Slashdot Mirror
Major PC Makers Adopt Trusted Computing Schema
An anonymous reader wrote to let us known about a News.com story regarding so-called trusted computing, and its adoption by the major PC manufacturers. From the article: "The three largest computer makers--Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM--have started selling desktops and notebooks with so-called trusted computing hardware, which allows security-sensitive applications to lock down data to a specific PC." Interestingly, while Microsoft is said to be behind the idea support won't be forthcoming for trusted computing until they release Longhorn next year, making this a hardware-vendor lead initiative.
At the time, digital-rights advocates raised concerns that the technology could be used by software makers and media companies to control people's PCs, putting Microsoft on the defensive. The dispute even led the software giant to change the name of its technology from Palladium to the Next-Generation Secure Computing Base, or NGSCB.
And yes, we all know that now that the name of their security technology is different Microsoft can't "team up" with the hardware makers to lock down PCs to a single OS. It wouldn't be in the best interests of either side to do that right? Oh wait, MSFT already has contractual agreements that basically force this to happen why not take it a step further and make people not only pay extra for the OS pre-installed/distributed w/the PC but also make them have no choice but to run it once they get it.
I love the wording in the article... Oooh it's the hardware vendors taking the initiative and not Microsoft (like Microsoft is always at the forefront of technology or something). Is that supposed to make me feel better that the entire computing platform will be locked down leading to the end of free distribution of anything, the Internet as we know it, etc?
Didn't Ben Franklin say something about this? Yeah.
How about trusted users? The computers aren't the problem, it's the users. It takes a confident voice to say, I'm person X and I am working on the mainframe, I need your username and password. Big words like mainframe scare people. People can't be trusted.
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
What happens when your PC dies? How do you recover using the now useless backups? There's bound to be a way to bypass that. Sounds like the data requires a physical key (sentry?). Someone somehow will bypass it.
Now accepting PayPal donations!
Hug my mac tightly tonight, and trust it to only have one master: me.
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
...that was the sound of me moving from x86 to PPC.
(As long as debian keeps up support.)
Just remember, folks: "Trusted computing" is an Orwellian phrase that actually means your computer won't trust you. So if you want your computer to have to ability to say to you, "Sorry, I won't play that MP3 file" or "Sorry, that movie is not authorized for this PC," well step right up. Barnum & Co. -- er, sorry, I mean major PC hardware companies have some new machines to sell to you.
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
this: http://www.gentoo.org/news/20050202-trustedgentoo. xml and, linked from there, this:
http://www.research.ibm.com/gsal/tcpa/tcpa_rebutta l.pdf
making this a hardware-vendor lead initiative
Why does this have to be vendor specific? Will it have support for *nx, *BSD, Solaris, etc?
Or this a contract with Microsoft?
Is the specs to this opened or closed?
Anyone have a link with more info?
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
If Linux gets in on the game then surely this could be a positive thing for computer users.
See the Trusted Gentoo project for example.
Until we see locked down BIOSes then this is hardly a threat to Linux if it responds quickly.
Get a free iPod Nano 4GB!
Trustworthy computing... brought to you by a monopolist convicted using anti-trust laws.
'until they release Longhorn next year' Yeah right.
rms on trusted computing
IBM has had the hardware in place in their laptop line for the last several years. It makes repairs which require a motherboard swap a PITA because you have to be sure to order the part with the crypto in place if your current system had one, which might not know about the first time you do one, resulting in a several day delay....
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
So far I never regretted my choice to switch to Apple / OS X. I havn't had any security-related trouble at all and very few problems whatsoever.
Now, three major PC-vendors make the Apple even more appealing. If you don't like the idea that those who sell content to you trust your spyware anf trojan-ridden hardware more than you, this might be the time to by a Mac.
If on the other hand Apple joins the tree mentioned in the Article, they might lose a very satisfied customer who converted a number of Windows-drones to OS X during the last year alone.
This sort of crap runs contrary to Apple's philosophy, and I don't think they'll want it in their hardware (heck, they don't even copy protect their OS). However, they may get forced into it for compatibility. I believe in trusted computing - I trust myself not to be dumb.
Great! This will cause the end of Windows and the rise of the penguin. :-p
I've read the article, and many related articles, but it is still not clear to me what this technology really means...
I am pretty sure there are answers to this technology, but I haven't found a clear concise source to make me feel any better about what this technology may bring upon OSS. I'm afraid it might be bad. Someone reassure me.
As an aside, is this really a direction technology needed to take? Is there really that much of a need for "trusted" computing? Sheeesh, I've not found this to be a huge issue, and I hope this technology incurs huge backlash when its inconvenience far exceeds its benefits.... (especially since the type of intrusion and hacking I've ever seen has little to do with protecting data and much more to do with social engineering).
I knew you could get a Dell linux server, and IBM is behind linux, but I haden't checked in a while and didn't know that HP made linux machines.
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
Just in case anyone wants to see the software side of what's happening with trusted computing, here's Microsoft's plans to integrate certain software technologies with these new hardware components. It's called Microsoft Palladium.
This will make Macs a much more attractive option if this turns out the way the /. crowd seems to think it will.
Seriously, I've been a Microsoft guy since DOS 5.0, but I have no problem with switching to a Mac for my next laptop if this is what happens.
Socialism: A feeling of discontent and resentment caused by a desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
So my understanding is that it is far too complicated to have the content only accesible by hardware (isolated HD or sectors directly controlled by the hardware which would need to convert to output without going through main memory).
I believe instead these systems work by only giving access to certain content areas if the booting software has the right key or matches the right checksum. However, once that access has been granted the software is in control and a software flaw in the software could allow for copying.
How long do you think it will be till they find a bug in longhorn?
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
... is bound to be a pain in the arse if you get a new PC.
I suspect that the idea is that you'd use hardware-based encryption (which must be optional, otherwise general removable media would be worthless) and the OS would be expected to support it through some service layer. But anything it does in hardware should be emulatable in software. So, the solution is only truly useful if all parties agree to play nice. That seems to be a ludicrous expectation.
It seems to me that the strategy is wrong. There's no mechanism that isn't ultimately circumventable, so simply eliminate the complex hurdles and work such that there's nothing to circumvent and no reason to do so (change the model of how you operate).
Another reason I'm glad I use Macs, really. Let's hope Linus's PowerMac really does drive Linux on PPC as much as we all hope it will. Then, let's hope IBM starts pushing PPC based systems more than the Xeon powered servers I always see advertised.
