOAP standards-based interface to CSS functions."
Trust -- [...] In addition, Phoenix d-NA will incorporate a new class of Windows-advantaged components that leverage the Microsoft CryptoAPI (CAPI) to provide unprecedented trust and intrinsic security for systems running Windows and
If this crap cannot be disabled then I guess I won't be using Phoenix BIOSes in the future. This whole "trust" nonsense is a thinly veiled attempt at shifting some of the security-onus from the OS to the hardware with the blessing of Microsoft along with the side "benefit" of Digital Rights Management.
This may start a whole new style of hacking; releasing BIOSes for flashing which have the DRM/Trust shite removed.
Trolling is a art,
Trust -- Devices serving as network endpoints can be integrated into to an easy to implement "trustworthy computing" model that leverages secure, digitally signed core system software. This is the critical first link in a "chain of trust." In addition, Phoenix d-NA will incorporate a new class of Windows-advantaged components that leverage the Microsoft CryptoAPI (CAPI) to provide unprecedented trust and intrinsic security for systems running Windows and .NET applications.
.02,
Trust? I don't trust either of these two companies to do anything but take over computer applications and hardware forcing people to use them to "protect" their investments.
Manageability -- Intelligent devices and servers based on Phoenix d-NA are able to provide self-management, self-healing and self-authentication as standard capabilities. By leveraging Phoenix d-NA, software developers in a wide range of categories, from identity management to asset management, will be able to incorporate intrinsic "device authentication" into the fabric of their offerings.
In other words, we are going to give you a unique fingerprint that can be traced back to you. You better not try anything funny with our digitally signed OSs.
Is Microsoft taking over the BIOS?
No, they are forcing us to use them. They are also forcing us to have our computers be traced back to us.
Phoenix and Microsoft recently announced that they were collaborating on CSS firmware focused on WinPE (Microsoft's Windows Preinstallation Environment tool), security, and future Microsoft client and server OS releases, intended to "improve a device's reliability, usability, manageability, and security."
Bullshit. It *might* be for some of this. It's most definitely not their main goal. They want to be able to stop their programs from being run w/o their authority. While this is all and good I don't believe our privacy should be violated to do so.
Who's to say that the BIOS won't phone home and report usage statistics on what OS is running, if there are multiple ones installed, what hardware is in use, etc... Just what we need, direct marketing due to hardware installations.
Would this be different if it was a group creating an open standard? Perhaps but I still wouldn't like it. Being that it is one of the most sinister corporations ever teaming up with a single BIOS company it worries me. I wonder if they realize that they are going to become Apple. Didn't they make their money because of open hardware?
Just my worthless
Conspiracy theorists: "NOES!!!! TEH B|0S HAS TEH DRM!!! N0 MORE LINUX!!!!!111"
I, for one, welcome our new well-secured extensible BIOS overlords.
SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618
The bigger the ROM, the more vulnerable and the harder it is to patch. What a cool target, especially if it does network stuff!
CSS, huh? Forget any discussion about running out of IPv4 addresses; let's focus on the real issue: we're out of acronyms. It seems like half of the new technologies/systems/applications/whatever end up duplicating existing acronyms (or names). What gives?
You'll need a gig of ram and a 200 meg hard drive just to boot up!
simplicity is totally overrated. security, trust, manageability never result from it.
must... stay... awake...
extensible firmware that provides the critical foundation of trust, manageability, and connectivity required for networked computing
:
Trust ?
Real trust or trust like in
"smoking cigarettes doesn't cause cancer. Trust us."
"Hell hath no fury like a hippo with a machine gun."
*insert obligatory mozilla name stealing joke here*
At least it always did in the past. MS has yet to learn the lesson (and someday it will) that IBM had to learn: you have to evolve from a company that sets standards to a company that contributes to them.
First Palladium and now this?
Certainly cloaked under the "benefits" someone at MS has thought "Oh a way to make *nix useless on PC architecture".
You didn't think this was just going to affect Linux did you?
So, could you edit your CSS configuration through a webpage that uses CSS?
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
Maybe it's time to start helping out/using LinuxBIOS. I went to SCALE over the weekend and saw a interesting presentaion on LinuxBIOS, it has lots of benifits over other commercial BIOS's.
That to prevent confusion with the popular web-standard technology CSS, the CSS BIOS technology will before release be renamed to "Firebird", a name chosen after an exhaustive search based on the fact that it kind of describes "Phoenix" and hey, it's like the car.
To match this, and as part of the promotional effort for Firebird, they will be rebranding most of their products with animal-inspired names, for example renaming their remote-BIOS-diagnostics-and-administration technology to "Longhorn", a name to evoke images of stability. The entire promotional push will be branded to stockholders as the System Consolidation of Operations project, or SCO for short, overall an effort to draw together their product line for more clarity to consumers.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
"Will there be Windows-specific APIs in the BIOS? Are they available to other operating systems? Are these APIs cryptographically hidden from reverse engineering? Legally, do these APIs belong to Microsoft or to Phoenix? Is this a loophole with respects to the anti-trust settlement? This raises a lot of questions about the ability of hardware that includes this new Phoenix BIOS to run non-Microsoft operating systems. Would they run? Would they be crippled it they run? Would Microsoft customers switching to Linux have to change hardware as well, if their PCs run this BIOS? "
Tread very carefully.
I really don't see how they can achieve this with cascaded style sheets (CSS).
postmodernsideshow.com
This is braindead. Introducing a huge layer of complexity between the OS and hardware etc. Really the job of the BIOS should be to do as little as necessary and then hand things off to the OS. Does a BIOS truly need a TCP/IP stack? Perhaps it is time to put a bit more effort in to linuxBIOS.
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
letting my BIOS do one thing and do it well ?
Embedded TCP/IP ? Huh ? Now I'm going to get hacked on the hardware level ?
Sunny Dubey
Yeah, but your browser would have to support CSS encryption.
CSS is taken and is already confused by many a begining developer with eXtensible Stylesheet Language. Name it BIOS.NET instead.
