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No DRM for Apple in Intel-based Macs
JWeinraub writes "OfB is reporting that, contrary to widely-published and discussed rumors, Apple is not including the controversial Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip in its Intel-based Macs. An anonymous registered Apple developer claims that the Apple x86 test boxes do not have DRM or TCPA components." From the article: "As to why those with access to the kits have been quiet concerning the claims, our source said, 'you can rest assured that Apple is keeping very close tabs on those of us who have them.' The kits are only available to those who accept a non-disclosure agreement."
Even though the article says these are "test boxes" apple should see that wIthout DRM they would have the perfect weapon to gain market share. The difference between heavily restricted wintel boxes and non DRM Apples will be apparent even down to the level of J6P. Would this leave Apple as the only "General computer" left? A more accross the board move to Apple could even be a boon to linux as more people accept the fact that there are options to wintel (or at least options to Microsoft). Americans generally only get upset at the loss of Freedom when those it is the kind of abrupt in your face taking that DRM represents.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
Posting anonymously, here...
While it is very much correct that the Developer Transition Platform does not represent shipping or production hardware, the motherboard does indeed have an Infineon Trusted Platform Module controller right on the motherboard. Mac OS X for Intel Platforms contains a TCPA/TPM kernel extension, by the name of AppleTPMACPI.kext.
It's very much correct that this doesn't necessarily represent the shipping hardware. Apple today doesn't have serialization, product activation, or any other limiting copy protection technology in place on Mac OS X. It is purely tied to Apple hardware by the Mac OS X EULA, which, by tying Mac OS X to Apple-branded hardware only, effectively quashes any commercial entity from developing and promoting any other platform that might support Mac OS X. Granted, the landscape changes with Mac OS X running on the x86 architecture, but until a production Mac OS X machine ships, there is absolutely nothing to indicate the final scenario one way or the other.
The rest of the article, however, makes no sense in that, while he correctly asserts that the Developer Transition Platform doesn't represent the final shipping product, it does indeed contain an Infineon TPM module.
Keep in mind that the motherboard in the Developer Transition Platform is a very generic one, and could just as easily be a preexisting Intel motherboard that already includes TPM. Remember: everything in the Developer Transition Platform at present is generic Intel components. They don't support FireWire 800, Bluetooth, 802.11, and have a generic standard Intel BIOS. Does that imply shipping machines will be that way? No? Then neither does the inclusion of a TPM chip on this particular motherboard. There is precedent for Apple taking special care to disallow the spread of prerelease/developer software and hardware, while having no such equivalent restrictions in the final product.
In short, to quote Dean Reece of Apple:
"Don't assume that what you see in the transition boxes represents what will be present in the final product."
So we have some people saying that there are DRM chips in the x86 macs, and some people saying that there aren't DRM chips in the x86 macs... did it ever occur to anybody that Apple might be shipping different configurations to different people? It makes sense that they'd try a few different things out before release.
"' The kits are only available to those who accept a non-disclosure agreement.'"
Yeah, I can see how well that's working for them.
I believe the guy who posted a picture of the DRM chip on the mobo a short while ago. Seeing is believing, right?
Oh no... it's the future.
I doubt that you're going to get a definitive answer until the MacTels are released.
The chip is in *some* of the dev kits. That's all we know for sure. The rest is rumour.
Is it on all dev kits?
Is it enabled?
Is it enforced if enabled?
Will it make it onto the released kit?
Simple answer: Dunno.
$499 gets you a mac mini that has basically the same specs as my 15 month old powerbook. 512MB, 1.25 GHz G4. No, Apple doesn't compete with whitebox selling-out-of-my-trunk "vendors" on pricewatch.
An anonymous registered Apple developer claims that the Apple x86 test boxes do not have DRM or TCPA components.
Wow - so regardless that the dev kits contain the code and the mobo's contain the chip, an anonymous developer said they don't have them?
Well obviously the anonymous developer must be right; after all - who can argue with anonimity?