Do not touch -Willie
Sounds like another reason to build my own computer...
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
Why is it good for Linux?
Because more people will have to pay for Windows, which costs too much, and therefore the poor and those not inclined to part with $100 for the stripped-down version of Windows will look for another way to get a free operating system -- legally, this time. It's well-known that most Linux distributions are available at no cost to the user except production of CDs or a DVD.
And that's the best thing I can say about Palladium -- the issues others have raised about backups et cetera seem pretty valid.
...this is something that businesses want (ones that already control your computing environment, like at work), and I really don't see it being aimed at the typical consumer.
I would also say that there will always be a market for open computers. The market always has ways around this.
This does not "lock" a computer to make it free from viruses or spyware. It "locks" a computer to keep it from playing non-DRM content. Basically, it takes control of the PC away from the user and hands it over to the RIAA, BSA, and the MPAA
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
If it can be made, it can be broken. This is a big push against our freedoms. Where are you to save the day RMS?
This is just a way to restrict our choices of usage, in other words to be 'trusted' you will have to use one of these player's machines (and platforms). So much for freedom. The only thing trusted is that the manufacturers will 'trust' that you will have to spend big $$ on their hardware/software in order to do anything.
Does this not smell of unfair business pratice to anyone? Would they give me the information needed to work with their 'trusted' platform on the asking? highly doubtful! This is just a creative way to stiffle the little guys trying to make a buck while at the same time further padding the giants.
I don't care much for this if you didn't notice, and they won't be getting any of my business. Trust and Microsoft do not belong in the same sentence (unless it's this one heh).
USB was taking up space on PC motherboards for, what, two years, and everyone ignored it. Then Apple adopted it, and USB devices were suddenly everywhere (yeah, Win98 having USB support helped a little, but the USB-or-nothing aspect of the iMac was much more of a driving force, because at the time USB peripherals cost a few bucks more and all the el cheapos running Windows kept buying serial and parallel devices).
Apple has no need to adopt trusted computing hardware. Without them, this junk will go nowhere-- but it might drive people who don't want it and don't want to build their own machines over to the Apple camp.
I don't know how thoroughly we've all digested it yet, but open source has arrived, and in addition to changing what people expect of their software, it has raised the bar considerably for corporations like Microsoft. It is already eating their breakfast in the server space, and it is growing to the point where in a few more years there is potential to threaten their client desktops as well, starting with businesses and other large, lucrative deployments. We as an industry are starting to recognize, and ultimatly demand, the benefits of freedom.
On the one hand I like Microsoft buying into the wild-eyed "Alamo" mentality of the content trust, trying to arm wrestle every customer for control, because the more aggressive they get with Digital Restrictions Management, the more it will drive everyone into the arms of competitors, including open and free software.
I wish I could say I thought trusted computing was doomed to fail, but frankly I think it can be considerably successful. If the end result is that your computer is not managed by you, and 3rd parties like Microsoft can take the XBox busines model (and probably, simplicity of interface) deeper into PC territory, this is probably a relief for a variety of consumers beleaguered with "general purpose" computing and all that it entails, viruses, spyware, etc. Better software architecture could solve their problems, but outside control can solve it almost as well.
I guess what will ultimately happen is balkanization, as more aggressive attempts at controlling the platform will split consumers into low and high ends. At the low end, the "game console" converges into a media system and a simple home computer, where every application is trusted and the vendor is the gatekeeper. They'll be happier because, like video consoles today, the hardware is cheap and the costs are deferred into the software and services. At the high end, the general purpose PC that is currently a staple in the home will fade into niche status - a tool for hobbyists and professionals. What fills the void in between, in the end, is hopefully a free-software-based system that is simple enough for all consumers to use, that provides them with an alternative to commercial products, perhaps marketed by a white knight corporation much as IBM has taken free software to the server world.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
...I'm going back to using my Commodore.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Ever since I've been in this field the allure of computers for me has been that you have a general-purpose device that, with a little ingenuity, can be made to do just about anything. A computer does exactly what you tell it to do. Now your average PC buyer can't even appreciate the difference between not knowing and not caring about what's inside their shiny new computers. But I can and I'll be damned if I ever spend any of my hard-earned cash on a device that will do what someone else tells it to do and not what I tell it to do.
Can't say I'm surprised. We knew this was coming several years ago. I bought a new keyboard last week and was shocked at the number of MS keyboards on display featuring the little fingerprint reader built right in. Within a few years we'll probably have the gubmint mandating all new PCs be equipped with TC elements. To keep us safe from terrorists no doubt.
On the bright side this will be hacked from here to kingdom come. In that sense it's good they're showing their hand now so intrepid BIOS hackers and EEs can start peeling away the mystery. What's that? The latest software won't work without TC? TC-compliant apps will work better together? Yeah. Right.
It's going to be so nice, knowing that my data in my PC can't be taken away, erased, trashed, or otherwise caused to be lost. This will keep my stuff secure, for me.
Finally, I'll be able to trust my computer.
Make sure to read this:
The Right To Read by RMS.
You can't handle the truth.
Bad geek, bad geek...
What'cha gonna do?
What'cha gonna do when your new hardware won't boot Linux for you?
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
That means companies can improve the security of access to corporate data, even when the PC is not connected to a network.
I thought one of the best ways to keep data secure is not to have the PC on the network...
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
It's time to push for an hard for a free bios. You can help if you
can figure out how to install a new bios on a computer, especially a
laptop. I don't know why we can put linux on an xbox but nobody can
get a free bios on a laptop.
Stick to AMD machines, avoid Intel and IBM. Heh, IBM. We talk like
they're our allies but they're pushing patents and treacherous
computing. They're a _much_ bigger threat than SCO ever was.
If you haven't yet read stallman's dystopian short story The Right To Read,
this might be a good time.
Treacherous computing is the reason I'm a GNU+linux user.
Here is what the opponents of Trusted Computing have to say.
Trust the computer!
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Another reason NOT to buy a Dell
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
this is just another phase of microsoft's assault against linux.
first was sco and all this fud about intellectual property and now this try to get all those vendors that we forced to sell our os with their pc's to really force our os on the pc and not be able to install anything else.
who knows what else they have planned but when it all fails - and as a last resort - they will launch a patent assualt and put the industry at a standstill.
