Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Drops Next-Generation Security Project [updated]
grooveFX points to this CRN article which starts "After a year of tackling the Windows security nightmare, Microsoft
has killed its Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB)
project and later this year plans to detail a revised security plan for Longhorn,
the next major version of Windows, company executives said..." grooveFX writes "Glad to see they actually listen to the gripes from the media and users." Update: 05/05 19:13 GMT by T : phil reed writes "Oops. According to this article on Microsoft Watch, Microsoft really isn't giving up on NGSCB (aka 'Palladium') after all. Microsoft spent much of Day 2 of its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) here refuting a published report claiming the company has axed its Next Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB) security technology."
I've got a three suggestions for Microsoft on the issue of security:
Like the airlines think Saftey, Saftey, Saftey - Microsoft need to adopt the slogan.. Security Security Security
Simon
All you need to do to get a secure Windows OS is... upgrade. Big surprise.
...bypass virus scanning for malware authors who pay Microsoft?
What makes you think they are listening. They are presumably publically "killing the project named NGCSB", quietly inventing a new name and happily keep working on that, less publically this time now that they have used the publicity of Palladium/NGCSB to make initial "front door" contacts in the entertainment industry, they know who to expect at the "back door".
The ol' "keep renaming the thing so people don't have a steady label for what they are fighting". The british sellafield->windscale->thorp nuclear shenanigans, the last Palladium->NGCSB namechange, TIA->something-or-other. All the same propaganda trick.
The solution for opponents is to either keep using the old name so that the public latches onto it (everyone still calls it "Sellafield" and, to an extent, "TIA"), or invent your own name and get it to penetrate the public consciousness (much harder, only example I can think of it "Infidel")
Glad to see they actually listen to the gripes from the media and users.
Microsoft doesn't listen to the media and the users, they listen to their shareholders and their finance guys. And they are saying that Windows looks like crap when it comes to security, undermining the credibility of the product, in turn threatening the sales and therefore their dividends.
Microsoft listen to users? bah... If they did, they'd have jumped on the internet bandwagon much earlier. They're going about the whole security thing just like they dealt with TCP/IP and the web: they're thrasing to catch up. And the sad thing is, they probably will sooner than you think...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Microsoft never lets projects really die. They may kill off other companies' projects, but never their own.
What they are doing, as they have done in the past with such flops as Bob, is slowly merge the improvements and features that they planned on delivering in a single project into their whole lineup across the board. As the article says, Longhorn is planned to incorporate this security technology.
While this is by no means a cure-all for the problems that Windows faces, it is a step forward in computing. Whereas legacy systems such as Unix are finding it harder to support newer hardware features such as the NX codes in the latest AMD and Intel chips, the deep corporate partnerships that Microsoft has with these companies allows them to bring such technologies to the public at a faster rate than otherwise possible.
That said, Windows sucks, has sucked, and will continue to suck. Linux shows it up every single time. Not to mention that Linux's security structure is already designed to thwart the exact problems that Microsoft is attempting to stop.
I have been pwned because my
Longhorn's Visual Basic code base is going to be it's downfall. Managed code is all very well on paper, but Microsoft have taken it too far. They are letting the compiler do all the work - but thats like putting all your eggs in one basket. Once someone decrypts MSIL then all hell will break loose!
First they cancel WinFS, now the NextGen Security stuff, they just delayed it to 2006 and they just announced the hardware specs that are totally way off. Next thing they cancel is Avalon and they will delay it to december 2006. In the end it will be a minor upgrade such as WinXP was to 2k with some boring new stuff and an ugly new GUI-theme. We've seen this before. This won't stop them from calling it the biggest step since Windows 95. well, nothing to see here. Move along...
;-)
Actually, it's good for the Linux Community that Microsoft keeps making the same mistakes again and again. Ahh..old faithful!
Maybe Miguel will now rethink his very stupid "I'm scared, I'm very scared" quote he made a few days ago...
Can we please get this modded past all the responses that seem to think that NGSCB has something to do with security. NGSCB aka Palladium is/was Microsoft's locked down "trusted" computer project, meant to facilitate DRM. It never had anything to with security save for in name and spin.
This is a good thing of course, but I seriously doubt it means that that Microsoft won't find other ways of sneaking locked down computer on us in the future...
Rather, say thanks to all the developers that said 'no' to having to recode for the Palladium API. Making MS look a fool for trying to force its way.
