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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.
Bios changes to "trustworthy computing" make me just as scared as when my wife and I went car shopping at Gan Chev Olds and they said "Trust Me. This is a great deal!". Boy did I ever get screwed on that "deal". *sigh*
Since when does it make sense to switch the onus for security to hardware?
Oh I knew it was time to buy a Mac! With Doom 3 being fully supported on Mac on launch, it's going to be hard for people to criticize Mac for a lack of games. As soon as Uncle Sam rubs his greedy hands together, to try and get all our secrets, it's time for a switch, IMHO. I'm developing my open source Doom 3 project on a Mac, so I'll be playing on one too. Maybe once Doom 3 is on Mac, the next generation of Id-engine-spinoffs will make for a slaughterhouse of new games for Mac, too!
Does Phoenix ABSOLUTELY have to use acronyms that already stand for something? I mean: CSS and d-NA? I know we are running out of acronyms but there should still be a few million letter combinations left.
Sunny
Be my Friend
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.
How will LinuxBIOS fit into this? Will we be able to pop out a Phoenix BIOS and pop a LinuxBIOS into it?
If all goes according to plan, a new product the company dubs Core System Software (CSS) will serve as the foundation of PC architecture.
DeCSS anyone?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I thought I read a while back that Microsoft was buying Phoenix or something and that in the future a lot of newer BIOSes were going to be made by MS? Am I on crack or is this what's actually going to happen?
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Time to put on our trusty tin foil hats on our motherboards... wait...
I'm sure that if people don't want to buy motherboards with the new Pheonix BIOSes, then the very competitive motherboard market will be happy to produce boards with a different BIOS. So...., what is the problem?
And I don't think they'll be rising again after this shark-jumping stunt.
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
I for one welcome our new trusted computing BIOS overlords...
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
There is also OpenBIOS, an open source 'BIOS' based on OpenFirmware. OpenFirmware is the solution used on Sun, IBM and Apple based machines. OpenFirmware uses a forth interpreter and also presents the hardware as a device tree.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
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.
..very fast that people don't want to buy pc's they can't run their own code on if they ever try that. though if they play it smart and make this worth something to the user it might catch on. but the horror scenarios.. well.. you really think that every manufacturer would jump into that when there's the easy way of selling the 'old' stuff what people want to buy? sure most people don't know what they stand for but they'd find out soon enough(when they can't install that ms office 3k from work, or play that copied game or install that crack, or view their divxes)!
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
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.
CCS and EFI are both trying to be more like an OS rather than just a BIOS. If you really dig into either of them they are just quite a mess.
Time for LinuxBIOS www.LinuxBIOS.org
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
I can hardly imagine whatever "trusted computing" consortium allowing Open Source operating systems to have the specs to their protocols [after all, "security through obscurity" seems to be the favored method of both microsoft and the anti-virus industry].
Without those specifications, the routers will reject packets from Linux and BSD computers (because they will be seen by the routers as being infected because they cannot give the expected response) and therefore only 'approved' (read: microsoft, and perhaps -perhaps- apple) operating systems will have access to the internet.
And now, with the access to the hardware cut off by "trusted computing"'s subsitution for the bios; open source operating systems won't even be able to write to the computer hardware itself.
(my ex-gf pointed out that someone can crack that the way the xbox was cracked, but that is not taking the DMCA into account, which would prevent any 'respectable' projects from being able to use any code generated illegally).
To top things off, the final piece of the puzzle may be the fact that europe is on the verge of adopting 'software patents', which gives Microsoft the foot in the door to sue anyone who designs a half-way decent GUI into obscurity...and this will be coming soon to a formerly free democratic republic near you.
In short, Open Source computing is a concept whose day has come and now has gone, and it's time to either get back to chasing 'warez' or give up on computers entirely.
Unless there's something I'm missing here. But after reading slashdot for the last three or four years, I really doubt that there is.
The B in BIOS stands for BASIC.
Browse at -1, because trolls are often the most creative part of
IBM and AMI? That's hardly competition, as IBM won't license their BIOS (which is the whole reason Phoenix was started) and AMI is rare now. LinuxBios? Not close to complete! BTW, is the old 1981 IBM BIOS code in public domain yet?
Looking forward for some Fenghuang gongsi from China supplying the old functionality with a new brand and thus give consumers and mb-manufactorers a choice.