All I have to say about "trusted" computing:
Democratic People's Republic of Korea - North Korea
German Democratic Republic - East Germany
Democratic Republic of the Congo - Congo
I think MS and Intel have underestimated people's determination not to be shafted by The Man.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Perfect, thats exactly what 'they' want, the less people who have a clue the better.
wanted: one clever sig,apply within
Of course, such a system would have undesirable uses as well, DRM and the like...
Yes, it's a DRM cookbook and that ain't tiger butter on those flapjax so M$ you now git your little green jacket and find some other mantra lest you end up with the butterfly tatoo and your data stuck in the small dark place.
I am so sick and fucking tired of hearing this word. Do you people know what it means? It doesn't make you sound kewl using it, it makes you look ignorant. It's a fucking scheme maybe but even that's a stretch.
Dear Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM,
In my security policy, running MS software is an unacceptable risk. Could you make me a PC that will not run any MS software at all? Oh yes, I assume I will not need to pay MS tax for a system that is disabled to run MS software.
Yours faithfully,
Spagh
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Lead? I thought they were trying to take the dangerous metals out of electronics? I think the word you want is "led".
Open suggestion to slashdot editors: stop referring to yourselves as editors which you do in fact not edit.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I agree. If MS is going to force me into trusted computing to get "stuff" done, then my next computer will be a Mac.
In fact, it may be anyway, because I hate rewarding companies who are so anti-consumer.
I'm sure I'm being redundant here and will be moderated as such, but this is the beginning of the end of the open movement and digital freedom in general..
Unless someone like IBM ponies up to pay the fees to get things authenticated to be on the 'trusted list', nothing we have will run in 5 years.
Sure, you say 'but it can be turned off', and that is true, today.. In time that wont be an option and it will be mandatory at some point in the near future for most people. Sure some will find ways around it, but not the common man which is most of the market anyway.
Anyone synthesized a Pentium in a FPGA yet? We may have to start 'making' our own chips and boards here soon if we want to remain free....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This happens now with some Thinkpads.. you lose the admin key.. *poof* your laptop and data are toast.
Sure might be a way around it, somehow.. but you think 'joe user' will know what to do?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is interesting. The link when posted using URL tags is this: broken http://www.research.ibm.com/gsal/tcpa/tcpa_rebutta l.pdf. A bug in slashcode.
correct link is this
(holds up Jedi hand....)
..........nothing to see here.....
...............these aren't the droids you're looking for......
......you may pass.........
:(
This is a trusted computer....
Well, I now know three companies I won't be buying PCs from. And, more importantly, telling my family and friends not to buy from.
Anyhow, didn't IBM sell it's PC-producing unit to a chinese company?
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
Actually, its not even so much a prediction since big companies and governments are switching already, especially since they already lock down their desktops so much anyway that managing Windows isn't so different from managing Linux. In the 90's things like the OO suite were imaginary. Now look.
Read the rest of the interview here:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/02/14/HNpalms
Like everything else, some kid will crack this scheme in no time. It will only be effective against those without the savvy to get around it. For the rest of us, it'll just be another Microsoft annoyance.
Increase my killing power, eh?
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
NORTH AMERICA, which includes our friendly canucks, have 26.7% of the worlds internet users
this is the best stat I could find on the topic,
but do you really think that 73.3 % (+ canada) of the world uses less than half of the equipment online?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
o/~ Join us now and share the software
As someone who has used MS OS since I got my first computer I'm somewhat loathe to change. However, if this starts restricting what I can and can't run / watch on my comp with DRM style controls I'm switching. Either to linux or or Mac if I can affored it
I'm still ticked about compaq putting my XP install on a hard drive partition instead of giving me the disk.
I don't know of all of the details but it seems just like how DVDs are supposted to be secure and encrypted all along the decoding chain. We all know how well that turned out. And ultimately we must think was it such a bad thing to have the encryption broken? It maybe purely coincidental but it looks to me like people were happier and more willing to buy DVD hardware in computers once this was broken and made openly available.
In general, security is about holding secrets in the right places. Putting secrets in the portable hardware is not the smartest thing to do. Isn't it is like taping the key to your front door on your front door? Help me understand why this is a good idea beyond vague marketing?
Ok... say all the other doomsday things somehow dont happen... there is one thing that WILL happen... note that in the description of how it works on microsofts site, that you control the parameters, and an agent oversees activities and such... people here keep thinking that it has to do with DRM, but actually it has to do with third party compatibility!!!! right now i can reverse engineer ms file formats for say Word.. i can then write an application that does something tha Word does not. if i pay microsoft then they will allow me access to the encrypted representation but if i am not then there will be no way for my new apps to work with the apps of microsoft. new software is seldomly a stand along affair. many companies exist by making addons, and all kinds of things, and they are not required to pay royalties to the original company because they are manipulating data that CAN be manipulated. worse than spying on you... it will kill interoperability by third party players with potentially disruptive technology... and since the main things in windows are embeded inthe operating system, almost all software will have to license some kind of access as the browser will lock up what it knows too. this has been a bug a boo of big companies for ages. they dont like that a small trim company can come along and expand their product down lucrative paths that they cant respond to given their size and internal cultures. so while general motors makes engines, you can buy add on and modifications from third parties, or make your own. general motors hates that it cant make ALL the money that is derivitive of their products. the same is true of tons of other products of which we have the FREEDOM to modify as we see fit to fit our needs.... another thing ms and the others hate are ms experts that dont pay to be part of the ms world to get their answers. i can see this locking out consultants that write or customize software unless they get permission through ms or another to have access to it. dont worry though.. the minute that something onerous does get in, you will see people making PC's that dont have it... they will run old operating systems and live with the problems or work around them like they do when they dont have a patch... the key here is that such technology is not legislated into place. so we as consumers do have a choice... 10 years ago things were changing faster than the lull we are in now, and capacity of the machines changed rapidly... but we now have approached the level where for 95% the machines that exist can do more than we can put them through!!! and thats the saving grace.. i will just boot up my p4 with win 98.. if software dont run, i will then just use something else that will.. software developers already have a hard time with such small margins and such high costs.. breaking them will not leave an open playing field as ms and the others think. its a reductionist view thats doomed to failure as they dont realize that maximum exploitation of their environment happens when there is a rich and varied ecosystem to support it... when it dries out there is less reason to innovate or move forward and your customers are not as happy.. which i guess is fine if you are running in telecom or banking.. information technology wants to have the same captive customers... all because everyone is so pinched that the only businesses that do real well any more are those with captive customers (usually through contracts that border and make excursions into usury). the move by companies to control their customers rather than service and please them is a scary trend that i fear will only get worse as time goes by.... we should never have granted companies entity status in the 1800's.. some of the seeds of our downfall was in that, and more have been planted along the way... and soon will bear fruit as the united states loses its preeminence to the companies it created that have left the nest of national level business and now are no longer beholding to the nest as they live in the global sphere. politicians are not too bright in the last few years... they dont realize that once a company goes global its no longer in its best interest to remain loyal to the country of origin!!!!!!!!!