Just because a computer is based around a particular processor, does not necessarily mean it is going to be software- and hardware-compatible with other machines based around the same processor. For instance, the BBC model B, the Commodore PET and the Atari 400/800 were all based around the 6502 processor. The Sinclair Spectrum and the Amstrad PCW8256 were based around the Z80A processor. Both the Acorn Atom and the Dragon 32 used the 6847 video chip. And both the Oric-1 and the Amstrad CPC464 used the Yamaha AY-3-8910 sound/PIO chip. Anyone who was reading computer magazines in the 1980s will tell you that even when it was possible, it was a devil of a job to translate type-in listings meant for one machine so they could be run on another. It wasn't made any easier by the almost total lack of abstraction in many systems -- you would often have to use PEEK and POKE statements {and IN and OUT on Z80 machines with their separate memory and I/O buses} to manipulate memory and peripherals directly.
All Apple would need to do to prevent their OS from being run on generic hardware, would be to use a totally different addressing schema than that used by generic DOS/Windows/Linux PCs. Of course, it will still be possible to compile Linux and BSD for Apple hardware {the absolute minimum you need to port any OS written in a compiled language to a new architecture is an interpreter, written in assembler, and just capable enough to understand the compiler compiling itself}. But OS XI would not run on generic hardware because the memory map would be all wrong and the I/O devices would be in the wrong places. And as long as Apple did not release the source code, nobody would be able to recompile OS XI for generic hardware.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
You're comparing a fully shut down laptop to a G5 in suspend mode?
...
Right.
Also, you can run windows "sans-AV". it's called "don't have services you don't need on" and "don't install software you don't trust".
And for the most part you can configure AV's not to do boot scans but just runtime scans.
So really you're bitching that your properly inconfigured totally turned off laptop [which probably has way slower disk, memory and processing than your DESKTOP G5] is slower to boot then your properly set up desktop G5 in suspend mode.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
First of all, I will say that I am as against Trusted Computing as the next guy on Slashdot. I think it is a terrible thing.
Unfortunately, I don't think Apple is going to have a choice in this matter. When the big media companies have seen TC and its "benefits" on the Wintel Vista boxes, they will demand it on Apple boxes. Since Apple doesn't currently have the *COMPUTER* marketshare to stand up to the MPAA/RIAA, on the COMPUTER (where video content will come), they will be unable to get any of the content that media companies will be comfortable releasing to a Trusted Vista box. Since Apple only has 5% market share, it won't hurt much to leave them out.
So why does Apple NEED that content? Simple. In recent years, Steve Jobs is taking steps to reinvent Apple as a media company. Not a media PRODUCTION company, but a company that makes media-centric equipment. The iPod now contributes far more than its fair share of profits to Apple's bottom line. Jobs has visions of Apple computers being the "hub" of a home media system. How can any of this POSSIBLY happen when the companies that control the content will not release it to non-DRMed Apples?
Jobs is a good negotiator -- that is clear from his dealings with music companies with iTunes. But there is NOTHING that the MPAA/RIAA is more afraid of than rampant piracy. They see it as bad now, but potentially MUCH worse when all those computers are connected to home TVs and stereos. The sad reality (for me, especially, as I would certainly get a non-TPMed Apple if it was the only "free" (as in speech) choice) is that it WILL happen sooner or later, because it would be a major stumbling block to Apple's foreseeable future as a media-delivery company.
What we need here is some of Steve Jobs's patented straight talk routine. Stand up and tell us that the DRM will work solely to limit the OS to Apple-branded systems, or whatever... but tell us something, rather than having rumors turn themselves over on slashdot.
(Not that there's any way to get 'hold of /. rumors for good. But you want to shape them a little.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Americans generally only get upset at the loss of Freedom when those it is the kind of abrupt in your face taking that DRM represents.
The trusted computing hardware doesn't prevent you from running untrusted code, it just prevents untrusted code from accessing protected data. What the lack of inclusion of trusted computing hardware would mean is simply that, if trusted computing catches on on Windows, a lot of Windows-based music and video can't be accessed on the Macintosh at all.
Would this leave Apple as the only "General computer" left?
Apple has never produced "general computers"; they don't support running other operating systems on their hardware, and they have a long history of using proprietary and undocumented hardware components in their Macintosh platform. The reason things have gotten better recently is not a change of heart at Apple, but the fact that they are increasingly using standard PC components in their systems.