When a hardware monopolist and a desktop-OS monopolist join forces to bend over the market a big window of opportunity opens for second source suppliers.
605413? Yes, it's a prime.
And suddenly Joe Sixpack and his buddies discover they can't download music anymore. And they tell their friends...
"One of the great computing challenges of this decade is to bring all network-connected devices to common management standards and interfaces," said Martin Reynolds, vice president at Gartner. "Without such technology, device and network management becomes impossible."
People PAY Gartner for conclusions like that?
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
WTF, then, is this?
Now don't even think about bypassing the BIOS's security measures... using the cmos clear jumper is now a violation of the DMCA.
Customers using Cisco's network admission control system can permit network access only to compliant and trusted endpoint devices (for example, PCs, servers, personal digital assistants) and restrict the access of non-compliant devices.
ISP's can install these new Cisco routers and you will be denied internet access unless you submit to Trusted Computing.
The routers are advertized as fighting "viruses", but they do not in fact scan for or block viruses. What they do is first check if you are running Trusted Computing. If not they deny you a connection. They can then be configured to verify that you are running specific software such as up to date anti-virus software.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
By design, Phoenix's CSS transfers digital security, network management and disaster recovery away from the control of software to hardware,...
What happens when a bug is found in the hardware?
In software it can be hard to fix, in hardware it is even harder(no pun intended).
Death has been proven to be 99% fatal in lab rats.
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?
So what's wrong with the standard most of the rest of the computer world (IBM, Sun, Apple) uses - OpenFirmware? You'd think Linuxheads would want an x86 motherboard with OpenFirmware. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
So, does this mean that Mac becomes the preferred hardware platform for linux?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If I properly understand documents which I can found about Trusted Computing I think that no one except certified TC/MS tehnicians can legaly change BIOS software if it is protected by DRM rules.
That may be an bigger problem if other BIOS vendors do the same thing.
After all maybe we are all forced to back to old Altair 800 days. Or to stay with current owned hardware and wait on market selfregulation (if no one buy an new HW/SW combination vendors must change rules if they want to survive). Or to buy an hardware which doesn't have TC/DRM/... features.
If all goes according to plan, a new product the company dubs Core System Software (CSS) will serve as the foundation of PC architecture.
When will we have DeCSS?
How are you Gentlemen! ....
All your Motherboard are belong to us!
You are on the way to destruction.
You have no chance to survive make your time.
HA HA HA HA
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
My old 486-sx is still thrustworthy. I use it daily. It is almost 10 years old now. If i were to buy a brand new state of the art computer now i'd probably survive 15 years or so. And really, don't you think anyone has figured out how to run Linux on TCPA by then? (we're speaking yr 2018)
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
(1) Microsoft makes Trusted Computing stuff.
(2) Nothing Microsoft makes is secure.
therefore
(3) Trusted Computing will be easily hackable so that it can be replaced with another BIOS.
Now, Microsoft will probably and try to make this illegal, just like they have tried to make mod chips illegal. Last time I checked, though, it was perfectly legal to hack your own PC or other hardware.
well... it's time to develop routers which can deny internet access to "trusted computers",
or just configuring these to do the inverse than publicited should be ok.
I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
a proxy that would fool the cisco
a firewall that would fool the cisco
a software solution to fool the cisco
a worm to tunnel through the cisco equipment and set up a client that would radomly crash the equipment.
a general DOS attack just to annoy the users of the equipment.
This is just like any other security system. If it causes too many problems, such as false alarms, customer complaints, or just waking an IT person at an inopportune time, it will just be turned off.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
shut the fuck up Donny
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
Realistically, how many of these have been sold to ISP's? ISP's are not in the business of denying access... They're all about the openness. If someone's Macintosh is attempting to connect to the network, who do you think they will blame if they are denied service? How much do you think you will lose in service calls?
No, this most definitely for corporate networks... Some point-haired boss will approve the acquisition of these machines after listening to a sales pitch that came with free sushi and a lucky winner getting a trip to the Bahamas. Suddenly, the mailserver, corporate IM server, and print servers won't work.
"Why aren't these working?" The PHB will ask.
"Because that router you bought refuses the connection, complaining about 'trusted computing. I'm turning it off now," says the dirty haired sysadmin.