*insert obligitory "it isn't called that anymore" comment here*
Why is it we always seem to gravitate away from simplicity whenever possible? This new setup seems to be just asking for problems. With all of the other problems in a modern PC, this is just going to add to end user frustration levels.
DeviantArt Page
NSFWMost of the viruses lately have been of the email-you-are-dumb variety. I'd been wondering where all the excellent boot sector and hardware level viruses of the 1980s and early 1990s had gotten to.
I couldn't stand yet-another I-love-you clone. I want some real destruction!
Crypto API is about strong encryption and non-pseudo-random-number-generators, and it also isn't new but has been around since NT4. see: Crypto API.
I thought hardware support would just speed up those functions, so disabling it wouldn't disable the features (which were around years before this hardware), just make them slower.
Cripes, how much crap are they going to shoehorn in there at the mostly-unused hardware configuration level? Will it come with a calculator app and Minesweeper too?
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
This is going to end up just like BIOS based Virus detection. To get anything to install on your computer you will have to reboot, enter the BIOS and turn this feature off and then enter the OS and install your app. How many of those BIOS virus protection features get turned back on after the first couple of times having to hassle with it?
If Phoenix thinks companies are going to pay for the digital certificate creation or whatever is needed to be able to install their app then they are mistaken. They should ask Microsoft how many software companies get them and keep them up to date. How many hardware vendors have gotten digital certs. on their drivers? Not many. As it is, we put the driver disk in that came w/ the hardware and move on. Or we download the latest driver from the net, install it and move on.
Just post md5 sums on the website w/ the driver and software downloads. Microsoft should build a simple MD5 sum checker that can be loaded from Windowsupdate. That would be the BEST thing they could do for security.
YMMV and if you break it, you get to keep both parts.
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
So what all this means is that if Phoenix screwed up, someone could compromise my Bios due to all the stuff they put in. I really think I'll be needing TCP/IP in my bios, cool for remote administration servers though.
A Bios should be minimal and only contain enough features to boot the operating system, not more, nothing less.
Perhaps we should create a bios best and worst bets web site.. Phoenix will obviously lead the top of the worst list.
-edfardos
I want a kitchen sink included in the BIOS!!!
Really... why not scrap all that and add a JVM instead... That at least would be usefull...
Jeez... if i had a dollar for everything I see on slashdot named CSS i'd have..... 3 dollars! :D
I think people are really, really missing something here with all the Microsoft hate. If this product does what it says it will, and does it well, it is a major step up for the x86 server.
I've always enjoyed the way Sun systems are designed for remote managability, same with HP's PA-RISC servers and workstations as well and IBM's Power offerings. Sun's is the one I've had the most experiece with and it rocks. Networking booting into single user mode when your disks or file systems go bad, doing hardware diagnostics or just porting Doom to Forth. Anyway, where was I?
Oh yeah. I'm sick of having to walk down to the server room to get on the console of Linux boxes and there are a slew of things that cannot easily be done with current x86 offerings.
Hopefuly this BIOS can give x86 boxes a step up in managability.
If there's TCP/IP support in the BIOS, how much of a step would it be to have support for booting iSCSI?
I believe that there's a lot of intest in diskless PCs in the corporate environment (with the storage on large storage servers). There are huge advantages in system administration possible with such a setup, not to mention better environmentals in the workspace.
If they've written it from scratch, they're fools and I wouldn't want to buy it. If they've used existing tools, most are Open Source and I'd want to know about license violations.
Either which way, any competent coder could throw a basic kernel image into a BIOS chip and write drivers that talk with it. This isn't new, this certainly isn't original, and I'm not even convinced it's useful. (Flash RAM is usually fairly slow, so it's not much use beyond boot-time for most modern OS'.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Well that sure explains why IBM is doing so much better that MS, doesn't it? I'm not trying to troll, it's just that what motivation does MS have to follow other peoples standards when they can set the terms themselves and force the rest of the world to follow without any repercussions? I'm with you in wishing that they would, but don't fool yourself into thinking that it would actually be good for MS's bottom line, all it would do would let other people compete on a more equal ground, and they don't want that to happen.
SCO.com uses Linux
tongue! ---
If they put in the capability of BIOS flashing over TCP/IP, we may see our first OS-agnostic x86 virus. Would that be nasty, or what.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Here's the problem I see with this type of advanced bios. How long will it be until a virus is written that exploits bios code? Imagine the horror of having to flash your bios to rid yourself of the latest internet worm.
Do these people remember that BIOS stands for Basic Input-Output System? It is designed to be the foundation of the computer system, not the latest futile gesture to stop piracy.
I give the "security features" 6 months to get hacked, and then all we are left with security holes and bugs that could theoretically destroy hardware. This is progress?????
----
Squirrel
I won't be happy until my bios comes with a relational database, skinnable 3d windowing environment and a full J2EE stack.
In addition, I should be able to download bug fixes, new features and skinds from a website, call it biosupdate.com
Come on Phoenix, listen to your customers!
extensible- ik-'sten(t)-s&-b&l adj. capable of being extended, exploitable.
see synonym: insecure.
Seeing that take a slashdotting is what we're really interested in... totally in the spirit of slash (TM)
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
I would personally like firmware on motherboards that made stuff like installing linux accross a network and configuring dual boot machines a little easier-particularly for novices.
Does anyone sell a BIOS that support remote management over serial ports?
:-)
Compaq used to sell a separate board for remote management, but I don't think it used serial ports (it had an additional RJ45 jack on it).
What I REALLY REALLY want is a BIOS that will let me use Linux servers the same way I can use Sun servers: connect a terminal server to them, and be able to manage them from thousands of miles away without depending on the proper functioning of any networks or network devices in between. All the extra functionality that Sun has in LOM and OBP would be nice (Forth interpreter, anyone?) but I'd settle for just the hardware diagnostics, boot commands, and power control commands. Hell, I'd settle for just the boot and power control stuff.
An acquaintence of mine once spent $2500 in plane fare recovering from a typo: "init 5" instead of "init 6"...
