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Phoenix Sounds Death Knell for BIOS
Anonymous Coward writes "The sky will fall next.... Betanews is carrying a story about Phoenix ditching the trusty old BIOS and moving to 'Trusted Computing'... ya right... Time to stock up on those old motherboards boys!" A follow-up/analysis on this story.
Or buy a motherboard with a BIOS that doesn't come from Phoenix.
Last time I checked, Phoenix wasn't the only company on Earth that made motherboard BIOS setups.
I'm sure that something else will pop up.
Or, another idea.. write/call/visit Phoenix and tell them that you think their idea sucks. Give their 1-800 # a call. Vote with your wallet, as usual.
Time to move.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Never, unless of course you meant security for anyone except the computers owner. Then it makes plenty of sense to make the computer a remote-controlled slave terminal...
I wonder if the "trusted" version of Windows will be running programs for third parties, for whom Microsoft has sold their users CPU cycles ? After all, there's allready projects paying for computer time, and DRM would make this secure (impossible forge results). Why let users profit, when one can use them to profit Corporation ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
As part of the "trustworthy computing" model established by Microsoft, Phoenix d-NA will leverage support for Redmond's CryptoAPI (CAPI) to deliver intrinsic security on systems running Windows and .NET applications
Why do I find leveraging any single crypto or security solution from one single vendor for the entire system worthy of concern more than trust? Nevermind that it's Microsoft, with an examplary track record of security expertise and openness with standards.
Not for me, nosiree.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Does anyone have a list of what motherboards use Phenoix BIOS? I'm going to put a compuer together soon, and i want to know which to avoid.
Browse at -1, because trolls are often the most creative part of
When will this industry ever learn that there's no such thing as a magic bullet? Let's see, just off the top of my head, there was OOP, not to mention Extreme Programming, and now the apparent holy grail of security, "Trusted Computing".
Well, guess what, writing high quality software is hard. Writing high quality, secure software is *really* hard. And there's nothing that will change that.
Ok, so you, me and 10,000 other geeks will buy non-trusted computing motherboards. Meanwhile, Joe Sixpack and all his buddies ignorantly purchase millions of the "trusted" and "safe" offering.
I'm glad mac users get Doom 3, but a full library of games it does not make.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And suddenly Joe Sixpack and his buddies discover they can't download music anymore. And they tell their friends...
People pay Gartner for worse... managers and marketing people are always looking for pre-digested "facts" to allow them to make decisions without doing any real research. I used to work as a technical marketing manager, and dealt with Gartner (and other analysts) frequently. Their level of expertise is suspect, and they issue definitive statements with questionable data.
Remember their noises about "Total Cost of Ownership" a few years ago? I applied their methodology to a teakettle, and established that the TCO of said teakettle was well over $4,000.
--Larry
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence
My Xbox has a "Trusted Computing"-style BIOS and OS (the dashboard). That didn't stop me from modding it and being able to play videos/photos with Xbox Media Center, a kind of homebrew version of XP Media Center Edition for Xbox. Yes, I know the Xbox is a poor example because it's a homogeneous platform. But as long as there is demand for non-TCP motherboards, manufacturers will build boards without DRM. And as far as I'm concerned, the whole idea of TCP becoming mandatory by law is BS. Yes, the assbags in Washington could pass a bill like the DMCA for DRM-loving corps, but has the DMCA really stopped the spread of DeCSS or the Diebold memos?
And Joe sixpack and his friends are too lazy to do anything about it and too stupid to know what to do if they weren't. Joe sixpack and his friends have been having their noses rubbed in shit by our wonderful and pure democratic government and perfect serene friendly capitalism bread and butter spawned corporations for generations. They've always just rolled over and begged before... what makes you think that's going to change now?
;)
For hundreds of years joe sixpack and his friends have gotten weaker and weaker. The big recognizable first piece was centralized citizenship after the civil war, prior to that the only citizens of the USA lived in washington, everybody else was a citizen of their state which in turn was a member of the union.