"Turning off trusted computing? Aren't we using all Microsoft solutions?"
"No, that would be an extra 20k per year, plus switching costs, downtime, viruses, worms, etc."
"They have scanners for that. Besides, Microsoft has better sushi chefs."
"It's a bad idea."
"Switch it all or I'll replace you with someone who will."
"O.K."
The Dirty Haired Sysadmin will dutifly switch all of the servers over, and will subsequently be fired after the fifth worm attacks the network.
The ______ Agenda
If there's a market, there will be people to cater to it.
Umm that's the point, if this happens, OSS will still be around, but it won't be possible to run it anymore. The system will only boot windows.
Eliminating the competition's ability to communicate is the worse thing that can happen, and, dare I say, illegal?
Phoenix is not alone in moving toward such changes. Chip giant Intel has pushed for a predecessor to BIOS it calls the Intel Platform Innovation Framework for EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface).
How does one push for a "predecessor" to something? Is that like back to the future? It makes me wonder about the rest of the article.
Industry standard company ditching their flagship product; consumer demand for said product remains strong; product still selling.
I'll use my contacts, call some venture capitalists, and get the ball rolling.
OK. Not really. But you get the idea. Whenever something like this happens, too many people pessimisticly assume that nothing can be done about it. They remind me of C3PO--"we're all doomed.".
No. You're not doomed. Crisis. Opportunity. Mmmmm... Crisitunity.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
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"
What's keeping a computer from booting up, posting, then instead of reading from ffff in memory, it goes straight to an OS on disk?
Bios's are almost identical, to the point that you can probably marginalize them into the driver category of most OS's these days. In a few years BIOS won't exist or if it does, it'll exist in some convoluted fashon or version of what it is today. I personally like the idea of having a bios on the hardware; something to tell me what's broken, give me error codes, etc. I see it as something that, due to being inexpensive will gain features such as full text error code outputs or if persay some obscure component on the motherboard died, instead of outputing moorse code it can give you a voice readout "Motherboard component 74x0x06 is dead. This is a fatal failure and the motherboard is dead, please return to manufacturer".
Either way, I don't think motherboard manufacturers will go ahead and start installing distribuited computing garble on their machines so that they can only be used by microsoft systems. It'll kill their market share in other markets such as server markets and it'll also make them susseptable to future abuse.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
megan@Outcastpr.com
:)
Interestingly they outsource their PR.
Above is the address of Megan Kurtz who is their public relations person. Get mailing now
If Microsoft ever did that in a product I own, I will sue them for using my CPU resources that cost me money on my electric bill. And yes, it adds up. And I quote from Folding at Home...
"Roughly, a CPU uses about as much power as a 60 watt light bulb. Here's a report on computer power management from Lawrence Berkeley government labs, and there are other referencs on the web you can find. Although power supplies on most computers are rated at 250 watts, average usage is much lower. On average, a Pentium-type computer uses between 45-70 watts (I've read various different sources on this) while it is on. If the computer has no idle mode, it will use the same amount of energy whether it is running a program or not. If it is on idle, it will consume around 25 watts. So, the daily difference between off and running F@H is about 24x(45 to 70) = 1.1 to 1.7 kWh. At $0.14 per kWh ( from PG&E here in California), this works out to about $0.15 to $0.24 per day, or perhaps $6 a month. The difference between an idled computer and one running F@H would be closer to $4 a month - and if the computer was already being used 8 hours a day, it would be closer to $3 a month.
Now, just imagine everyone running all those shiny new PCs with the latest version of Windows. And you thought power distribution was a problem in the US now. Damn...
Life is not for the lazy.
Apple's die-hard fans are not going to leave them because they can't play Britney Spears CDs
Apple's die hard fans will eat it up in the same way that the love the DRM they are subjected to today. Hell, one can hardly point out here that ITMS is DRM without getting modded down by the "we love Jobs the Leader" contigent.
Sure, Apple's implementation might leave the user a little more slack, but they have shown with ITMS that they do want to use DRM, and that their users love it. The fact that ITMS has been cracked has got to be a little annoying: when DRM hardware becomes cheap and ubiquitous, why would one expect that they will not want "protect" those tracks a little better?
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!