Good thing those repressive commie Chineese support IP rights so strongly! People in other countries aren't so much stupid consumers as Americans. It'll take like 30 seconds for some manufacturer in Taiwan to come out with a DRM-free motherboard and own the market.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Am I right in thinking that it only takes one person to crack the right part of TC, and he could, for instance, tell every TC PC to erase it's own hard drive? Or to lock every document you've written under TC? Or to lock everyone out of a particular OS?
If so, given the track record of "computers vs. people", isn't TC just a time bomb waiting to go off?
Or is there a genuine system in place that will make abusing it impossible? If so, what IS it?
So.. it has come to this
1) Locks only keep honest people out.
2) As in cooking frog's, you do it a little bit at a time...
3) I.B.M. = I Bought Mac!
4) I.B.M. = It Beats Me!
5) Hope that young lady runner is warming up to toss the hammer again! We need her more than ever!
6) How to get blood from a Turnup. You dont. You get it from the Magician.
7) If this is like most of MS concepts. It will have ten trillion "features". Take revision 3 to get it right and after that will break untill revision 6. The redesign it after it bypasses by the industry for version 7.
8) Kind of like. Here is the solution to the noise in the car. Make the drive deaf!
9) Never ask the problem if its a problem. It always lies and hides!
mmap, ramfs and stream encryption locally for really sensitive data
blockdevices + stream encryption locally data
and ssl tunnelling for network data
assuming that they run the encryption loop hardware so the whole system doesn't grind to a halt.
The question that needs asking is:
Why would a user not want to be able to access there data and is that law full to prevent them?
DRM breaks current copyright legeslation if it doesn't use a key escrow to release it into the public domain.
(yes things are currently released into the public domain when they fall out of copyright)
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Ok. say all the other doomsday things somehow dont happen. there is one thing that WILL happen. note that in the description of how it works on microsofts site, that you control the parameters, and an agent oversees activities and such. people here keep thinking that it has to do with DRM, but actually it has to do with third party compatibility!!!! right now i can reverse engineer ms file formats for say Word.. i can then write an application that does something tha Word does not. if i pay microsoft then they will allow me access to the encrypted representation but if i am not then there will be no way for my new apps to work with the apps of microsoft. new software is seldomly a stand along affair. many companies exist by making addons, and all kinds of things, and they are not required to pay royalties to the original company because they are manipulating data that CAN be manipulated. worse than spying on you... it will kill interoperability by third party players with potentially disruptive technology... and since the main things in windows are embeded inthe operating system, almost all software will have to license some kind of access as the browser will lock up what it knows too. this has been a bug a boo of big companies for ages. they dont like that a small trim company can come along and expand their product down lucrative paths that they cant respond to given their size and internal cultures. so while general motors makes engines, you can buy add on and modifications from third parties, or make your own. general motors hates that it cant make ALL the money that is derivitive of their products. the same is true of tons of other products of which we have the FREEDOM to modify as we see fit to fit our needs.... another thing ms and the others hate are ms experts that dont pay to be part of the ms world to get their answers. i can see this locking out consultants that write or customize software unless they get permission through ms or another to have access to it. dont worry though.. the minute that something onerous does get in, you will see people making PC's that dont have it... they will run old operating systems and live with the problems or work around them like they do when they dont have a patch... the key here is that such technology is not legislated into place. so we as consumers do have a choice... 10 years ago things were changing faster than the lull we are in now, and capacity of the machines changed rapidly... but we now have approached the level where for 95% the machines that exist can do more than we can put them through!!! and thats the saving grace.. i will just boot up my p4 with win 98.. if software dont run, i will then just use something else that will.. software developers already have a hard time with such small margins and such high costs.. breaking them will not leave an open playing field as ms and the others think. its a reductionist view thats doomed to failure as they dont realize that maximum exploitation of their environment happens when there is a rich and varied ecosystem to support it... when it dries out there is less reason to innovate or move forward and your customers are not as happy.. which i guess is fine if you are running in telecom or banking.. information technology wants to have the same captive customers... all because everyone is so pinched that the only businesses that do real well any more are those with captive customers (usually through contracts that border and make excursions into usury). the move by companies to control their customers rather than service and please them is a scary trend that i fear will only get worse as time goes by.... we should never have granted companies entity status in the 1800's.. some of the seeds of our downfall was in that, and more have been planted along the way... and soon will bear fruit as the united states loses its preeminence to the companies it created that have left the nest of national level business and now are no longer beholding to the nest as they live in the global sphere. politicians are not too bright in the last few years... they dont realize that once a company goes global its no longer in its best interest to remain loyal to the country of origin!!!!!!!!!
I think the general understanding of "trusted computing" is missing the mark. The idea of TC is that the CPU garuntees that the code it executes has been authenticated, and that its transport to/from RAM/IO is also authtenticated.
This prevents casual logic analyzers and other hardware hacktools from reverse engineering the component level interoperability. While its not a garuntee of securing the design, it sure elevates the level of effort required to manufacture alternative hardware components.
Sound familiar? Does the song "microchannel" dance in your mind? Sure Microchannel failed beacause it was an IBM-only idea. Now, there seems to be growing support for across major PC vendors. But wait, there's more...
If you are reasonably assured that the hardware is 'authenticated', now you can upstream that concept to the software. Now you can use various hardware level cryptography to ensure that the hard disk has only authenticly signed boot signatures, and if it does not, the device will simply fail at a *hardware* level. Makes it hard to install viruses, er, I mean alternate OS'es.
Sound like "wishful" thinking? Look at the design specs for the XBOX. This is the first cut at secure computing platform, with some level of hardware & software authentication. The idea being it will be very difficult to release non-licensed titles for the device. Look how long it took before some clever (ok, VERY clever) ppl got Linux to run on it.