Next came the military, the constitution set up a division of powers, the central government was not supposed to have a standing army, that was supposed to be left to the states, while the central government maintained the navy. This wasn't random, it gave the states themselves the greatest power in domestic defense and limited the central government to only the direct military power to counter foreign foes (of course the militia's could be rallied). The air force was of course not covered in the Constitution. If you pay attention you'll notice the central government makes sure they are covered if this falls through, the navy is still the most highly funded of the forces, having within it all 3 types of armed forces. The Marines for instance are really just a subset of the Navy. The Navy's air power and number of craft are almost as extensive as the air force itself. And I guess it goes without saying, the navy of course has a navy
Now after centralizing authority and military power the government then started disarming the citizens. Deciding to do no more than pay lip service to the 2nd amendment (after all the government certainly doesn't feel people might need arms to overthrow it like the forefathers who had to do just that did when they put it in!). Now guns are being taken away, the classes of arms available to citizens has been reduced and reduced, arms are VERY closely watched by our police state.
Since these things became stronger, than the last significant threat (assault riffles) has been removed from citizens hands, the government has proceeded to clench down. Showing it's force in foreign countries (iraq for instance), using "Terrorism" which was likely at least inadvertantly funded by our own CIA as an excuse to give federal agents more and more authority to lock down and control the population.
Now to ensure Joe sixpack complies with all this they have been brainwashing him in school. School curriculum's are of course regulated by the state. They have to be in accordance with state tests, if you've noticed the state regulations tend to be most specific in matters of US History, where the government makes sure that text books and tests teach the materials in it's own interpretation of history. The interpretation that paints a picture of country being oppressed and fighting the good fight for independence. Supporting the common man etc etc etc. Rather than the truth, a bunch of rich men, did not like paying taxes and did not like the fact that england had given trade monopolies to rich men in england instead of them. Well over 80% of the population were loyal to the crown, more than that before war happened an innocents were caught in the crossfire. The enlistments in that war and pretty much every patriotic cause thereafter have been founded on a grain of truth buried in a stack of propoganda.
Our government lies to us and herds of us like sheep. It teaches us a revised history in school. It teaches conformity in school. Picture our children being stamped one by one in a great convoluted Jello mold. It convinces us to give up our liberties one piece at a time. It okay to whine about one piece or another, but it happens so often on such a regular basis nowdays we hardly remember what
If there's a market, there will be people to cater to it.
While it's gonna get ugly in the US, I don't suspect that China would use a BIOS with built-in spyware or DRM. China, along with the largest population, has both the manufacturing power to create motherboards sans M$-DRM.
.... that will end this quickly.
In fact, it would be very surprising to me that most of the EU coutnries would submit to this kind of US verndor lock-in. I would expect to see non-TCP motherboards available for a while.
And when parts of the internet are "closed off" by TCP "checking" routers, then all holy hell will break loose. Wait until our neighbors can't get to "playboy.com"
So last time i checked the bioses are flashable? what is to stop me from developing my own, XboX like flash/mod for motherboard? If it has benn done for xbox which has considerably smaller userbase, what is to stop people for dong it for mobos? Are the price and inconvenience are the only 2 obstacles?
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
"'Trustworthy computing' means that Microsoft can trust that we didn't hack our (their) system. It doesn't mean that we can trust Microsoft."
Keep saying it until it makes sense.You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
An appealing alternative would be an OpenFirmware implementation for x86. Seriously, don't you LIKE the idea of your machine starting into a native 32-bit (64 soon) environment? Your hardware being able to pass a concrete and well-defined device list to the kernel? Native filesystem support for your booting, so you don't have to use an interim loader like GRUB? Finally shedding the STUPID BACKWARDS 1980s IRQ/resource management system we STILL use for no good reason?
I'll bet Apple will stick with OF on PPC for a long time, and implement hardware DRM as a separate feature.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Yow, there was actualy a /. interview of some guy at Pheonix a while back, and he clearly said that the TC stuff would be an option that motherboard makers could chose to implement or not.
I remember that interview. He danced around the primary issue which is "Will you make a motherboard that will refuse to boot non-MS signed bootloaders or kernels?". Basically all mobo manufacturers will implement this stuff (Longhorn Certified!) and part of the specs will specify that it is mandatory. The customer won't be able to do without it.
All the spec is going to do is something computer people have wanted for years- to ditch the old archaic BIOS.
Open Firmware, anyone? It's only been available for around 15 years or so. Oh, and it's a real IEEE standard, unlike whatever thing Phoenix/Microsoft will be foisting on us.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
I'm still suffering from this utter nightmare of Pentium III id codes that just made using the internet a living hell. No really, you remember when the sky fell back when they were announced?
