Trusted Computing And You

sebFlyte writes "There's an interesting look at the Trusted computing initiative running over on ZDNet UK, written by security guru Bruce Schneier. He looks at the suggestions for best practice made in a recent policy document, and Microsoft's 'Machiavellian manoeuvring' to stall said document. He posits their moves are to avoid having to enforce such best-practice when it comes to Vista's DRM and other copy-restriction technology." From the article: "This sounds great, but it's a double-edged sword. The same system that prevents worms and viruses from running on your computer might also stop you from using any legitimate software that your hardware or operating system vendor simply doesn't like. The same system that protects spyware from accessing your data files might also stop you from copying audio and video files. The same system that ensures that all the patches you download are legitimate might also prevent you from, well, doing pretty much anything."

Comments

The problem with "trusted" computing

[WCMI92]

Is that YOU, the computer OWNER is not trusted. This is the first step towards taking actual ownership away from the owner and handing it over to the manufacturer after the fact.

Which is why I do not support Digital Restrictions Management.

Interestingly enough ...

[vlad_petric]

In security speech Trusted != Trustworthy. If you say that X is "Trusted", it simply means that the security of the system depends axiomatically on X being secure. So if X is secure, everything is ok, but if it is insecure, it breaks the whole system. "Trusted" doesn't actually say whether X is secure or not (that's what "Trustworthy" is for), it just makes a statement about the security of the whole system depending on the security of X.

Having learned that, a few companies (I believe M$ was one of them) changed from "trusted" to "trustworthy"