So yes, bye-bye Palladium is good news. It sill come back, in some form or another, anyway (look ar the recent IBM announcements about their trusted computing research)
It means that tin-foil-hat crowd who were posting as recently as yesterday about how microsoft was conspiring to bring about "the end of computing as we know it" and intended to somehow create laws to make untrusted operating systems unable to load on any legal hardware, etc., etc., were complete idiots. As most of us already knew.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
Expect the DRM lockdown initiative to be back with a new name, probably not long after some virus or worm scare that captures vast attention.
"Trusted computing, therefore, facilitates reduction of competition. "
Informative? Funny maybe, but informative? Is it informative if I paste one definition of open as in open source?
"Not yet decided; subject to further thought: an open question."
There's a few people out there that'd see that as an accurate / informative definition.
"Derp de derp."
Don't see why they'd need one, unless they're planning to ship 2.8 with a kernelized window manager.
[-1, Pedantic]
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
"Decrypts MSIL?"
Ahahahaha...have you not heard of the Common Language Specification, which publicly explains to compilers how to produce the intermediate code? We could have Python.NET if we wanted (and it's being worked on).
This isn't exactly some sort of black secret. They published them as open standards. How do you think Mono exists? Any compiler can look at the specs and produce the code.
Sigh...Slashdot sucks these days. The endless Microsoft articles are boring and uninformed. Remember when it was cool tech news?
What's the odds that Microsoft will continue to seek a way to push their concept of trusted computing onto the consumer -- by giving it another new name? Palladium got too much bad PR, so they changed the name. Enough people caught on, so now they are abandoning that name (not the project, for sure).
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
The fact is that the only way to implement this sort of DRM is through tamper-proof hardware, and even then its not like someone with a camera phone or even a good old small film camera to get a copy of that 'private' email (which is mostly what they are touting its use for). As for music and videos theres the if-i-can-see-it-i-can-copy-it which just cant be stopped, people will tolarate surprisingly low quality. And this isnt rocket science either, most people will be able to defeat these systems, software or hardware. Its not in Microsoft's interest to pursue this unless they want to piss people off or look very stupid when their "virus proof" OS gets hit one week after launch. It was a stupid idea before and it always will be a stupid and hated idea. Im glad they dropped it.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Again, this is why people think Slashdot is a fucking joke when it comes to reporting "tech news." Slashdotters spread these incorrect truths around and they just become true because it's anti-"M$."
:)
WinFS was NOT cancelled. It wasn't even scaled back. They just removed some extraneous network features not required (which will probably be free downloadable updates anyway). But, all the sites like Slashdot completely SPUN it and misreported it. Slashdot is owned by VA Linux, so the agenda is obvious.
All the MSDN blogs were laughing about the reporting on this. And the Slashdot hivemind--that means all you people out there who build your computing mindset based entirely out of Slashdot articles--proves itself ignorant and foolish-looking once again. The rational of us know better.
WinFS is alive and well. MSDN just put a technology showcase video out about it a couple of weeks ago! All they did was decide not to implement some network-specific features in order to focus on getting the core technology done.
This is the second time I've seen WinFS supposedly "cancelled" in this article discussion.
It also would have opened up new markets. It's interesting to note that all of the great innovative periods in human history have been carried on the backs of breaktrhoughs in travel,commerce and communications. Even the lowly canoe can be credited for the rapid westward puch in canada and the US. (Shame about the beaver however). The invention of "coin of the realm" and accounting practices allowed goods to be passed over huge distances even the marco polo trail carried "mail-order" goods.
At present we dont have ways in place for people to watch digital movies and othe rprotected content in ways the the owners are willing to produce or share thier content for. Let's not get into an RIAA riff here. The point is that lots of people do want to "rent" content and watch it and without a secure communication channel they cant.
likewise things like internet voting and commerce trasnactions are held back by the lack of ubiquitous secure channels.
thus while I disliked the implications of NGSC for having control over my machine I would have liked to have had one in myhouse. I'd have two computers. one for my own uses and one for the cases where security outweighed the other issues.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Implementing palladium hard will do one thing over night. Many tech savvy Windows users would switch away in a heartbeart. Most if not all of my friends who uses Windows rarely pay for any application they use. They consider it their god given rights do download anything they please. Any hindrance to that would make them switch in notime since they are very reluctant to actually start forking the dough for the applications they use. Bring in all the movies and music they download and they would gladly suffer hell on a commandline to avoid having to pay for the things they use.