BTW, I know about the remote-control power strips. Neat, but not quite what I'm hoping for.
just another way to make your system an easier target.
Give me a open firmware that is as good (or better) then what you get with an 10+ year old unix machine.
Hopefully the new 64-bit machines that are built around AMD64 and Itanium will have something that can match my old Sparcstation 5.
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Hm, I was thinking that the BIOS was supposed to be this small thing whose only real purpose was to start up the main OS.
Old Biosii were quite small. Even if they really tried to make this super efficient, this bios will be huge.
So, since there is less and less room to bloat the software, are they trying to bloat the bios now too?
Of course, imagine a network -- corporate/school/home -- that uses all of this type of bios. Now, imagine a flaw is found and a virus written that infects this network. This could be the worst virus ever written b/c it has control of the bios.
-CPM
---You're all I need, When the water runs deep, You're all I need, Now I cry my soul to sleep -- Collective Soul, Needs
The hardware architecture of the PC IS the open architecture as apposed to Apple, etc. One could argue that MS uses the software to reclose the architecture, but the PCs near ubiquitous nature is due to its open architecture. MS bet on the open hardware architecture and won big.
Bloated- IO - System!
What value is the manageability component if there's no supervisory CPU (a'la something like a PC Weasel ) so you can actually get to the management interface when your OS is hung in a bad way. Real computers have always had supervisory CPU's. I don't see why the PC world refuses to get it right.
Historically Microsoft has made a certain amount of money from people who who didn't want their software, simply because there was no way to buy the computer they wanted (this is particularly common with laptops) without windows preinstalled.
But when the day comes, if it comes, that PCs require this sort of open-source-unfriendly BIOS in order to run windows, Linux (or whatever) users will not buy Windows-compatible PCs, and hence, won't be giving $95/unit to Bill anymore. Speed the day, if you ask me.
Seems to me this whole plan is merely an attempt by Phoenix to make their product more desirable by throwing more features into it. We've seen this pattern before with disk controllers, disk drives, network cards, motherboards, monitors, keyboards, mice, etc.
Unfortunately for them, aside from Microsoft's "let's integrate security with hardware" gambit, the trend has been to rely less and less on the BIOS.
Sorry, I don't really want my BIOS to do any more than get my machine started up, thank you very much. Simple=beautiful.
The Phoenix BIOS Business Plan:
Step 1: Pile on the complexity
Step 2: Become more important to the consumer
Step 3: Profit!
It could set a good example for other BIOS developers if Phoenix retracts their decision and removes CSS from their BIOS. Please send them an email and let them know of your opinion. Whether or not you use, or would use Phoenix products, lets let other manufacturers know we won't stand for this type of activity.
+ us /
http://www.phoenix.com/en/about+phoenix/contact
To: americas_sales@phoenix.com
Subject: Phoenix CSS BIOS
Just wanted to let you know ahead of time, that I won't be purchasing any product that includes your CSS BIOS, and I will go out of my way to avoid it. I will also make sure that any product recommendations that I make to my current employer will not include your BIOS. Just thought I'd let you know of my opinion, as a consumer, and someone who's owned motherboards with Phoenix BIOS in the past. I hope you reverse your decision, until then, I'll shop elsewhere.
Thanks for your time, and consideration on this matter.
Jon
I can't wait for the first flashable Linux-on-BIOS distro. Of course, the DRM system probably won't allow it.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Why is DRM doomed?
Because somebody, somewhere, especially in developing countries (think China, here) will realize they could make a mint seeling computers that are not DRM-compliant, or with a DRM compliance that can be circumvented easily by the user.
Here is a true example: when DVDs came out, they were all locked by geographical zones. Then an economic cirisi struck asian countries.
Pressed for cash, enterprising Korean chaebol decided it was more profitable to turn a blind eye when users published work-arounds. Soon, every DVD player company was doing the same.
The result? These days, every DVD player on display in shops proudly display a little tag saying that zoning can be removed officially or circumvented unofficially.
Using Google, it took me about 10 minutes to locate the infortmation I needed to remove the zoning setting on my (Korean) DVD player. It now happily plays DVDs from Europe, the USA and Japan.
These DRM-compliant BIOSes will follow the same path. Within 5 years, I confidently predict they will be a thing of the past... which is about when I'll have to buy a new computer... =)
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
What does the poster expect from the readers? It's getting really ridiculous with all these acronyms used everywhere. After all, there is a reason we have complete words. I mean, CSS could be associated with anything from Cascading Style Sheets to COMSEC Subordinate Switch.
For example, it is not entirely clear whether SOAP stands for "Symbolic Optimizer and Assembly Program" or if it stands for "Simple Object Access Protocol"
The only acronyms here that are anywhere close to logical to use are BIOS and PC, because most readers would know that phoenix business is all about what those acronyms stands for.
Acronym Search alone returns 24 results for CSS, 19 for PC, 14 hits for d-NA (DNA), 7 for TCG, 5 for TCP, 10 for IP, 1 for XML and 4 for SOAP.
As soon as an acronym gets more than one meaning, and their mening is in the same area, they are both useless, because the sole purpouse of an acronym is to make the text easier to understand without reading the same five words in a row over and over in a text.
I for one am just as confused and frustrated of this misuse of acronyms as the next man!
Richie
We can fully expect that there will be a marked increase in efforts to directly hack the BIOS of PCs (Can you imagine having to Mod Chip your own computer?)
If it can be avoided, I will never purchase a BIOS chip with this trusted computing garbage. The only thing I trust in computing is myself, and if the BIOS isn't going to trust me, don't expect me to use it. If that means I don't get to run some (or even any of) the commercial apps out there, then fine. I use very few now-adays anyway.
Quite frankly, this change in BIOS/OS will very likely be rejected by customers. I mean, think of the stink that was made over the Pentium III (was it?) regarding the embedded serial number. This could work in the favour of the open source movement. I know, for me, Windows XP Product activation was what got me looking into Linux "on my desktop" for the first time.
