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DRM Tinkering with Intel's PXA270?
putko asks: "Intel has a new line of chips with DRM built in. This appears to be the very first DRM-enabled chip to hit the streets. This microprocessor is unlike others available, because the user doesn't have complete control over the thing, and your computer can (theoretically) betray you.
For a while now, there have been computers (IBM ThinkPad) that won't boot unless you give the password, but you could always rip out the hard drive and read it, right? With this chip, the keys and RAM are on the chip, and the flash is encrypted, so this really looks locked up tight.
Has anyone worked with this chip, and is possible to build your own device that uses the Intel Trusted Wireless Platform to protect your secrets (like your software, perhaps)?"
"I'm reminded of this due to Slashdot's recent story on the iPAQ, which uses the chip (and has some neat security features too). Somewhat surprisingly, nobody brought up the Doomsday scenarios, there. It should also be mentioned that there are companies selling incredibly tiny boards for it. Maybe you can run Linux on them?
Wouldn't it suck if the chip had the capabilities and you couldn't use them in your own projects -- e.g. if that was just reserved to big companies like Microsoft? On the other hand, if you can use the features, you might see some neat applications. Assuming you can program the DRM stuff, how do you avoid locking yourself out of the chip while developing? What extra pitfalls may developers run into using it?"
Wouldn't it suck if the chip had the capabilities and you couldn't use them in your own projects -- e.g. if that was just reserved to big companies like Microsoft? On the other hand, if you can use the features, you might see some neat applications. Assuming you can program the DRM stuff, how do you avoid locking yourself out of the chip while developing? What extra pitfalls may developers run into using it?"
How dare you try to protect your own secrets??!!?!? Information wants to be free, you...you...capitalist!!!
Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
It depends on what kind of program the bad guy is convincing you to run. If it's an operating system- and Microsoft is very worried about bad guys named Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds convincing people to run non-Microsoft OSes on their computers- then what Microsoft says is absolutely correct. Microsoft is thus very interested in creating hardware that will protect users from being able to install GNU/Linux.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.