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Mac OS X Intel Kernel Uses DRM
An anonymous reader submits "Several people have discovered that the new Intel kernel Apple has included with the Developer Kit DVD uses TCPA/TPM DRM. More specifically, it includes "a TCPA/Palladium implementation that uses a Infineon 1.1 chip which will prevent certain parts of the OS from working unless authorized."
I don't get it - Apple's hardware has always been close system as you can get from PC type computer. So of course they can be 'accidentaly' early addopters of Palladium. Don't like it? Choose another vendor.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Apparently Apple's DRM kernel extension only gets involved when Rosetta is executing code. In other words, if you're running native code, there's no checking. But apparently some critical parts of the kernel are still being executed by Rosetta. And reimplementing the `AppleTPMACPI.kext' in a completely harmless manner (such that it always returns a "Yes go ahead" signal) is an option. As is replacing it at runtime via mach_override.
These boxes aren't even for sale yet. I'm sure that it'll be cracked before that even happens.
iirc, intel's drm is based on a supopsedly "hacker proof" chip that has an rsa keypair in it.
everyone know how those uncrackable chips fared... well every time they tried to do something like this. it failed miserably.
i know what you'll say. "microsoft managed it with the xbox". which is bogus, microsoft's problem is the complete opposite as this one. microsoft is trying to prevent unsigned code from running on "their" hardware.
apple is trying to prevent their code from running on "unsigned" hardware. that implies the private key is in the paladium chip so it can "sign" a token sent by the OS. that's the worst case senario, and it will just take a few months to reverse engineer and distribute apple's private key along with pearpc (yes, you can read the key from that suposedly secure chip).
another possible implementation is that the chip just sends an "apple" id. maybe s string of text or something like that. that's even easier to circumvent.
don't be fooled by their marketing, pearpc will work just fine, albeit maybe illegally in the US (and canada soon). thanks to the DMCA
Oh do stop panicing, this will be cracked, and easily, if it has not already been done.
I am beginning to think companies put these copy protection things in the hardware for a variety of reasons:
1) They get free advertising with the protests.
2) They get free advertising when it is cracked.
3) They get free advertising when they chase the crackers.
4) They get free advertising when they chase the cracks' distributors.
And maybe it gives the content providers a warm fuzzy feeling.
threadeds blog
No big deal then. I'd expect them to port all the code to x86 by the time they release those things anyway, and other software vendors will surely follow soon.
Ugg. How many times does it have to be said?
THESE ARE DEVELOPER MACHINES AND DO NOT REPRESENT HARDWARE THAT APPLE WILL SHIP.
There's a word for people like you: a useful idiot.
Sure, Apple has coded up this DRM implementation for fun and has no intention of using it. Apple and Jobs has sold you out... get over it. They jumped to Intel to get this Trusted Computing stuff and now they are using it.
You can put your hands over your ears and sing lalalalalala, but it won't change anything. The message that has to go out from here is simple and the same one that should go out to any software/hardware company that involves itself with this anti-customer bullshit: Don't buy Apple. If their sales drop because of this action, then perhaps they'll listen... but if idiots like you continue to defend their actions with ever more ludicrous excuses that won't happen.
I still think the problems raised by DRM are greater and more severe than those it purports to fix. Obviously, fair use and doctrine of first sale are the first to disappear. But also, common carriage is at risk, and if DRM gets into routers and switches then it will be possible to make the Internet into the same mess the telecommunications network is in.
The nature of DRM and the clumsy attempts we have seen so far also indicate that there is great potential for human rights abuse, too. There is of course the ability to monitor who is interacting with whom, the DRM software has to track this to work. There is also the ability to block or censor communications. After all, restricting access or dissemination is what DRM is all about. And that directly affects both the right to free speech and the right to peaceably assemble -- after all what can be published or organized without the Internet or the Web these days, without them you're shut off.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Interesting aside - last night my flatmate wandered in while I was talking to another geek friend about the TCA, Windows DRM^H^H^HVista and related matters.
This guy is no techie (christ, he asked me to help him hook his monitor up last week), but he listened in and asked us to explain exactly what Trusted Computing was. We sketched out the very basics - media files dialling home before play, your rights/viewing-licence agreement changing after purchase at the whims of the content producer, other theoretically possible restrictions that DRM allows for, files refusing to play on non-trusted platforms and your PC dynamically downsampling future DVDs if it detects your monitor isn't Trusted.
At the end of the five-minute conversation (again, attempting to inform rather than frighten) the guy was more pissed off than I've ever seen him - practically kicking furniture and swearing he'd never buy a bit of TCA-compliant electronics. Ever.
As I said, while this guy isn't stupid, he's not even remotely technical. And when he appreciated the actual, real-life restrictions Trusted Computing would place on him he was angry.
There is hope for these people, if they can be educated before the fight is over.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
Damn, talk about irony! The entire "free software" community has had its fists buried so deeply in its ears over this issue for years now it is doubtful we can make a meaningful recovery of the ground that has been lost.
You try to pretend TCPA and DRM can be killed at birth and you are wrong. You try tto pretend DRM cannot be made to work and you are wrong. The same technology that protects HOLLYWOODS data can protect YOUR dat and MY data. DRM will allow computing to move into a new paradigm where conversations can be reasonably assured of being completely ephemeral OR where "data" can be moved from point A to point B with the relative security and geographic displacement of a physical object. But people lie and copy and cheat and forge and so to do this requires a *trusted platform* - a system you and I can both agree has been verified for honesty by a disinterested third party to our exchange.
If you don't want to buy DRM media then don't buy it. But insisting someone is trying to "take your rights away" because they are asserting *their* rights is, at best, disengenuous.
The open source community at large needs to take off the tinfoil hats and start doing some real development on these platforms. Like it or not DRM is coming and if you sit out the party no one is going to listen to you complain that everyone else already got all the cake and ice cream.
I am a small employer. The reason we have pre-employment drug screens has absolutely nothing to do with me or my company's opinion of them.
Our insurance rates are cheaper if we do them.
It is a VERY simple cost/benefit anaylysis. We save money by requiring drug tests. Not in productivity or anything like that. Just our insurance rates.
I suspect we are not the only ones who are faced with this choice.
I'd also like to add that, originally, copyright gave a limited monopoly on "publishing". Copying from your own copy of a book was not covered by the law - and at the time, the extent of protection was 7 years
You are actually entitled to do many things, like reverse engineering (excpting where the DMCA is involved), and making copies of small amounts for various purposes (like education), without any permission from the copyright owner
What most software vendors do, is force you to agree to a "license agreement". Agreement as in contract, which is used to actually restrict you further than copyright alone would.
How did you explain their side of the argument?
Let's assume (perhaps falsely) that the RIAA/MPAA aren't literally Satan's spawn. They have a good reason for wanting DRM: they spend a lot of money to make music/movies. They'd like to get paid for that, and the current environment makes it easy for people to get the full benefit of their work without paying for it.
You know all this, so I'm not going to explain any further, but the question is, did you explain this to your friend? It's easy to get people angry when you explain only one side of the story. And if you want to use him as an example you have to be extra-careful to present their side as persuasively as possible, because you're obviously coming to this with a bias.
Look, I agree that the DRM they want to use is too restrictive. But the absolutely-no-DRM environment is also not completely fair to them. So the attitude of simply getting angry at them for proposing an alternative is just wrong. The proper attitude is closer to, "Gee, neither situation is tenable, let's figure out what's genuinely fair."