"God is dead!" - Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead!" - God
"Trust us... it's secure, for your own good. Never mind that we've locked out all unapproved applications (read: open-source and anyone who doesn't kowtow to MS) including ones that you've compiled yourself with any compiler other than Visual Studio
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
Can't pretend to wait much longer.. lots of good stuff being reported from theregister.co.uk ..let those horses loose !
They really think that their position is garanteed by sexing up to a big player as a parts dealer...
We know what happens to part dealers locked into a single business model, yup they die, it is only a question of time...
I will cheer when that day comes...
"Windows, errr, the BIOS isn't done until Linux won't run!"
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
There's no reason to do this. This is actually not hardware, this is just preinstalled software that you have no choice or control over.
Network functions in-BIOS? Remote manageability? Woohoo. Finally, the Feds will be able to control and spy on your computer with all the ease they are accustomed to with the telephone system.
Thank you very much, but I define "hardware" as the silicon I bought, and "software" to be program information that I can choose to run on that hardware. There is no reason to force all this software into the hardware purchase. No good reason, that is.
...
I note that on their website they list the contacts of tech-sector analysts who write reports on the company.
Why not give them a call. I did.
So now we have the Content Scrambling System for DVDs, Cascading Stylesheets for HTML and Core System Software for the BIOS. Anyone else got any?
I think it's about time that we create an industry standards group to create and clarify technologies that use CSS as their initials. We could call it the CSS Standards Syndicate (CSS).
Crypto API is designed to give your applications a consistent and secure way to encrypt data by asymetric encryption. Support in hardware is designed to speed this process up.
It might be used instead of PGP to encrypt your home directory, you can use it to securely communicate over networks, you can use it to generate great passwords.
That it's there is a good thing (tm), but someone might use it to keep stuff from you.
"Welcome to the real world".
Intel has been working on EFI since 1998. This is just a rip off of that.
They can try all they... they can put all the DRM in the hardware, slap people with the DMCA if they try to work around it, that will only succeed in the doing 2 things:
1) [maybe] Raise awareness of the evil of the DMCA, and finally get it reversed.
2) [surely] Give huge competitive advantages to foreign companies that will start selling non-DRM enabled hardware.
Nowadays, how many MP3 players do you see out there, and how many proprietary DRM-Only players can you find ?
Also, how many non-US governments will tolerate having their hardware totally locked and at the mercy of an US corporation ?
I suppose you've never tried running Linux on any non-clone x86 box right? The BIOSes on the HP/Compaq blade and DL-series enterprise servers are pretty advanced. While the iLO (integrated lights out) feature on the Compaq BIOS is not perfect (it's too damn slow for one, especially when your console goes to graphics mode), it almost gives you a fully functional console over a 100 MBps Ethernet link. In fact, this is the only way to access the console on a BL20p or similar blade server. Basically the only thing you can't do with iLO that you can do on the physical console is insert and eject removable media. Yeah, with this feature you can network boot into single user mode when your disks and filesystems go bad and do hardware diagnostics too.
No, this isn't meant to be anything even remotely resembling these remote management features. Phoenix is seriously in bed with Microsoft, and well, this their monster offspring is meant to be the first step toward Palladium or NGSCB or whatever the hell Microsoft calls it now.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Do they really think that they can apply the model that FAILED IT for IBM and be successful?!!!!
SILLY ASSES.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It occurs to me that the primary function of this "trusted computing" is to restrict our access to our own machines. Given that it's from Microsoft, we know that it will have at least some vulnerabilities.
Imagine for a minute that the machines are mostly secure and only occasionally do we find 'holes' in their trust schemes. Now imagine a virus/worm that abuses this, to lock people away from their own data. E.G. to mark it copyrighted or whatever by someone else, locked in such a way that no one has a key to it.
Or, perhaps it crashes the machine whenever it tries to go into 'trusted' mode. Then they'd have to all a program that was untrusted to make all kinds of modifications to remove the virus... modifications only a trusted program could make...
In other words, these features can be used to screw over your computer. Lovely.
It really seems that a BIOS comes down to two things here :
...) Imagine fun hybrid OS things (part in CMOS, part in Hard drive) !
- Some mobo specific code (incl boot configuraion)
- a small, instant-on OS.
Why not CLEARLY SEPARATE the two ? Imagine the hacking possibilities ! After all, it would need some basic tailoring of the OS but cross-compiling a propoer kernel could take care of that. After all, custom kernels in x86 binary code is not exactly new !
A lean, instant on OS, user downloadable (without messing with scary & dangerous mobo specific - the real BIOS) with basic graphical GUI, fs drivers, a simple editor, would be awesome for some of us ! (repair, diskless PCs
Just add some memory and an option not to load the MBR from CMOS. The Hardware is there isn't it ?
It's been so long since I've bought a new computer (going on 4 years now), do any BIOS support boot from USB or Firewire yet? I'm not sure an OS would support it, but it'd be worthwhile, and I'm kind of thinking my next machine will be all Firewire or USB2, and this would make it a reality.
What's with all these dumbfuckii who think that "viri" or virii" are real existing wordii in any human language?
So, you want to write in English here? Then it's VIRUSES damnit!
Excuse my ignorance on this matter, but didn't a company called Mr. BIOS used to make high performance BIOS replacements for motherboards? If so, couldn't an open source initiative be developed that would provide open source and digital rights management free BIOS's? Maybe Windows et. al will REQUIRE a DRM BIOS, but that's OK...I don't run Windows.
"The strong will do what they want, the weak will do what they must."
-Thucydides
The article seemed to repeat the term grid computing over and over and make it quite clear that they were using the term to refer to something similar to a blade server hardware setup.
I think it's mostly a communication issue caused by people in marketing trying to make a little idea seem big when it's really just an incremental change that addresses the fact that most PCs are networked today.
If I were to guess what CSS is really about, it sounds like mostly it is just making the BIOS like a web page and giving it its own little TCP/IP stack which probably isn't such a big deal when you note that they specifically pointed out that it would not be useable under Linux and not exclusive to Microsoft.