Have you seen any non-MS licensed developers releasing titles for the XBOX ? No, of course not - because the hardware/software authentication scheme is sufficiently robust enough to prevent that.
In short, when you buy a DELL, IBM pc under the "trusted computing" design, you'll have a choice of OS. Once. Just once. Until some very clever ppl figure out how to install linux there too...
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
"An anonymous reader wrote to let us known about a News.com story regarding so-called trusted computing,"
I guess even a spellcheck wouldn't fix that one.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Sums it up nicely. Do nothing now, and you'll certianly be doing nothing later.
fack Windows-drones and those users, burn baby burn!
but I just don't trust it or the motives of those behind it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
why I should care about this if I build my own whitebox computers? Has Abit and ASUS jumped on board with this?
"But put together and nice consortium of the largest hardware makers... and boom, everything's ok and fuck the consumer since he no longer has much choice."
Not buying a computer is a choice. It's just not the *desired* choice. The same can be said for illegal downloads. Maybe one of these days people will start walking the walk, instead of just talking the talk?
Are you happy, citizen?
After doing some reading me and my family find that "trusted computing" is not what we want. We are planning to get two new PCs for Christmas and now I know what vendors to exclude.
"The market always has ways around this."
Unfortunately it only has the courage to use the illegal ones. I'll be impressed by the "market" when you all learn how to vote with your dollars, and your votes.
Older hardware is a problem for trusted computing. There is simply no way they could stamp out all the old hardware in moving to trusted computing. Black markets would emerge to sell non trusted computing devices. It would be way too lucrative if they try to go to trusted computing for companies that only care about profit and nothing else to come in and fill the void.
to steal our stuff. Therefore, you should trust us....to bug your computer! HA! HAHA!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I am in charge of purchasing desktops and servers for the IT department as well as desktops for a number of classrooms at a larger Massachusetts university.
From an ethical point I cannot support "trusted computing" and the interests of the companies behind it.
I hereby annouce that I will no longer support purchases from those companies and will make all future purchases of servers or desktop from companies that do not support "trusted computing" or "DRM" initiatives.
I also would like to urge other system administrators and IT personel in charge of purchasing to consider those recent developments in their purchase decisions and speak up against "trusted computing".
Thank you all for your solidarity!
If only I had a dollar for every time a /.er posted an end of the world scenario over OS lockin instead of offering to spearhead a real solution to Windows, I'd be living on my own tropical island not caring even more.
No sig for you!!
If you don't like it, don't buy this stuff. It's as easy as that. The base of slightly knowledgeable users who will only buy 'free' hardware is large enough to be considered, in my opinion.
... China certainly won't buy this stuff, and if will make their own if necessary (already a lot of hardware factories here).
And don't forget about the rest of the world
Try as hard as they can, Longhorn will never take Duke Nukem Forever's title!
I don't know what country you live in, but in the USA our laws are made by corporations. If "pirate networks" gain in popularity, they will be outlawed and people who promote them or run them will be put in jail.
hardware dongles? Or DVD CSS for that matter?
You might say "but but but but but but" this is going to be different, more secure, stronger.
Or something. But you're still going to be selling the public hardware, that they control. Hell, some of these computers will never be accessing the internet or any network at all. How will you control what they do after you turn them into the hands of the customer?
You made hardware dongles for expensive programs, they were broken. You made hardware copy protection for console game platforms, it was broken (even when games were shipped as a cartridge, eventually people made cloners)
You've made DVD players you thought were unbreakable, unleashed them on the masses, then they were broken, so to spite everyone you created new laws to try to stop people from doing it (DMCA)
You created directTV and dish network. They're hacked. And before that? Satallite TV was scrambled, but there were descramblers.
ANY hardware based "encryption" or "dongle" or "trusted computing initiative" is security through obscurity. Do you think every person who ever worked for all these conglomerate companies will be able to keep a secret?
The first person who finds out you use pins 1 and 6 on the chip to pass keying information will end up leaking it to the public. Said public will start watching those pins and find out what needs to be sent to "ok" a program running.
So you tell me your "dongle" is smack dab in the middle of the CPU, no sniffing possible?
Someone will just realease the keys then. It's only a matter of time. In the meantime, you're just blowing smoke up the asses of all the customers you have who want this product, and pissing off all the customers who don't want this product.
Give it a rest. PC's were pretty cool until you started breaking them. If you make them too hard to use, the world as a whole will find something new to play with.
HP is already on the fritz because they've merged too many times and found out they can't be the next IBM. Imagine if everyone stops buying from you and starts buying from a toaster company?
You have it the wrong way around. Don't know me that you only have one master (your Mac)?
A few years back, when I was a law student, I wrote my law review student note on trusted computing (published last year). I've made it available here if anyone is interested. Not sure I still agree with the thesis but hey, I was ensconced in academia when I wrote it.
http://actusre.us/cjam/woodford.pdf
"Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't." --Erica Jong
They will make their own version of these technologies, but theirs will be easy to use and come in a pretty case and people will hail Apple as visionaries.
So long as the intent is to provide security for documents that the computer user has created, or has to work with this can be something usefull and not evil. So anybody creating a 'sensitive' document with say MS office applications could prevent those documents from being read by anybody other than the intended audiance. It seems from the Atmel spec that the 'fritz' chip is nothing more than an encryption engine, and that the trusted computer hardware is based on the use of encryption. Only the allowed applications on a computer with the right keys can decrypt the protected document.
Taking this a bit futher, if the computer operating system got involved only approved applications could be loaded and run. If the bios got involved, then only an approved OS could be loaded. However in the last case, this would be a 'setting' in the bios that the computer owner could control from the bios setup screen. Now in the case of a computer in an employee's office the bios would have a password for access and the computer case would be locked so you couldn't reset the bios by removing the battery.
Any computer that you or I would buy for our own use would not have those restrictions. We would still not be able to read 'protected' documents (word, media, etc) without running the required applications and having the hardware authorization in concert with those applications. Of course, encryption can sometimes be broken so this scheme is only as secure as the encryption. (how many bits long did you say the key was?)
The whole point of the so called trusted computing initiative is to lock the hell out of the PC so that the home user will not have control over the userland environment at all. As far as the business world wanting trusted computing..just ask any sysadmin about what they think of windows and file access permissions. There is no frigging way that most sysadmins will trust Redmond to do anything for his users computers. The whole push has been from the entertainment industry.