A more accross the board move to Apple could even be a boon to linux as more people accept the fact that there are options to wintel
Apple hardware will be a decent choice for Linux as soon as (1) Apple gives you the option of buying the hardware without the software and (2) Linux developers aren't forced to create drivers by reverse engineering anymore.
On balance, I still think it's good for Apple to leave this out; if they really need it later, they should be able to provide it as a USB dongle. However, leaving it out doesn't make Macintosh an "open platform"; it never has been, and the way it looks, it won't be any time soon.
There is Pegasos PPC from Genesi who is catering to the Linux PPC workstation crowd. And you can still buy Sun workstation computers too. And there are many other manufacturers making computers like this. These manufacturers probably won't ever add DRM to restrict the people that buy these machines.
And they won't be able to connect to the Internet if the vast majority of ISPs require Trusted Network Connect in order to get an IP address, which some people expect to happen between 2011 and 2015, possibly by force of law.
"I always wanted to run a BBS as a kid, but could never afford a phone line."
:-)
Should have done like I did. I ran a C64 BBS out of my parents garage. They put strict rules on the modem, so I ended up grabbing a 50ft. cord and running it to the back of my next door neighbor's silverbox (or whatever it was we called it back then...the outside phone junction). She was old and slept most of the time and was not supposed to get calls after 5PM anyways (she'd leave the phone off the hook), so from 9PM until I got up to go to school, the BBS was running. And with strict rules as to when it was up and when it wasn't...back then all the BBS lists had hours of operations listed.
That didn't stop the idiots from calling her up during the day though -- just to see -- and she kept harassing my parents about knowing the aliens were trying to get her because she heard them sneak around at night -- never stealing anything -- and they called her during the day with their wierd chatter
Where there is a will, there is a way.
Question: Why would Apple release an OS level DRM chip/scheme/driver at this point in the game?
/.'ers would love to have that changed to "Any x86" hardware.
Apple has made it clear that it will take "MacTel" hardware to run OSX. Most
Apple is not stupid - Whatever they are cooking up for protecting their hardware wouldn't be put in the hands of the very people that could try to defeat it.
And in case you think I may have missed the point about why there may be support for DRM (as it applies to Music/Movies etc) I haven't. I happen to think this is coming one way or another - Apple may simply use it to lock down OSX to MacTel hardware.
The TPM chip is not necessarily used for DRM. In fact in today's environment, it can't be used for that purpose. To use it for DRM it is necessary for the chip to be sold with an embedded key and for the manufacturer to supply a certificate (similar to a web site certificate) which means that the key is a valid TPM key. No manufacturers are presently doing this, because the whole issue is too controversial.
I have a computer with a TPM that I bought for research, and I tried to get one with a key and a certificate, but it was impossible. Even though it was for legitimate security research, everyone has been scared by all the anti-TCPA and anti-Palladium activism on the net.
You can still do some useful things with the TPM; it has crypto features and can do some Tripwire-like functionality. But this is not DRM.
It's entirely possible that Apple is using the TPM for various purposes. Theoretically the software could look for a particular brand of TPM and use that to somewhat limit which boxes it would run on. Or it could be using it for the crypto functions.
But that is a far cry from using it for DRM or the other advanced features in the TCPA spec. My reading of the various claims and counter-claims is that Apple is in fact shipping with a TPM but it is not using it for DRM and has no plans to do so. That is generally consistent with what all sides are saying, modulo a bit of confusion and sloppy terminology. It appears to be as close to the truth as we are going to get in a situation like this.
The fact that the only way you can buy a Macintosh is bundled with software also means it's not a good platform for open source operating systems.
I think this company would tell you otherwise. (OK, it does ship with software, but its the precious Linux you want to run on it anyway).
Their processor, motherboard, and BIOS are clearly not standard PC components.
As stated above, current Macintosh computers don't use a BIOS, they use OpenFirmware, which, as the name implies, is open. As for the processor and motherboard, what about them is undocumented, that isn't with PC hardware? I'd guess Motorola and IBM are actually MORE open than Intel is about their processors, and most motherboard manufacturers don't tell you that much info beyond what chipset their using, so in this case, they're about as open as Apple is with their motherboards.