I find the idea of a more customizeable BIOS appealing. I always change the colors in mine. Hey, that's what being a nerd is all about.
Ya, thats a much better alternative than just selling an operating system... better for the wallet!
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Sheesh! What more do you want a bios to do? Why don't they just stick a microkernel OS in there while they're at it.
We will no longer need Linux or Window$ !
Please, contribute to one of the various open/free hardware projects out there.
I'll give you a hint - not you.
I'm not just concerned about DRM. My computer will handle my personal information, and as technology gets better it will be handling a heck of a lot more of it. If there are programs and applications running on my computer using this crypto-hardware I, nor anyone else, will be able to find out how our personal information is being used - privacy comes full circle. The 'privacy agreements' set out don't mean a thing because this hardware gives many companies the ability to get away with whatever they want.
It also conveniently stops you using anything but Microsoft software. The TCPA/TCG stuff started out as being OS neutral - this looks as if Microsoft wants to have a go at tying the hardware to Windows.
What it will eventually be used for is a free-for-all in market research, and eventually more sinister and dark uses. Encrypted apps will report back, or respond to queries on what you buy etc. etc. etc. Imagine a whole house system running on this thing as Microsoft is predicting? There is not a chance in hell of me ever using a system like that no matter how many idiots use it, and I believe the potential to FUD (and truthful FUD at that) this out of existence is very great.
DRM for films and music is just the tip of the iceberg, and is not even the greatest threat as far as I am concerned.
We have the Data Protection Act here in the UK and other countries have similar acts. This hardware infrastructure gives unscrupulous companies the ability to completely bypass them in any way they see fit. It will also be impossible for evidence to be produced if a company is suspected of breaking privacy laws.
Are Phoenix the only company implementing this? I know Intel and AMD have stuff in the pipeline. I don't think that many hardware companies, especially after the Pentium hardware ID thing, understand that this is never going to get off the ground.
In the consumer market this is not true. Most of us use and trust ATMs without any knowledge of how they communicate back to their banks. Most of us use credit cards without knowing the encryption level of the network. Most of us trust the air bags will work without actually knowing how they work. Does this mean people trust their banks and car manufacturers? I think there's an inherent trust by most people. These companies haven't done enough to make most customers not trust them, and the same goes for Phoenix and Microsoft. Microsoft will be generally trusted enough by the masses to follow along with this mostly because they won't see it. Anything they hear about will come across as Microsoft doing something behind the scenes to make their products better. Just like people don't care how their ATMs or air bags work, they won't care about how Microsoft's DRM works, just so long as they have an enjoyable experience.
Developers: We can use your help.
I am starting to think that the Athlon 64 I'm going to buy(when the price comes down a bit) may be my last CPU purchase for many years. Later board/chip combos look increasingly scary. Watch for a brisk underground economy develop for the last generations of DRM, TCP and MS free technology. It won't be much of a hardship. I can play games now at 1280x1024 in 32bit. By the time the curtain comes down, I'll be able to play them with anti-aliasing as well. Nothing else I have ever done (including voice recognition) needed the kind of horsepower required by Unreal Tournament 2003. If my computer can play that, its going to be a looooong time until I buy another.
Full remote access to the hardware is stupid Idea, even more so when the underlying technology will be based upon microsoft's high standards of security.
As usual, the ideal solution would be free firmware, but a big step forward would be the adoption of OpenFirmware, a Forth-based open standard already used in Alphas, Sparcs and Powers.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
http://www.openfirmware.org/
I'd definately like to see open firmware based x86 machines. It would allow for more commoditized hardware for us PPC users. And - it's open source!
___________________________
I'm not a geek, but I play one on TV.
That's way cool. Does that mean that we'll finally be able to run headless boxes without guessing of what's going on and having to steal a monitor to diagnose problems? :)
I know *some* BIOSes have serial support, but having tcp access to the bios and hopefully main linux console would absolutely rock. At that point monitors at my house would become obsolete since I'd be able to do everything from my laptop
The parent post was not whining. It made a couple of clear, concise points and used the word "stupid" once and moved on. You also made some good points, but you would have reached even more people if you hadn't been so undeservedly condescending in your tone.
Is it possible to put a complete OS like Linux, BSD, Windows, etc... in the BIOS? Or, more precisely, in Flash RAM?
Many PCs are mostly ran as single-purpose OS, e.g. as firewalls, file servers, etc. Sometimes, hard disks aren't even necessary.
A typical setup would involve a BIOS which boots any OS from Flash RAM, and uses that 1GB+ DRAM to hold both a RAM disk and run normal processes.
Such a system would be energy efficient, would have much higher MTBF, and would be much more stable against tampering. Modifications to Flash memory would only be possible through the BIOS in a controlled manner and it would be always possible to reboot the machine to its previous stage.
It would be somewhat like Cisco routers: A very small Firmware ROM, and plenty of Flash RAM space for OS images that could be downloaded per TFTP/whatever. The only difference is in size: Flash would need to be MUCH bigger to accomodate even moderate OS partitions.
This kind of BIOS would be most welcome, not that DRM-crippled crap that Phoenix seems to be pushing now.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Sure, whatever. For all intensive purposes you know what I mean, viruses or viri their both bad when they attack my boxen.
Dont forget to email to all the board manufacturers that the use of a Phoenix/MS Bios will make the board the least-bought board by everyone EXCEPT those companies in bed-in a formal business alliance- with MS.
I used Mr. BIOS years ago on a 486 computer when I was having trouble with the OEM BIOS. It seemed to work. It was even free back then. I can tell you, the idea of using a free/unknown BIOS scared the hell out of me, but I didn't have many options.
But the idea is sound - more potential customers need to make the effort. They may pay attention if they get enough, sufficiently lucid responses. But they have to make sense from the vendor's point of view too!
(Me - I've never bought one of those Mother-BIOS computer thingies of which you speak!)
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
You should also check out the OpenBios project. They are working towards making a working openfirmware solution that will work on the x86 platform.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
How do I know that they won't resurrect this:
http://www.cexx.org/phoenix.htm
and then hide it behind the hardware protection scheme to keep me from finding/disabling it?