The real world business community (especially small business) is getting sick and tired of the upgrade and break things world of Microshaft.
The issue here is a deep one. Our current legal paradigm is skewed exclusively towards Imperative programming. The public and judges and most lawyers understand no other. We try to prohibit side-effects that the legal system doesn't want by limits to functions that might compute them. The net result, since side-effects of functions are quite unpredictable, is the only way to enforce undesirable side-effects is to censor the functions in advance. This amounts to pre-censorship rather than the present unsuccessful post-censorship. It also drives attempts at defining, in advance, which functions are off-limits conceptually (by software patents).
This amounts to taking away the right to program an (approximation to) a universal computing device. To the extent this approach succeeds, it will be to the detriment of computational freedom generally.
The line of defense in the long run *must* be the freedom to compute anything. Computation is like thinking. You can't censor it in advance by rules.
a detailed explanation of why you should vow to never buy anything that implements this. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html
Trusted Path? no, controlled by a 3rd party
Authentication? no, controlled by a 3rd party
Discretionary access control? yes
Mandatory access control? no, controlled by a 3rd party
Audit? only for the third-party
Labels? no
Label Integrity? no
Labelling on export/printing? yes
Assurance? no, controlled by a 3rd party
Covert Channels protection? no, built-in covert channels
All in all, enough to cerate a brand-new level to as to the existing A1 through D". Level "F", do not buy for any reason (:-))
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
I love reading comments that refer to potential concerns about Trusted Computing as FUD. Some of them even try to draw a parallel to the anti-GPL FUD that gets spread around.
Let's take a close look at the situation though. No one forces you to license your software under the GPL. There is even a special license (the LGPL) that allows you to write open source libraries without requiring that people who use them also release their code under the GPL. Now, we can debate all day long about the philosophical implications of "freedom" and GPL vs. public domain licensing, or whether software should be licensed at all, but none of this is remotely comparable to the potential dangers of Trusted Computing.
As has been mentioned numerous times in this thread, Trusted Computing refers to trusting code and data (i.e. code and data must be digitally signed before the CPU has access to it).
The article summary above indicates that this is a hardware vendor push since it seems to be originating from manufacturers, not Microsoft. However, let's take a look at the list: IBM, Dell, and HP. Now, which ubiquitous operating system runs on all three of these platforms? That's right. It's MS Windows.
The point is that you and I are not privvy to any clandestine meetings, backroom deals, or secret phone conversations. None of us have any idea about what's really going on. Microsoft could have just as easily told the three major PC makers that they are about to add DRM to their operating system, so there had better be some platforms capable of running it when it hits the shelves.
I notice a few people don't seem worried about this blatent attempt to force us all into using DRM hardware. "You can still use whatever software you want!" they say. Any of you who have owned Dells know that the MS Windows install CDs that come with the PC only work on Dells, and sometimes not even different models. Given that Microsoft is a software monopoly, and IBM, Dell, and HP produce the vast majority of PC hardware in the world, why would it surprise you in the least that they would eventually add vendor verification to their hardware to prevent you from running anything but MS Windows?
Microsoft doesn't want competition. They want small start-ups that they can buy to add software to their list of products (DOS, Basic, DirectX, Excel, Visio, Internet Explorer... the list goes on). After that, they can shut out all other competitors in that area. If they can enforce this with hardware-based digital signatures, it would make them very happy.
Now, it wouldn't be a "monopoly" because they'd have means for software and content producers to apply for signature keys, but it would naturally cost money (probably lots of it) and developers would have to be registered with some kind of central authority, sort of like Verisign. Shortly after this, the Internet as we know it will be "owned" by media companies. They produce the content, they control who can use it, how, and how often, and they can lock out anyone they like. How great would it be if all the independant musicians that are supposed to find freedom and equality on the Internet were now kept from distributing their music because they couldn't pay the RIAA licensing fees that would allow TC-based computers to play their songs? It would be a panacea for the record execs, plus put an end to all this talk of the recording industry's dying business model.
These companies are interested in one thing: increasing profit margins. They do not care about independent artists, open source, free speech, anti-trust laws (insofar as they will break them if they can get away with it), or you. Don't think for a second that any of this is actually in your best interest as a computer user. If Microsoft was concerned about you, they would have fixed the security holes, increased stability and usability, improved performance, and stopped the ridiculous practice of forced upgrades. The worst part is that they are not just preventing you from consuming vapid "pop culture", but creating a mechanism that could potentially lock down all available hardware so all you are able to access is the drivel they want to shove down your throat! If you are blind enough to trust them, you deserve what you get.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
I say we try to stop this before it takes off. Boycott Dell, IBM, HP, and any other company that supports trusted computing, protest the government everytime it tries to regulate the internet, and support local artists instead of the crap on the radio. If trusted computing is successful then there would be no point in trying to create a new internet because it would be banned.
to take the lead in writing software to utilize this technology. Of course, that is, if their not too busy writing rants condemning it, like everyone on this post.
Vote for Pedro
Hmm... trusted computing from trusted corporations
I think its a given that most people will think this protects their windows box from viruses and spam. When they find out it doesn't, they'll trust "trusted computing" and the "trusted corporations" it comes from even less. Nobody will have seen that one coming, at least not the drones that dreamed it up.
Maybe they'll end up being forced to put a truth-in-advertising disclaimer on the 'Trusted Computing Inside" sticker that'll get stamped on the computer - "Trusted computing doesn't protect you from viruses, trojans, or spam. It just means we don't trust YOU to compute responsibly"
At least I know who not to buy computers from. There will always be a market for freedom.
So I lauch piratedoffice.exe which is cracked, the operating system then checks the signature on the
I'm having trouble working out the details of the "evilness" - it seems it needs to happen at the OS level. If that is not the case and this becomes adopted it will be a good day in FOSS land as every little programmer can't afford to auth with a code evaluation lab. It would remove a ton of freeware and shareware from the Win platform which seems counter MS's business interests. If they do do anything so stupid linux will take off like a rocket. Furthurmore, someone like RedHat can pay to have their key signed by whoever generates the public key on your board which means FOSS can even benefit here by building off this HW based web of trust. Remember when the FSF servers were comprised? Its not like isn't an issue.
Does Apple's iTunes and iTunes Music Store not consitute 'prior art' for Trusted Computing?