Come to think about it, harder and more vigalant enforcement on comercial software is only going to drive these people to open source no matter how they do it. Enforce and people migrate, dont and people dont pay. They are in a tough spot, BSA and ppl.
HTTP/1.1 400
"We're evaluating how these NGSCB capabilities should be integrated into Longhorn, but we don't know exactly how it'll be manifested. A lot of decisions have yet to be made," said Mario Juarez, product manager in Microsoft's Security and Technology Business Unit. "We're going to come out later this year with a complete story." I have been writing code for windows systems for the past 10 years. We have had good times (Win2000, WinXP) we have had bad times (Access, Security, VB, Me, ....).
But today I realised that 'dare i say it' linux is
finaly (on my knees face to the sky tears in eyes) coming together. It may not be tomorrow, maybe not even Friday. But the day will soon be here when I can look at what i am coding around in a production enviroment.. I can ask questions about what will happen in the next OS release, and not get any marketing blurbs.
Microsoft realised that the Palladium idea would tighten thier noose of control. But that this would also be showdown time. Would the business world spend a fortune buying into this "secure world" where 2GB RAM is required. Where code is so 'tight' that 6GHz dual core PX could open notepad just as fast it did on my P1 233 Win98?
Linux does not represent a huge corperation requiering $$$$ to keep going. Microsoft has to be a money making empire and empires dont last forever - what happens when bill & co start dying.
I will still be around in 20 years 'falls on ground - so cant be struk down - waiting to be struk' but will they?
Linux gets faster with each release. It gets bigger and stronger, remember that an OS is just that. It is not some majical thing that will make majical things just majically happen as they keep promising us. They need some reason to milk the 'heard' for as long as they can. This is not going to be with an OS for much longer. Maybe they can finish DNFE (but i am shure it won't live upto the hype :)
Linux is made to be perfect. Windows is made to be Perfect(tm).
Besides Linux/Wine runs Winamp ...... Winex runs windows games ..... XoverOffice runs Photoshop ....
Remember "build it and they will come".
Don't make your problems my problems!
Try ripping out IE completely and then running help in your favorite commercial app. Chances are, it just broke. Microsoft's .CHM-based help spec REQUIRES IE.
Microsoft dropping this is good in every way, except that it's ghost will return in other forms for sure...
People always forget that this is just a tool. It can be used for good or ill. Hospitals could've used it to secure your medical records. You could have used it to secure and authenticate your tax returns before you sent it to the IRS. People who use the GPL could've used it to enforce the GPL! No more guessing if someone has stolen your GPL'd code - you'd know. NGSCB is just a tool. Both NGSCB and Palladium are security projects, it's just that the DRM/RIAA/MPAA use of the tool is objectionable. IT does not mean that the technology is worthless or "evil".
--
Cain.
I used to be afraid of what Palladium could do for the computing industry. Many tried to convince me that there was nothing to fear because there was no way in heck Microsoft could ever get anything done right and on time. It appears they were correct. Now it's being pushed back to Longhorn, which is being pushed back to oblivion. Now I'm left wondering what all the fuss was about.
Heck, Microsoft cannot even secure its own "proprietary" gaming console, why did we ever fear that they'd lock down all of our computers?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
...no most slashdotters dislike M$ because their products fucking suck and their mercenary business tactics drive decent companies out of business.
I call bullshit.
*How* can NGSCB and Palladium be used to enforce the GPL?
Oh, by tying the source code to a key, which makes it impossible to change the source code and use the same key... but the verification is against the key. By tying the binary to a key, and making it impossible to modify the binary? So, rebuild the binary, and key use is lost.
In other words, these measures *can't* be used to enforce GPL. So much for this tool.
Now, is Palladium a security project? Well, yes, but not for the end user. Indeed, the end user can run the same old trojans, etc. as before. Palladium *will* prevent the trojan from accessing data that has bee "protected", by kicking out the unsuitable software.
It was NEVER meant to secure YOUR stuff -- if you want that, go use GPG, etc. I assume that even MS Outlook must have some integration with GPG! (all of my emails are digitally signed).