Phuck you, Pheonix. You have already demonstrated how trustworthy you are!
Of course, the great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from!
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
I mean, the OS is re-configuring most of the
hardware anyway. So all the BIOS has to do is
fetch a boot sector and execute it. In fact,
the chipset could probably do that, without a
need for any BIOS code.
Phoenix and Co are facing extinction, whether
they like it or not.
to anyone else? Built in TCP/IP with manageability? Hell, most cable modem users don't have a firewall or know enough to turn off file sharing in windows. And now Phoenix expects them to make sure their BIOS is buttoned up? Obviously I can see the advantages of such a system, but it would be a tough sell trying to get me to believe the good outweighs the potential bad. Most of this stuff can be handled nicely at the OS level anyhow.
With the number of features and calls that they are adding, their BIOS is getting close to being an operating system. Frankly, I see this as a good thing for Open Source.
The BIOS does not need to be "open" in order for Open Source to take advantage of this. By necessity they will have to publish their calls and protocols to allow the BIOS to be as effective as it can be. Using this information, Opne Source projects can have direct access to this "mini-os" and be able to build whatever they please around it.
Will this spell the end for Windows? I doubt it. But it may help level the playing field a bit.
For all intensive purposes you know what I mean, viruses or viri their both bad
I'm no grammar nazi, I just found this reply highly amusing.
Mircosoft does contribute to open standards ... when it benifits them. It has many reps on many different Working committes of the w3c, and has submitted C# and the .NET sub structure to standards committies. I think that they feel that Standard Bodies move far too slow for them to continue to do new and exciting things. Microsoft is *Nothing* like IBM used to be. IBM could not even get everyone to adopt microchannel, Microsoft has a history of being able to have their way in the PC industry. Until they have a flop like microchannel, they will continue to go their own way when they feel like it.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
If they manage to stuff more DRM down our throats with this - how long will it take for yet another DeCSS to show up? :P
np: Sole - Dismantling Of Sole's Ego (Bottle Of Humans)
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
How else are they going to get the email client to work?
Perhaps it should be renamed AIOS for Advanced Input-Output System.
What an interesting choice of product designations...Who else parsed it as Down, Not Across?
Why?
Allows a local client CDROM to be connected to a remote host server as a USB device, removing the need to visit the host server to insert and use a CDROM device. (iLO Advanced Feature)
Of course, you'll need to get the activation key to get the "Advanced Features" but you'll need it to support the graphical mode anyway.
you can't turn TCG for 100% off. Don't buy it. Don't support these Orwellian bastards.
There is a GPL first cut of open boot at www.openbios.org. There is a GPL hardware startup at www.linuxbios.org. These two can work together. Voila, GPL open boot. Problem solved.
So what's left to do? Two things. We need people to start ports to more platforms -- in short, we need help. And, most important, you need to start voting with your bucks. You can get motherboards TODAY from vendors that have linuxbios on them -- so buy from those folks.
Letters don't vote, but dollars and sweat equity do. Write all the letters you want and see if these folks give a damn. But, instead, buy open source BIOSes, and get involved and help us get these open source BIOSes onto more boards. Trust me, they'll notice. Remember how much fun they used to make of Linux? Who's laughing now?
Hobbyists and hackers used to own the PC workspace; it is long past time we took it back. Cards and letters and complaints won't get the job done. Get involved, contribute your time, learn what needs to be done: that's what will get the job done.
ron
There is no need to fear this. This is just a matter of Phoenix proving a market trend. Either the proof will be true or false in the end. Which brings me to this point "who is in control?" and I say whomever has possesion of a thing controls it. We will have physical possesion of the hardware thus we will ultimately be the most powerful factor in this market. We can exersise this power or not. Those of you who have been around long enough will remember the days when you could buy your bios separtely from your motherboard or gasp program your own. This happens all the time in the embedded industry (not as much as it use to though). So if the market is unfavorable to Phoenix's new bios and unsavory locks on our hardware we can always roll our own. Nay you say? Well I offer up these links for you to browse. Free the bios open the bios
The truth suffers more from convictions than from lies.
Or Rather, switch to Linxu BIOS, which will as likely as Linux itself rapidly vanquish any proper, secretive, software.
You've just stated a slew of technologies here. But I think you are wrong about many items in the list.
* How many of these technologies require licensing to use?
* Of the ones that are listed why do you say they are "standards"? What makes a standard?
* DirectX is certainly a "standard". It is documented and standardized under Microsoft.
* Almost all the technologies listed are not "standards" as they are all proprietary in some way.
You are incorrect that these are recognized standards, they are not. The only true standards are those that have been recognized by working groups that are independent of the companies that developed them. True standards are recognized by non-profit organizations that have representatives from many vendors.
What is a "standard"???????
+1
because of this, and because I'm also a little impatient for them to become commodity. At least ten dollars is all this poor college student can spare. :)
Well it looks like Microsoft has successfully pushed Pheonix to come onside and more tightly bind the BIOS to the OS (a bad thing). The features described make much more than a Basic Input Output System though.
Me thinks me sees a market developing for a BIOS manufacturer who does not bend to Redmonds desires. I for one will not purchase or use a machine whose motherboard has such a BIOS.
For about the last 10 years, the bios has been a non-issue. They were all pretty much the same and they were all OK. You didn't have to know which one you were getting. They were a commodity.
This wasn't always so. Back in 1986, which BIOS a computer had was usually mentioned in reviews and was a factor in choosing a PC.
Now Phoenix has chosen to make it a factor again. Yesterday I wouldn't care which BIOS was on the motherboard I was buying. In future I will make sure it isn't Phoenix.
Announcing the new logo certification program: "Boned by Microsoft/RIAA" to go with the new locked in BIOS.
Seriously, is this DRM BIOS really going to achieve anything other than more RIAA lawsuits against minors? Everyone other than 14yr old girls is going to figure out how to get around this in 10 seconds flat (do you really think asia gives a shit about the DMCA?). What's the point?