I mean come on - you have files that are secured to a specific (set of up to 5) Mac(s) or PC(s).
Even with a username/password I cannot open the file on just any computer.
The difference is that Apple allows you to deauthorize ("distrust"?) a computer and authorized ("trust") another to manipulate the set of 0-5 "trusted" computers.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
The link tags are mis-placed.
If you click on the link, add "al.pdf" after the address once you get the 404 error.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Of course, such a system would have undesirable uses as well, DRM and the like...
From the TC faq:
"unless your system administrator configures your machine in such a way that TC is mandatory, you can always turn it off. You can then run your PC as before, and use insecure applications.
There is one small problem, though. If you turn TC off, Fritz won't hand out the keys you need to decrypt your files and run your bank account. Your TC-enabled apps won't work as well, or maybe at all. It will be like switching from Windows to Linux nowadays; you may have more freedom, but end up having less choice. If the TC apps are more attractive to most people, or are more profitable to the app vendors, you may end up simply having to use them - just as many people have to use Microsoft Word because all their friends and colleagues send them documents in Microsoft Word. By 2008, you may find that the costs of turning TC off are simply intolerable. "
Seriously. Trusted Computing is nearly non optional in the future if you are the CEO of a public company. Do you want to be the CEO who sits there on the witness stand and has to answer the question "Did you use all commercially available means to ensure the integrity of private company data?" and explain why you thought Trusted Computing was a bad idea, so you chose to ignore it on grounds of principle?
Does anyone have a comprehensive list of the PCs/parts that ship with 'trusted computing' built into them?
I have been fighting the TCPA for about 2 years now. I spend a couple hours a week handing out flyers and bumper stickers to kids on college campuses and holding information meetings once a week. If all of us distribute enough content, the masses may have the power of knowledge to reject the TCPA. However, people can only reject something if they have the information. I'll continue my fight; I ask that all of you join. This site has a lot of resources that I use. http://www.antitcpa.com/ please inform the masses and we can win. The balance of power will shift in the favor of the consumer once again, its natural law.
Given a DVD burner and a Mac, it's trivial to burn your own non-system-restricted install DVD from the system-specific one. Apple may not want you to do it, but it's a lot more convenient than installing an old version of Panther from the retail CD set, followed by downloading several hundred MB of upgrades. It may even violate the EULA, although I'll start worrying about such technicalities when Apple start paying for my download bandwidth and disc-swapping time. But you needn't feel bad about it if you are using it as a replacement for the CD set.
It boils down to disabling the bundled software section in a plist file: Instructions.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
Th vendors are just preying on fear.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Don't read that communist stuff. Well, Bill Gates said it was communist stuff. And he wouldn't say something that wasn't true right? We can trust him.
no. you can break other people's fiber, which will make them Very Unhappy, but you can't tap it.
In corporate America, computer runs YOU.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
Tech Public Policy stuff
Got the D610 bulk order in today. TPM Secruity and TPM Activation modules in bios. You can choose to turn them on/off in bios. I don't know if that is application/os controllable (as in the active-x script that turned on cpu proc ser# years ago). For whatever the score is on that...the TPM was deactivated out of the box in bios. If it continues to be that way, people will have to manually change it to load Longhorn TCPA compatible OS onto the PC. Only difference between D600 and D610 was chipset and video card choice (600 was an AGP set/610 is PCI-E). My IBM T30 was to be replaced with the new Dell hotness...I'll be holding onto it a bit longer I suppose. Not that IBM is any better on the TC side of this (I believe they had TPM's first trial run as a "security chip option" earlier.
Further, iTunes.app is only the default player for Audio CDs. It is very nice, but it is not required. You may change your default in your "CDs & DVDs" panel in System Preferences.app. You are free to use any application of your choosing.
BTW, welcome to the platform. :-)
The common guy wont be able to do much of what you describe.
They can barely stop the VCR from blinking 12:00, how do you expect them to comprehend the concept of undoing some low level system hardware..
The common man is 90% of any market..
Just a side note, yes the 'dongle' can, and will at some point, be placed at the CPU level.. And all supporting chips.. "End to end" trusted computing i think they call it..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
There is a rough overview and list of further reading available at
http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~gavin/tcpa/essay.pdf
If the readers wish to actually inform themselves about TCPA and not listen to the FUD blindly spread by those that haven't read the technical specifications.
"Uh huh, whatever."
Whatever is correct. When "whatever" you all are doing actually starts resembling "civil disobediance" instead of just "crimminal behaviour"? Then you'll be taken seriously.
How the hell is this modded off topic, whoever did that should be punched in the face and never given mod points again, in fact people who prove they can't read should be banned from slashdot altogether.
"But you just have to look at Slashdot to see that governments/corporations are in full scale war against bittorrent and p2p, the NSA is getting geered up to spy on everyone, not just those outside America."
Going to Slashdot for news, is like going to the Tabloids to see if Elvis is still alive.
How far does it extend? (software apps run only if trusted?.... or can user override, much like browser certificates).
What does it mean for linux installs? Dual boot installs?
Who controls these "keys"?
Who controls "trust"?
Is there a mod classification of "paranoid" for this post?
I think I'll just sum it up shortly:
Unless you need to access or interact with a) data protected by DRM, b) applications protected by DRM or c) networks protected by DRM, it does not matter.
But if you can't play any commercial audio or video file, run any Windows program or access the data with a Linux clone, connect to MSN/Yahoo/ICQ or any other "secure" network service, and possibly not connect to the Internet at all (they have said they want to create a DRM-protected Internet), what is left?
Yes, you can run Linux. Yes, you can run any software you want. Yes, you can modify any GPL code. But then it will no longer interoperate with anything but other "untrusted" systems, nor with its old data.
Think of it this way: Today you are root, or administrator if you will. Tomorrow "trusted computing" is root, and gives you a limited user account, where everyone else can impose limits on any content or application they provide you. Even though it is your machine, you will have no power over your computer.
To say that you are in control because you can run Linux, is as silly as saying you are in control because you can delete your home directory. You get to do only what your user permissions let you. It can be removed at any time by shipping hardware where it is not optional, and where it will not boot anything but approved binaries.
"Trusted computing" makes your computer the master, you the slave and content providers the "invisible hand" instructing the master what the slave can and can not do. It is a leash, and you are the one being collared. They give you a free rein now, but they will rein you tight once you have no choice.