Actually, I installed 10.3 last night without registering. Just select that you're 'not ready to connect to the Internet' and when prompted later to register, click 'register later'. Then, after rebooting, delete the alias to the registration program and don't use the wizard to configure the Internet settings. Really quite simple.
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 -- Mathematics is the Language of Nature.
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
This is a smart move by Microsoft that will wind up screwing Phoenix. Once Microsoft invents the soft-bios industry, it will produce its own firmware (give it 3 years) and SCREW PHOENIX like it screws every other company that ever had the honor of being a Microsoft "partner."
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!
I would much prefer the pimp/ho or pimp/bitch drive nomenclature standard over the primary/secondary lamenclature.
Here are some forces working against success of a transition to trusted computing the open source community should think about and could leverage to their advantage:
There is a huge installed base of non trusted machines. As soon as you start penalizing machines for being untrusted on the net there will be a lot of unhappy users that may balk at being forced to buy an all new hardware/software setup to gain entry. Instead the net may engage in the self repairing behavior its known for and just route around the trusted parts of the net. One way I can see getting around this is to sell a trusted hardware/OS for a number of years so the platforms is pervasive before trying to kill untrusted platforms.
Its doubtful China or many other country outside the U.S. is going to buy into a system as intrusive and big brotherish as this is, especially when dictated from the U.S. which no one trusts any more. Asia may manufacture trusted hardware to sell to the U.S. but I'm skeptical they they will use it themselves unless places like China develop their own mutation which they control and can use to control their citizens. Asia seems to be moving to Linux and working to develop their own processors to gaurd against being subjected to heavy handed dictates, like this, from Microsoft, Intel and the NSA. If the U.S. gets the EU's backing in this they might have some chance of success. If the U.S. presses ahead alone they might well manage to destroy their market dominance in computing to be replaced by Asia or Europe.
There is a huge pool of legacy software that people are going to insist keep running. Either TCP machines are going to run untrusted software or its unlikely people are going to accept it or want to buy it. Until TCP platforms have a compelling body of trusted software they wont succeeed. Maybe they can sandbox untrusted software but it seems like untrusted software goes against the grain of everything trusted computing is.
There are still a bunch of powerful hardware vendors including Apple, IBM, HP, Dell and SUN that are backing Unix/Linux to one extent or another that are unlikely to subscribe to a hardware lock in that would kill them. As long as we can switch to PowerPC and keep on trucking who really cares, especially now that PowerPC is close to parity with Intel.
Despite all the doom and gloom I think this could be a boon to Open Source. Microsoft has never really attempted a transition this disruptive to backward compatibility. If people are faced with a transition that destroys legacy software and hardware and appears excessibely intrusive and monopolistic, a lot of countries, companies, developers and consumers may take this opportunity to really opt out of Wintel's hegemony.
There is one real danger though. The U.S. government along with some kind of coalition of the willing could try to pass laws and trade restrictions to make Trusted Computing happen in the name of the "Never Ending War on Terrorism". I would have never believed this to be possible a couple years ago but at this point, especially if we get another four years of Bush and Ashcroft it seems extremely plausible. In this scenario it would be illegal to build or import hardware in coalition countries that did not conform to trusted computing standards and after some transition period it would be illegal to hook non trusted platforms to the Internet. This would almost inevitably lead to a fracturing of the Internet in to at least two disconnected pieces, one free and one not free. Would it be possible to create a clandestine, free, wireless network in the U.S. if the government outlawed a free Internet. How could we cr
@de_machina
>than the last significant threat (assault riffles) has been removed from citizens hands, the government has proceeded to clench down.
I'm pro-gun, but you are in error. Existing "assault rifles" are still in the hands of many citizens - legally. In addition, most of what what makes a rifle an "assault rifle" are the sights and magazine capacity. But what really gives a rifle its punch is the caliber, not the scary-looking accoutrements. You can still buy many excellent performing bolt action and semi-auto civilian rifles chambered in .223, .308, (equivalent to 5.56 and 7.62 NATO calibers) and beyond. You can even legally buy .50 caliber semi-auto rifles that could kill from a mile away or disable lightly armored vehicles. Armament issues aside, we have legions of potential "citizen soldiers" whose facility with longarms would help negate the advantages of full-auto "assault rifle" equipped so-called professional soldiers. Marksmanship, sadly, is declining among their ranks but it could be the Army's undoing if they are unleashed to quell a popular uprising.