This isn't about you trusting them. This is about them *not* trusting you.
The entire point of all these Trusted Computing initiatives is that the software/content makers do not trust their users to follow the limitations that the manufacturers want them to follow. Therefore, they want a hardware design that they can trust to enforce these limitations.
Let me say that again.
It's about the content providers trusting the hardware, because they don't trust you.
You trusting them has nothing to do with it. Be a good consumer and buy what you're told.
Yes, this is the "customer as enemy" worldview. You are, by definition, the enemy here. And it says a lot about the limitations they want, that they automatically assume you will want to violate those limitations, doesn't it?
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
yes this was a feature they planned to imlpement but feedback was not good. However you are probably right, nuder a secure DRM they could require the veiwing of the MANDATORY FBI warning, just like DVD's, and then also start inserting previews, and commercials etc, there would be no way to avoid it, short of cutting your connection to whats out there. The answer is a centralized DRM proxy that could front for many users, but I am sure the legal eagles have that angle covered.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
How about the basics... managability.
So many features and you can't use a 35 year old RS232 port to boot the OS....
When I was reading the list above, at first I thought it's a soup, as it's too mixed. Then I realized that the mix is too bizzare. Then I started to think that perhaps it's just too obfuscated by a marketing fluff. But on the final item (about SOAP interface to cascaded stylesheet functions!) it's cleared itself as a product of thinking of idiots.
So, now I know what is a future BIOS from Phoenix: it's Bizzar Idiotic Obfuscated Soup.
Less is more !
4 Mbit bioses have more than enough space for virus files that are typically smaller than 35K
Phoenix has mad several attempts to invade the privacy of PC end-users.
See
Phoenix Phone Home. 2001-06-19
and
Phoenix to embed bootup ads in BIOS
on Slashdot.
Phoenix, with its subsidary Award, is the largest player in the BIOS market. The only other big player is AMI.
Will Phoenix in any way make it impossible to overclock with their BIOS? I know that it's the board manufacturer's decision now, but will that be so in the future?
hey!
Yes, sure you want it for legitimate purposes, but the prosecution will demonstrate that you are a filthy software/music/video pinko/terrorist/hippie/thief anyway.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
You're not proving one thing or another.
.NET to work around Java, ActiveScript to get around JavaScript (though they do support JavaScript), they're implementing their own graphics interface Direct3d to circumnavigate OpenGL, IE, rather than adopt another implementation they can't control (like Netscape).
From your list you fail to mention the damning negatives; creating C# and
The original parent post complained that Microsoft was becoming like Apple, and I asked if he was confusing standards, an open architecture, and a proprietary architecture, and the question still holds:
Apple will champion open architectures (because at the moment they don't have the clout to push closed proprietary ones? That's cynical and beyond my ability to argue)
Microsoft will champion *their* implementations (closed *and* proprietary) over all others in order to maintain control.
An open architecture doesn't mean it isn't proprietary: Firewire, 802.11b, PDF, and Java all have licensors, patents, and other restrictions around them, but unlike Microsoft's toys, you *can* license, implement, and use them. Microsoft won't let you license the Office formats, won't let you license or implement the DirectX interfaces, they don't give you access to the core source of their OS or web browser or web server, much less any of their tools...
Apple *does* give you their core OS source, their web browser core source, the source for their web server, the ability to license Quicktime as well as the Quicktime API, the ability to license MPEG-4, Firewire, they use the open/standard OpenGL API, they have Firewire and Zeroconf as standards... do you get what I mean?
So I have a point, and I tried to prove it. All you proved was that Microsoft will support the standards that are convenient to them.. and I further suggest that they will ignore them when they can roll their own in order to gain control.
GPL Deconstructed
I heard at one stage Phonenix BIOS company were the ones that tried to implement advertisement into the bios. Which I think was totally crap... no offense to those who are Phoenix BIOS ad lovers... With all these planned goodies to go into Phoenix BIOS, one can imagine about a BIOS going to be bloated. Soon enough, if they start implementing paladium or the like with a clumsy Microsoft's code, we will be on the road of having BIOS that has its own brains to do whatever it wants and crashes whenever it wants to crash...
I am somewhat active in Abit's motherboard forums, and I posted a thread on this very topic some time ago stating pretty much the same thing:
3 1f 5cb1a26076ea27688a647dfa3&threadid=21826 (take out the Slashdot inserted spaces)
http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?s=c2cf
Whilst their reply was to the effect that they used AwardBIOS, the bootup screen does say Phoenix Technologies so I wonder...
Anyway, if you are concerned, let the companies know!
Visceral Psyche Films
They have crossed the line. I am for the most part anti GPL with application software. But most basic hardware based software I think is the exception as exemplified by general BIOS code. Thank god most BIOS are flash based and easily changed though I imagine Phoenix will make it harder, they won't prevent it and most motherboard venders will jump as the chance for better, no cost software.
Mayby someday when we have workable nanotech assemblers and a whole host of compile tools etc, we will get a truly down-loadable hardware culture. It would be nice to do away with the Intels of the world and "grow" your next PC. It may even be a better society were people don't know the meaning of material greed and control, driven by a materialistic based culture that rewards "how you play the game" (sales and power control trips) rather than "its more interesting to develop and invent new stuff"
As if bloatware on the OS level weren't bad enough, Microsoft is extending it to the BIOS level. Sadly enough, Phoenix and Award are part of the same company. But that's okay. There's always AMI! Embedded TCP/IP? That would give a whole new meaning to the phrase,"System compromise."
And the only acronym those imbeciles could find is CSS, standing for Cascading Style Sheets in our world ? Bah.
Actually it should be "For all intents and purposes"
e .h tml
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/intensiv
What is going on with people these days? "Irregardless!" "I could care less!"
Where did the English language go?