Ratboy.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
They have axed it - or at the very least scaled it right back. forcing hardware changes on such a scale as demanded by Microsoft does not make economic sense for hardware makers, and Microsoft realised that the impact on legacy systems would be catastrophic. Imagine not being able to connect to your thirty-year old mainframe because Windows does not see it as a trusted system. Bye, bye Windows!
However, that doesn't mean that Microsoft still isn't keen on conclusively trying to lock everyone, and open source software, from communicating with Windows.
If you dont believe my security statement, just wander on over to securitytracker.com - there are more discovered flaws in the recent past with Linux than with Windows.
a) Despite the increased amount of bundling Microsoft's done over the years, a "Linux distribution flaw" is still awfully different from a "Windows security flaw". A Linux distribution is composed of many, many more lines of code and pieces of software than Windows. If you want to include security problems with Open Office, it's only reasonable to include security problems with MS Office.
b) Local exploits attract attention on Linux. A lot of "exploits" in Linux are local attacks. Local security on a Windows box is pretty much a lost cause.
c) When Microsoft discovers a security problem and fixes it internally, they don't say "fixes a security hole in...". They just bundle it with some other set of fixes and stay quiet. You won't hear about it.
d) MS has a PR department that spins bugs as "issues" and tries to dampen criticism of security. In the open source world, people generally call "bugs" "bugs" (and frequently wishlist items "bugs", which would drive companies with marketers bananas).
e) Many previous Microsoft security holes just wouldn't happen in the *IX world because of the more security-oriented culture (note that I suspect that Microsoft is improving here). MSIE and Outlook grant a lot of power to remote websites to cause execution, to modify bookmark lists, and the like. Windows NT infamously shipped with a blank Administrator password (and no prompt to set one during the install process), all drives shared by default *invisibly* (they were administrative shares, and the only security in place was the fact that Microsoft clients didn't display administrative shares remotely), and automatically reshared drives upon reboot if sharing was turned off on a drive.
f) Microsoft has been known to blame sysadmins for security problems ("Well, yeah, your network was compromised and your data destroyed by the latest virus, but you didn't firewall our systems, and we released a patch a week ago which you should have deployed.") *IX boxes was designed to sit on a network and be fully accessable, and "firewalling to fix implementation flaws" is not an interesting approach to most *IX admins. Plus, most open source contributors *are* sysadmins to some extent.
Want to do some *real* security criticisms of Linux? How about the following:
* Red Hat was trying to set a new golden security standard for Linux by adding SELinux *by default* starting in Fedora Core 2. This would have allowed giving limited access to things to processes (a sore Linux lack), helped make software SELinux-compatible, and paved the road for other distro vendors. Red Hat, after two test releases, finally just backed down on including SELinux enabled by default in FC2, saying that it just caused too many problems at the moment. This represents a loss of a year at least in moving to a much more powerful and secure security system.
* Stack overflow protection mechanisms are still not standard in the Linux world. The only distro vendor that I know of that definitely includes such a patch enabled by default currently is Red Hat with exec-shield. In contrast, *Microsoft* just added stack execution blocking to Windows.
* Filesystem ACL support in Linux today sucks. A lot. A software author cannot rely on filesystem ACLs being present (since they are not by default on most Linux boxes) -- just old-style *IX permissions. One can improvise to get *some* of the ACL functionality by cleverly nesting directories and adding users to extra groups for each directory in question, but most Linux boxes *still* have a 32 group-per-user limit. The *IX permission scheme is simple, fast, and easy-to-audit. However, it is lacking for many users -- there are a lot of sysadmins out there who'd like to be able to say "Anyone in Development can read or write this directory, Mary and all of the Marketing gro
May we never see th
No, "the technology" itself is not evil. It never is. Microsoft, however, is evil and will use every tool available to screw their users. The activities that M$ allows on "their" operating system have never been much and the list is shrinking. Palladium is just another tool M$ is making for the same old goals: enforce a lack of competition on their platform and maximize their revenues. Fortunately, other people understood just how evil commercial software could be and devised alternatives we all use everyday.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The parent is NOT a goddamn troll just because they're making you think about things you normally post blindly. Here's the fucking text again. Mod me down, and I'll post it again at the top of the next story. I'll do that until my fucking Karma is lower than michael's IQ:
* If you expect companies to follow the copyright of the GPL, you should support the RIAA going after infringers of its copyright. If not, you're a hypocrite.