/sarcasm
Also I'm upset because it's impossible to get around the DVD regions and watch discs from other countries. Asia fears the DMCA so much that it's impossible to find a player that does not submit to the region codes.
ok
Seriously, this isn't going to work. Taiwan will have cloned BIOSes out faster than you can say "Overclocking is popular!" and warez groups will have the can only run on trusted hardware feature of the next windows cracked faster than you can say "Product Activation".
Give it 8 months. Even if there isn't an outcry that gets it reversed or ignorable like the P3 chip codes, I'm betting some major MB manufacturer *coughABITcough* will have something like, dual bios, trusted/untrusted with a toggle between them.
As for network routers killing "untrusted" clients, how do businesses expect to keep their linux servers on the network? Yeah, I think either we'll be seeing other OSes support it, or it'll be turned off more often than on. Also what about network-aware appliances like attatched storage, printers etc? I doubt it'll be that easy to convince businesses to just toss them as incompatible. They probably will just patch their existing windows desktops and stay on 2000, xp, or 2003 or whatever doesn't have this nuisance. I know tons of places that still refuse to move up from 2000 to XP.
Also, if only "trusted" software runs, I'm curious how students will do programming assignments on their computers at college. Do they just stand in line for the woefully inadequate lab resources? Do they get "special for academic use only" versions of windows and MSVC that allows them to execute their own code? What does it mean for professional developers, no development station can ever be on the network because it can't be trusted? That's going to make for some intersting development and testing work.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
The Evils of Hardware Digital Rights Management and Trustworthy Computing
Personal computers are amazing devices which have enhanced the productivity, the creativity, and even the cultural fabric of people the world over. One of the key strengths of personal computing technologies is that they allow users a fundamental degree of freedom to modify, upgrade, and operate their computers in any way they see fit. This affords users the power of choice when deciding which hardware peripheral, which operating system, and which program they wish to use on their computer. This choice and openness has helped foster innovation and creativity which has resulted in the Internet and the Internet culture that we enjoy today.
Sadly, there are short sighted persons in some large corporations in conjunction with certain government officials who wish to destroy the freedoms we currently enjoy. They wish to seize control of our personal computers and cripple them in order to create what they call a more "trustworthy" networked environment. They call this blatant trampling of consumer fair rights "Trustworthy Computing". There is nothing trustworthy about it.
Essentially they want to place controls in the hardware of your computer that will tell you which software you can and cannot run on it. Software you wish to run has to be "digitally signed and authenticated" by large media and software companies before you can use it on your computer. Want to make a backup copy of a song or a program on one of these new modified computers? Good luck. Digital Rights Management (DRM) will be built into these computers, restricting your ability to use and copy files as Hollywood executives see fit. Yes in essence you will no longer be the sole operator of your computer, you will in fact, have to seek electronic permission to run programs on it.
Phoenix Technologies, one of the largest makers of BIOS components for PC's (the BIOS is the basic ROM that controls your PC on a fundamental level) has announced their plans to launch their DRM enabled trustworthy computing BIOS. Customers who purchase computers with a Phoenix BIOS will be very limited when it comes to making certain choices on how they wish to operate their computer.
Video game consoles like the X-Box already work like this. The X-Box will only run software that is digitally signed by Microsoft using an encrypted key. If you try to run an application on your X-Box that isn't digitally signed, it simply will not work. Microsoft does this in the console market to attempt to prevent piracy and to prevent people from purchasing an X-Box and using it as an inexpensive x86 computer. The X-Box is in reality a modified Pentium III computer, and theoretically can run normal x86 applications that run on the Pentium computer in your home. In fact, those who have cracked the encrypted copy protection on the X-Box have managed to get Linux running on the system.
Microsoft and Phoenix want to cripple your personal computer so it acts more like the X-Box. Microsoft is calling this "Trustworthy Computing" initiative project Palladium. Salon.com as an excellent quote in an article they wrote regarding the motivations behind this initiative: "Perhaps, if we'll trust computers with our lives, we'll also trust them with our credit cards. And maybe, even more important, Hollywood will trust them with its movies. The Trustworthy Computing initiative is as much about securing intellectual property control as it is about "safety.""
This exposes the two main reasons that your computer is going to be crippled. To appease media companies in Hollywood in a futile attempt to combat piracy, and to protect Microsoft's desktop operating system monopoly. Companies like Microsoft and Phoenix do not state this of course, they are selling this to the public under the guise of a "safer" and "more reliable" computing enviornment. This is only a side effect of the true aims of this initiative.
Piracy of popular media such as software, music and movies is spreading rapidly