"Taligent is still pure vapor. Maybe they'll be the last who jumps up on Openstep... "
Well, just read about FPGA's around in a middle. "..The people who hack Verilog and other hardware defintion languages are in such high demand and so highly paid that you're not gonna find them diddling with free projects on the side very often...." I'm professionally woring on baseband very high frequency signal analysis using Xilinx FPGAs. And i am very extremely addicted to open source community, and slashdot as well. I am on to do some my own site on lots of topics i would want to give around. Use of FPGAs yet is popular only amongst very expensive wirless communication hardware developers and militaries. One fewy bucks FPGA easily give GIGAFLOPS of performance. However it is hard to develop anything useful and work on it, and as well requires extreme deep knowledge of electronics, and digtal systems (for sure far more that any school, colledge, university or anything would teach). However, as we know, most of such people are addicted to open sources as well. ;) this means that lots of us here could use these devices to do fantastic things.
;). However see more-or-less fundamental problems to make it work on a processorless computer.
;)
BUT
High-Performance FPGAs normally are not for sale WITHOUT having appropriate license (without it You cannot by them!). *and* That is what does not allow everybody to enjoy the world of extreme processing.
BUT
for some time already i am on to develop a computer for geeks. open of course. which will be based on several FPGAs and i will grant everybody with all schematics and programms for them to make everybody electronically-crasy to create one at home, as soon as it gets required components (illegally they can be obtained:). That computer normal tasks will be realtime "manipulation" of "specific bits" (copyright bits:), and/or interception and processing/analysis of any kinds of anyways encoded streams, AND removal of fuckromedia from video tapes and records and so on.
completely building-brick technology
extreme flexibility
emulates any hardware, and in lots of cases works better then original one.
everything open
for startup it will use my own small realtime&consoled os (not ready yet) called so far Sonic BrainOS, but i am sure there will be a Linux port later
intel processors are very lame piece of low-performance shit, and let's show it it's place.
*sonic is very angry today*
Been there, done that. Open source firmware.
Thanks, but mine is already free (and in a lot more production machines than yours).
Does this mean I'm going to have to ask whether a computer is IBM-compatible again?
um. yeah. Like, thats why it was funny. Perhaps the bold tags on the quoted text didn't make it obvious enough that I was pointing out the errors?
A serious problem with this sort of software-in-BIOS
is that if bugs are descovered in it:
1. Every computer with that BIOS is vulnerable to attack.
2. There is no way to patch a BIOS
3. Even if there were, that would probably be the feature most exploited by crackers.
All in all, it is far better to let the users and sysadmins fool arround with the code until it is adeqate.
Lastly, even if it is bugfree, trust me, it WILL go obsolete very quickly.
Lets not even talk about the nasty DRM feature!
I get lazy reading ALL of the comments on here, so forgive me if this was already said, but...
If there is DRM in the BIOS, then that would mean anyone who posts custom, modified BIOS on the net, any company will slap them w/ DMCA and probably stop them.
It will probably be something else that shouldn't be illegal, but is. So we will have to see a MS logo everytime we turn on your computer to boot your non-MS OS.
This crap pisses me off when I can forsee the bullshit coming...
The real issue here is what code the palladium based machines will be allowed to rub. Clearly M$ will not want the opensource software (like openoffice) to run. Viruses of course are fine... viruses do not compete with M$ but openoffice does.
The way opensource software can be restricted is through a costly certification process. Only those programmers M$ likes and only those application M$ likes will be certified. Everyone else will face one roadblock after another.
I anticipate that it will cost several $1000 bux for a professional programmer to gain the coveted certification. Furthermore programmers will be forced to use only compliers and interpreters that M$ deems acceptable. This may spell the end of compilers like Borland C++ professional builder.
The implementation of controls like this are far more draconian than mot people realise. Somehow we have to nip this in the bud.
Just like linksys and other major companies have done on their hardware, I can imagine BIOS on palladium motherboards being powered by linux. Imagine that, everyone running linux, but doing so to enforce DRM and RIAA ends. I'm talking about 4-5 years out, once bugs start cropping up in bloated propriety BIOS systems.
That assumes, of course, that the U.S. gov dosen't tax and tarrif non-DRM inports out of existance, with a few media-sponsored and tech-sponsored bills in congress.
Or, they could go all Orwellian on us and make non-DRM tech contraband. (although that's unlikely, but you never know with congress sometimes...)
They installed emacs on the BIOS?
Most Phoenix BIOSes have been crappy since I've known them and I've had bad experiences with them myself. I'll definitely avoid them - now even more than ever. OpenBIOS(www.openbios.org) seems pretty cool.
I've heard somewhere that there's been a cycle in computer architecture going to more on the hardware side to get great performance, to more on the software side to get great flexibility.
Nowadays, I have some computers with a GPU faster than the CPU. I don't need to tell you which extreme we're at right now.
I've always hoped that we just make a processor so simple that we can make it fast enough, cheaply enough, that we need very little other hardware -- and therefore all the hardware would be open and standard, because there'd be so little of it.
Every time I mention this, people point to the "failure" of Transmeta's Crusoe. The failure of Transmeta (and I am writing this at a Crusoe-powered laptop) is that they have (to my knowledge) no way of disabling the Code-Morphing Software. This means that one has to write x86 code and have it be translated at runtime. I bet this machine would be at least twice as fast if I had a compiler for the native VLIW code, or at least a way to cache it to disk.
Imagine if a new card of some sort cost $5 instead of $50, yet performed just as well? And the BIOS, for that matter, is unnecessary. All we really need it for, last I checked, is booting -- at least Linux proves that you can ignore the rest of this. (I may be entirely wrong on that.) The LinuxBIOS project is the right idea, but I'd rather have some simple firmware that boots software from some pre-defined place (a flash card if need be), then the software takes over and finishes the boot.
I don't have to tell you that I hate this idea of "trusted computing" -- it's the Norton AntiVirus approach, sort of modeled after a firewall, but this time, with a deny by default policy. It'd be more secure, if the programs listed as "trusted" weren't developed by the companies I trust least.
So to summarize -- if hardware is so hard to develop, we should make it easier to have enough in software so that problems like this don't happen.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Now, with every computer, A virus you won't be able to get rid of. And it isn't Herpes or HIV. Lucky us.