* There is absolutely nothing wrong with a company being upset that its product is being pirated freely over online networks. A recent Slashdot poll showed that the majority of Slashotters are unemployed or are students ("academics"), which explains a lot. Try getting a real job sometime and see what it feels like when your work is everywhere, and you start worrying that your days are numbered. Does John Carmack want you to "sample" his new game via the "free advertising" happening on eMule?
* At the 2004 WinHEC, Allchin demonstrated an alpha version of Longhorn that played six high-resolution videos at the same time while playing Quake III in the background. An equivalent XP machine couldn't play more than four videos. Meanwhile, I can't even get xmms to play without skipping, and windows to drag without visual tearing! That's because KDE and GNOME are hacks to emulate a desktop on top of the crufty XFree86 architecture that people won't let die (Linux users absolutely fear change).
* VA Linux-owned Slashdot thinks its niche opinion represents the majority of the world. This is a result of people visiting every day and buying into the groupthink. Nobody outside of Slashdot knows or cares about "Linux," "RIAA", "M$," or anything else Slashdotters think is such a huge issue in today's society. Go to a mall or coffee shop sometime and see what people actually talk
about.
* Speaking of VA Linux--it's a Linux company...that owns a "tech news" site...that posts news stories negative toward competitors like Microsoft. If a Windows company or even Microsoft itself owned a "tech news" site and posted anti-Linux articles all the time, everyone would be up in arms. But with VA Linux, it's a-okay.
* Slashbots think people don't like the music coming out these days, which is the cause of the piracy. Never mind that if people didn't like the music they wouldn't be pirating it, most Slashbots--again, this goes back to the niche opinion thing--don't realize that most people these days love the music coming out and want to hear all of it. Probing around, you discover that Slashdot is made up of nerds and fogies who listen to things like The Who and Blind Guardian and techno--not what mainstream society enjoys.
* Any company ending in "AA" is evil. Especially if it doesn't want you distributing its works without paying for it. Somehow, this mindset is supposed to make sense.
* The inevitable result of all this is a world in which nothing can be profitable because people simply pirate free copies. Is that really what Slashbots want? OSS and free-ness in general reminds me of the hippie era of the 60s--idealistic socialism that only exists because of the surrounding capitalism around it that provides the environment for it to exist. We all know what happened to that idea.
* Linux rules the desktop, when in reality: Windows = 91%; Mac = 4%; Linux = 1%
* Slashdot editors are abusive. We all remember The Post. It's amusing the editors never mention the issue. The worst editor is michael, who will mod you down, insult you for your post count, and post unprofessional color commentary along with the article. This is the same bizarre person who cybersquatted Censorware for years--even as Slashdot posted articles negative toward cybersquatting! Michael played it off like he was some sort of stalking victim, which made it all the more bizarre.
* The moderation system is broken. If you mod someone as "Overrated," you can't be metamodded. People abuse this all the time to ga
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
It seems clear that digital information has an increasing need for copy protection.
This premise is invalid.
One is that all nano-engineering work is to be licensed with some equivalent to a GPL. Since this would presumably apply to almost all commodoties we have today, this requires a new economic model beyond the free market or capitalism!
Partially right. Capitalism need not be replaced. Consider the model of "escrowed release." The "street-performer protocol" (look it up in google for the whitepaper) is a codified method of escrowed release. The idea is very simple -- get paid once for the development of an idea (entertainment, science, voodoo ritual, whatever) and once you are paid, everyone is free to use it without restriction. If your escrow price is too high, then not enough people pay up, the product is never fully developed and/or released and the original buyers get their escrowed funds back.
Still all nicely capitalistic, and in fact, more of a free market economy than the silliness that is IP gives us today.
Yea, it's a cut and paste of the "troll" parent. The point, which you managed to stumble blindly through with the grace and elegance of a whino smashing a liquor store window, is that just because you don't agree with it, that doesn't mean it's a troll or it's not true. Why did you zone in on the Linux parts? The whole thing isn't about Linux, but a lot of the criticisms, while short on explanation and curt, are true to some extent or another. They're good starting points for getting you actually THINKING about a position you took or making you THINK about whether they're really true or not. They're not meant to be hard facts, put on that dusty old critical thinking cap and DECIDE FOR YOURSELF.