>It teaches conformity in school
Then where the hell did the millions of non-conformists come from in the 60s for example? Surely those rebellious kids got their edumacation during the highly conformist late 40s and early 50s right?Well, yes, of course, this makes sense. Given the rate at which all companies are 100% compliant with their licensing for the software that runs on their machines, I'm sure that they will just run right out to support the trusted computing initiative.
Sorry, but I have worked at way too many companies all sharing the same installation of Windows/Office/etc to believe that they are going to increase their IT budget 10-fold to support DRM. BSA or no.
Let Phoenix go ahead and introduce DRM into the BIOS. There are plenty of other BIOS manufactures that will be more than happy to step up in their place. OpenBIOS, anyone?
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
The problem is the constitution means nothing to the federal government. They walk all over the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th ammendments. They totally ignore the limitations in the 10th ammendment. I expect that the next ammendment to the constitution may be the final one; the one that makes all previous ammendments null and void. Think it can't happen? Read some history from Germany in 1920-1939 and then think again. Fascism happens when the pwer of the corporations exceeds the power of the governments. All we need is a supreme commander to finish it off. King George anyone?
Does anyone realize that with the recent Patriot Act 1 (overt) and Patriot Act 2 (covert) I could be investigated and arrested and held for a year without charge or trial as a "domestic terrorist" for putting the statement "The time has come for a revolution in this country" on my website? Yeah, hide your heads in the sand until they come for you. And someday they will.
As for me, give me liberty or give me death.
Davey B.
"Even paranoid people have real enemies" - T-Shirt
Didn't you know? Lysergic Acid (LSD) is a highly effective deprogramming tool. The youthful experimenting of the sixties cleared all that conformist shit right out of their heads....
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Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
The website for Asus say that their latest boards have AMI BIOSs on them.
There were parameters you could set in the Parameter RAM (PRAM), like the default boot disk and the speaker volume. Those parameters aren't really the same thing as the settings found in a PC BIOS. The PRAM wasn't a BIOS; it was a very small amount of battery-backed memory in the clock chip.
For instance, any Mac is fully capable of checking itself over for bootable devices and then starting up off one of them -- whether that's the device the user has requested by holding down a key at boot, the user's preferred startup disk, or the first available startup disk. The boot device could be an ISA hard drive, SCSI hard drive, CD-ROM, DVD, floppy, Zip disk, FireWire hard drive, flash memory drive... All this functionality is a recent addition to the PC BIOS, and getting it to work often involves delving into an ancient, arcane text-mode interface.
NuBus beat PCI to the plug-and-play arena. When Macs still had NuBus, PCs used ISA cards that often needed BIOS tweaking to play nice. NuBus (a Texas Instruments invention, not Apple's) automatically configured the bus based on configuration ROMs on the cards.
My modern "New World architecture" Mac has NVRAM, which is different from the old PRAM. (PRAM is now emulated by Open Firmware and NVRAM.) As a user, I don't have to mess with NVRAM directly, ever. As a professional systems administrator, sometimes I go in and do things in OF, just as I would on a Sun system -- setting boot-diag? to true, for example, if something odd is happening (or I just want to see a Mac spew forth a text-mode bootup).
Aside from such geeking, the end-user never has to know that there's a special setting area that needs attention on a Mac. If you want to boot from a different drive, you use the GUI control panel to select it, or you hold down a key at boot to bring up a GUI list of your bootable disks. The user doesn't have to know that there's some special place they need to go -- it's all "the computer" instead of "the OS" and "the BIOS."
If "plug and play" works, why should an end user have to know that there's two levels of software involved in booting? Yeah, the geek may want to disable cards in software, but end users don't do that -- except when they have to work around broken PnP.
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
The one we have is the kind of Government they wanted. They had to establish one in which people wouldn't overthrow THEM.
Name 3 founding fathers who were not Aristocrats, I'm willing to bet you can't. You see, you can't establish a trade monopoly between the colonies and England if you only control (the kind they were concerned about at the time) one side of the water. So they did the next best thing, they explicitly forbid government granted monopolies in the Constitution.
And yes they felt the Taxes were Exorbitant, much like they are now. And much like now the AVERAGE citizen has no real recourse and no representation. Only the rich have representation in this nation from the founding fathers to the present day.