No More Internet Anonymity

inkhaton writes "This Article tells of an Orwellian chip that, once installed in your computer (and not by your choice), will allow any website you visit to "read" your identity. The article goes on to describe how many benefits there are for using this to facilitate online business and even suggests some negative points. It ends with "Ultimately the TPM itself isn't inherently evil or good. It will depend entirely on how it's used, and in that sphere, market and political forces will be more important than technology." ... ugh. Well we all know what that means."

Comments

It's even worse!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your computer may be broadcasting your IP address to the world as we speak! Or so I've heard.

Re:Real Identity?

[ArchAngelQ]

Or the 3117 haxor who used the latest TMP chip crack to change their TMP ID to be the same as yours, which they got from the worm that still can get installed on your machine...

duh

[stoolpigeon]

Ultimately the TPM itself isn't inherently evil or good.
 
I'd like to hear of any inanimate object that is inherently evil or good. Nuclear bombs aren't inherently evil or good, it's just how you use them. Otherwise they just sit there.

i like it

[antiaktiv]

(In fact, with TPM, your bank wouldn't even need to ask for your username and password -- it would know you simply by the identification on your machine.)

Now the people who break into homes don't have to sift through dirty underwear to maybe find a few crumpled up dollar bills, they can just turn on the pc and transfera couple of bucks into their bank account. Aaah, the modern age.

Any power will be abused. Mod redundant.

[shanen]

Not just this post, but the thread. Actually, I think this is already a 'design feature' of IPv6, and that's coming, too.

Anyway, I'm not sure there will be any such thing as privacy in the near future. Right now it's already becoming a luxury good, and pretty soon only millionaires will be able to afford it.

There is a solution, but no guarantee we'll reach it. We need to define an individual's personal information as belonging to that individual, and any use or reference to that information should only be with permission, and based on some good reason. To put actual teeth in such a legal principle, I think it needs to be coupled with a right to store your own information (presumably on your own computer). Without such a basis for protecting privacy... Well, you'd better get use to appearing all over the Internet when you least expect it.

Old News

[TheSpoom]

But good to see the mainstream press catching up to it. This chip is part of a larger effort by major software developers and hardware manufacturers to mostly stop piracy in all forms and control what you can do with your computer and when.

Read the TCPA FAQ, and take a look at Against TCPA, an anti-TCPA site if you're interested. For an alternate perspective, you can also view the official Trusted Computing Group site.

Personally, I hate it, I don't think it will succeed, and I will *never* buy a computer with such a module installed.

This only works if hackers play by the rules

[artemis67]

Of course, all a hacker needs to do is keep an older model x86 or PPC system around. Obsolete computers are a dime a dozen, and you can keep them running for decades.

And we are moving closer and closer to disposable PC's, anyway. In less than ten years, I predict that brand new, complete systems will be selling for less than $50. Got my computer's ID? So what, I throw away my computer every month!

Re:This only works if hackers play by the rules

[Skreems]

You could basically even do this today. Most pieces of your system will not be labeled. Presumably it's just the CPU and/or Motherboard that have this ID crap in them. If it's just the motherboard, you can swap that out for $70 every couple months, and anything but top-shelf CPUs aren't that much more expensive.

The truly ridiculous thing about this is, it doesn't even put a dent in the cybercrime it's supposed to prevent. If you can get your system without giving up your identity (steal it or buy it through someone who "loses" records), and don't report your identity truthfully to anybody while using it, you're still just as anonymous as now. And if they come to get you, you just have to thermite one specific spot on the mainboard as well as the hard drive like you would today. Bam, all evidence gone. And until that day, you're free to molest six year olds and use stolen credit cards to your heart's content.

There are so many easier ways of preventing these problems than to try to force an ID on everybody. Make one-time disposable credit card numbers a mandatory feature. Consumers will use it because it saves them the hassle of cleaning their credit report after fraud. Hey, look! We can cut down on fraud by creating MORE anonymity, rather than less. Or how about the banks making websites that enforce strong password standards? How about ANYthing except a system that's even MORE transparent to the end user, and thus easier to crack?

Hardware Cookie?

[Groucho]

I suggest we refer to this hardware cookie as a shit biscuit.

We all know what that means...

[humphrm]

>ugh. Well we all know what that means.

Sigh. Yes. Everyone will just sit around slashdot whining about it, and not lift one finger to get control of it via their elected officials.

Re:Real Identity?

[shoffsta]

Or the 3117 [sic] haxor who used the latest TMP chip crack to change their TMP ID to be the same as yours, which they got from the worm that still can get installed on your machine...

Well I've heard of people misspelling words, but who'se heard of somebody misspelling a number? It's called 1337, dude.

Re:Real Identity?

[ArchAngelQ]

The real point of my above comment was: This system is effectively worthless until the fundimental security issues surrounding general use computers is resolved to a better state. It is likely an unsolveable problem as long as 'computers' remain general use computational tools, as general use includes all of the abilities needed to circomvent even the best security. Perhaps not in a timely fasion, which is what has generally been relied on.

Implimenting this in hardware means that it's inherintly less adaptable than software. Which means software will be able to adapt around it. Perhaps not in the machine itself, but it's just data out. It should be trivially easy to man in the middle your own outgoing datastream to be able to incorporate any TMP data you want, likely possible even without additional hardware.

Re:Real Identity?

[kesuki]

no i think he was more going for e-lit short for e-literate, which is basically like another way to say skript kiddie.

these kids these days they're all e-literate and don't know how to hard code a crack in asm after having reverse engineered all traces of the hooks and calls from a compiled binary full of traps to make reverse engineering more difficult.

microsoft has made it far too easy, back in the day if you wanted to steal someone's data, you had to lug a 20lbs reel to reel magnetic tape, p[ull it over to a duplicatrion mainfraim and copy the contents onto anothe blank 20lbs reel to reel magnetic tape AND it Still only held 20 Megabytes AND WE LOVED IT.