You can't just claim something is a troll and mod it away because you don't want to think about it, and that's EXACTLY what that parent poster had happen. Why did I get modded up? Because I'm logged in, and I have Excellent karma, so it's magically more legit NOW than when the last poster put it up? Bullshit. It's the same fucking post word for word. I don't agree with all of it, but I didn't cut any of it either just because I don't agree. The POINT that you so gleefully missed while gnashing your teeth to defend your poor, downtrodden Linux system (never mind that I have a Linux system protecting this Windows box and I do all my work on another Linux box on the same network.. I must just be an anti-Linux troll, hmmm?) is that there are a LOT of people here who are EXTREMELY tired of the groupthink and kneejerk reactions around here. Whether people are sucking up for karma or they're just screaming because everyone else is, it gets extremely tiresome to see the same bullshit perpetuated. Linux is NOT ready for the home desktop. The RIAA *does* have a right to defend its copyright (gee, did you [figuratively, not you personally] mean to argue that the RIAA's METHODS are unsound? Did you THINK about it before you posted an anti-RIAA rant?). The GPL is NOT the answer to everything. Microsoft DOES have some positive traits. Some of the Slashdot editors, especially michael, ARE abusive.
Try and post anything like that in some stories and you get modded to shit no matter how truthful, well-supported, or intelligent the post is.
I'm fucking tired of it, so now I'm lending my Karma to all those AC "trolls" who keep posting this. The POINT of the whole thing is: fucking think for yourself for once instead of just chasing after some stupid 'karma' attribute in a database or joining a chorus of your idiotic screaming peers. You have a brain, use it.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
People always forget that this is just a tool. It can be used for good or ill.
Yeah, but when someone is designing and building a tool it is appropriate to look at the intentions of the builder and the design goal.
The central design goal of of the system is that it be secure against the owner. Specificly, it is the owner is forbidden to know his own key or to have full control of his own key. If you read the engineering specs of the Trusted Platform Module (also known as TPM or TCPA chip or Fritz chip) it extensively and repeatedly states that it must be secure against the owner. Entire sections are devoted to what the owner is to be forbidden to be able to do. It explicitly states that if the chip dies then it MUST be impossible for the owner to be able to recover his data.
The system was designed with malicious intent, therefore the system itself is malicious (or evil).
You claim this is a tool that can be used "for good or ill". In fact there do not exist ANY ways this could benefit an owner that that you can't accomplish just as well with an nearly identical and non-malicious system.
All you need to do is give the owner a printed copy of his key. Such a system could have identical hardware. And with identical hardware your computer has precisely the same capabilites to protect you. There is no possible way that merely knowing your key can reduce your computers ability to protect or help you.
The only difference is that if you know your own key then you have actual control over your own computer. You can unlock anything on your computer if you choose to do so. That means it is impossible for someone hijack your computer against you to lock you into something. It means it is impossible for someone hijack your computer against you to lock you out of your own files. You computer can no longer enforce DRM against you and against perfectly legal and legitimate uses.
With one trivial change the owner can get EVERY claimed benefit of trusted Computing and you can eliminate EVERY possible abuse of the system.
They refuse to sell beneficial systems such as I described because their motivation is precicely to impose abuses against owners. To impose lock in and lock out and to deny owners control of their own propery. If you know your key then your computer is no longer "Trusted" to act against you.
Hospitals could've used it to secure your medical records.
They could do that with the alternate system I described. Hospitals (or any company for that matter) could get just as much security from computers that came with copies of their keys. They could lock those keys in a safety deposit box, or that could simply burn the keys without even looking at them.
You could have used it to secure and authenticate your tax returns before you sent it to the IRS.
Identical hardware where you know your key is just as secure against viruses and trojans and hackers.
I have no idea what it means to "authenticate" a tax form you just filled out before sending it in to the IRS, nut I guarantee that you don't need a Trusted Computer to do it.
People who use the GPL could've used it to enforce the GPL!
hat is impossible. As others have already posed. Trusted Computing is inherently incompatible with the GPL. Hell, Trusted Computing (and any DRM system) is inherently incompatible with copyright itself. Using DRM means abandoning any refference to what is legal and what is not legal and simply substituting the DRM capabilities/restrictions in place of the law.
Not only is Trusted Computing malicious, it is also worthless. Your computer is your property, the Trust chip inside is your property, your key hidden inside your chip in your computer is your property. You have every right to rip open your computer and read your key out with a microscope. They can make it a pain in the ass to do, but they can never prevent you from doing so. The moment you read out your key
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.