Damn, for a short summing up it got pretty long...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
No need to worry yet: AFAIUnderstand, the news is mostly about a chip that holds the private key and generates the key pair on demand.
An (external) device like this might come in handy if there is a break-in and hop... the public key is undamaged, the system alerts, the intruder is screwed (no log deletion etc.). However, I wonder how long will it take to make the chip obsolete (the criptography evolves, the chip does not!).
The chip is shipped for some time now with (some) IMB laptops, and has a GPL driver and Linux support.
And btw, IBM, one of the adopters, is not interested in "one OS to rule them all". Look: MS forcedly dominates, prices rize, IT budgets rise, no one buys IBM's Iron.
Moreover, IBM is interested in commodization of OS market. They've spent billions on Linux and OSS, and they are reaping the reward -- increased demand in servers and services.
WYSIWIG, but what you see might not be what you need
Well, I don't remember if it was a TOS agreement, but the name of the window that popped up was "iTunes Music Store", not "iTunes player" or anything. I mean, for all the bitching I do about windows, at least cdplayer.exe doesn't make you click through a EULA just to play a damn CD - that's ridiculous. Just another example of Apple taking advantage of users who don't know any better than to click "OK - OK - I Agree - OK" without reading the fine print.
:-)"
"BTW, welcome to the platform.
Yeah, no. I worked exclusively on a Mac from age 10 to age 17 just cuz it was the only platform MOTU professional composer ran on. At age 17 my folks got our first PC and within 6 months I was an total convert. And with God as my witness the only time I ever touch a Mac is when I'm being paid to do so. I could tell you so many horror stories about state-of-the-art Mac and ProTools rigs completely flaking out for no reason, with no error messages, at random times during very expensive studio sessions (and mind you these were brand new systems donated to the school by Apple and Digidesign) it would make your head spin.
They've come a long way, but they've got a long way to go. The main thing they need to do is stop being so cocky as to make massive assumptions about their users - like that they'll never need to copy old files from an old mac via floppy.
But boy, they sure are pretty.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
The only way to arrive at the iTMS TOS agreement is to click on the Music Store icon, click the sign in button, then click the create account button. If I am not mistaken, there is a "Take me to the iTunes Music Store" checkbox on the last panel of the setup assistant, so the window could be named "iTunes Music Store." With all the flashy graphics and album covers though, I doubt you'd mistake that for a license agreement. The license for iTunes.app is presented on launch as part of the setup assistant until you agree to it. If you disagree, the program exits. The license, in my experience, is also presented before each update allowing you to check for changes.
I mean, for all the bitching I do about windows, at least cdplayer.exe doesn't make you click through a EULA just to play a damn CD - that's ridiculous.
As I mentioned earlier, you do not have to agree to the license or use iTunes at all. You don't need to create an iTMS account to use iTunes. The defaults are simple to change. You can use QuickTime Player to get bare bones CD playing, or you can download any number of freeware/shareware apps that will do the job quite nicely. Trash iTunes if you like. Doing so won't affect the operation of your OS.
Just another example of Apple taking advantage of users who don't know any better than to click "OK - OK - I Agree - OK" without reading the fine print.
If you don't mind my asking, what part of the agreement did you find so odious? I saw nothing invasive in it.
"setup assistant"
that's probably what happened, cuz this lady said she took a stab at the setup asst herself before I got there...
"You can use QuickTime Player to get bare bones CD playing"
I did not know that... I'm not a big mac guy, in case you couldn't tell, a friend of my mom's needed help and had nobody else to call, so I took a stab at it. And for my first time ever sitting down with osx in my life, I did OK. Just couldn't get macwrite installed on the new one cuz it had no floppy drive... the cocky bastards...
"The defaults are simple to change."
Not if you're, like my mom's friend, an average (read: computer-illiterate and rich) mac consumer. Then you just click OK-OK-I Agree-OK cuz you just want the damn thing to work. Or ir you're, like me (read mac-illiterate and poor) not intimately familiar with the ins and outs of osx, much less that quicktime plays CDs...
"If you don't mind my asking, what part of the agreement did you find so odious?"
Just the annoyance, really. I thought MS EULA's were annoying, at least they don't have one to play a stupid CD. There's no good reason for that.
But buy, it sure is pretty.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
*cring* I'm just guessing here, but you don't really want to run macwrite, right? You have old files in macwrite format that need to be saved? If so, you might find some handy information at Macintouch. That doesn't help you get them off the floppy, but you could just email them from a floppy equipped pc, no?
"Not if you're, like my mom's friend, an average (read: computer-illiterate and rich) mac consumer."
That sounds more like a computer-phobia thing. Once she's settled in though, you'll be glad she has one. No monthly calls for spyware/virus removal. :-)
"Or ir you're, like me (read mac-illiterate and poor) not intimately familiar with the ins and outs of osx"
Stick with it. You'll like it once you get the gist. Want to flip your mom's friend out for a second? Just hold down control-option-apple and press 8. Then say "Oh crap!! I think I broke it!" Repeat the key sequence to return to normal ;-)
"much less that quicktime plays CDs..."
Well *it can be done* but I wouldn't recommend it :-) 'Bare bones' meaning it plays the songs like individual sound files. You can hear the tunes, but it's certainly a less than perfect experience. If you just detest iTunes for one reason or another, I'd check into one of the shareware/freeware players available at versiontracker.com. Definitely give iTunes a chance though. It really does everything you could ask of it, and there are no gotchas in the application's EULA for regular use.
"There's no good reason for that."
I believe the main reason iTunes has a separate EULA is that it makes use of services from Kerbango, Gracenote, etc. Rather than force you to agree to those terms with the OS install, it's limited to the only app that makes use of those services. Minor annoyance, sure, but if Gracenote decides to change their license to "All your base are belong to us." then you aren't forced to scrap the system, just iTunes :-)
Not that it would ever happen in the first place, but I think keeping those things out of the main system EULA is a good thing. That same philosophy keeps the DRM clause out of iTunes.app if don't want to buy anything from iTMS. Compare that with Microsoft, who has a DRM clause right there in the Win XP EULA. I will never use Windows, because I cannot agree to their EULA's terms.
Oh you can boot Linux but you won't be using it in any useful way. IIS will dominate the webservers in the world because their's will run on the "secure global information network". Why not use "dummy" technology that doesn't actually control the networks or internet through this, but only gives the impression of it to the server (if that happens in the end of course)?
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot