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Live Demo CD of Microkernel-Based TUD:OS Released
Norman Feske writes "The OS Group of Technische Universität Dresden (TUD:OS) has released a live demo CD of their custom operating system project. TUD:OS is a microkernel-based operating system targeted at secure and real-time systems. Some highlights of the demo CD include a new approach for securing graphical user interfaces called Nitpicker, multiple L4Linux kernels running at the same time on top of a custom L4 microkernel, a survey on the reuse of device drivers on the TUD:OS platform, native Qt-applications, the DOpE windowing system, games, and a lot more. More information is available at the demo CD website demo.tudos.org. And yes, there are screenshots, too!"
Hurray for TUD:OS! Kudos for actually managing to get a functional but custom operating system into working live-CD form.
The system architecture looks fine and dandy (L4 is a pretty good base microkernel), and I love the capability to make this system perform 9 different scenarios, including running L4Linux for when they lack their own software.
Mazl tov!
This kind of thing goes to show that an OS designed for security can provide it without the need for the so called "trusted computing": the user can still have the machine entirely under your own control.. programs can be isolated from each other so that keylogging and other spyware techniques do not work, but the user can still do what the hell he wants with his machine (including tampering with the "secure" applications he is using if he wants to).
Sure, just give it the usual 13 years or so to get stable.
and I always thought that germans are known to have no sense of humor...
Aside from this, it's true that having a hardware safe for cryptographic private keys (the fritz chip) is sound from a security perspective (while takign control of what the chip will or will not sign away from the user is bad).
The reason I was comparing this TUD OS with TC is that the intel and AMD TC platforms both implement memory curtaining to isolate programs from one another, which this project seems to do quite nicely with a software-only solution.
And let me rebuke this OT but blatantly false line: It is relevant to anyone who has any interest to legally buying content which is sold with DRM restrictions. Even in the best of worlds, where the content sellers play nice, DRM stops me from playing something I bought from company X on anything but the players approved by company X. (iTunes audio files on anything but an iPod?). And if company X goes out of buisness or just decides not to support that format anymore you may be unable to play those files ever again.
And in the real world, companies which can effectively write a different copyright law for each piece of content will use this to their advantage and to the user's disadvantage: to milk more money by selling the same stuff multiple times, and to hinder interoperability in anti-competitive ways.
"DRM is irrelevent to those who don't possess or have any intention of possessing illegal copyrighted content."
Wow, is that statement ever wrong. As wrong as could be. "None more wrong"
Generally DRM only affects legitimate users. If I buy a copy protected CD I get the DRM. If I download the same music from shareaza - No DRM. DRM is very relevant when it prevents legal purchasers of content from legitimate "fair use" of that content. If DRM means I can't rip the CD I just bought to put the music on my MP3 player, or make a backup copy of my kid's DVDs then it is most certainly relevant.
On the other hand DRM is at most an inconvenience to hackers , pirates and other users of "illegal copyrighted content" . I can't think of one form of copy protection that hasn't been cracked.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
DRM is irrelevent to those who don't possess or have any intention of possessing illegal copyrighted content.
That should read...
"DRM is irrelevent to those who don't possess or have any intention of possessing copyrighted content."
It doesn't matter if it's legal or not, even if I have no intention of buying DRM-protected content legally, DRM restricts what I can do with my own computer. Any even minimally effective DRM scheme will require draconian restrictions. Hardware that only boots cryptographically signed kernels. Kernels that only load cryptographically signed drivers. Access controls based on cryptographically signed applications. Applications that only use cryptographically signed libraries.
It's possible that for all these stages there will be escapes, so that the various secure components will have a way to relinquish their rights and load insecure content so I can still use a media player to play back the recording I made of a class I gave even if I've had to install a patched driver to fix a problem with my computer... but I wouldn't put money down on it.
And you never know what you will need to run. I mean, there's already public material... recordings of town hall meetings and the like... only distributed in proprietary and undocumented streaming formats.
It's legal for me to rip a CD whether it's protected by Sony's DRM or not.
Lucky you. In many places it is not, regardless of DRM. In some places, the act of circumventing the DRM makes it illegal. The GP didn't specify a jurisdiction.
It's legal for me to make a copy of a video, or create a new work of art based on its content.
Lucky you. I'd need the copyright holder's permission.
It's legal for me to copy and modify any work that is in my posession.
Lucky you. Not here.
What's illegal is redistributing it without authorization except as is allowed under fair use.
Erm, nope, not here. Here, "copying" is infringement, and "issue of copies" is also. Separate clauses in law, but both infringement.
If the creator wants me to play the work [...] but that doesn't make it illegal for me to use it in other ways.
Here, creators have "performance rights". They certainly do have the right to restrict how you play the work (although probably not to the extent of your example), and going beyond that is illegal.
DRM restricts your rights more than copyright law does
It could - but then so could other laws, or contracts etc. Or, on the other hand it could restrict you less, or about the same.
DRM is a technology (or more a loose collection of technologies), and there is nothing whatsoever in that technology that inherently restricts you more than the law (except, possibly, if you have no copyright law at all).
Like most technologies, it can be used in "good" and "bad" ways.
Your argument seems to come down to:
"DRMed content is more of a restriction / burden than non-DRMed content, so DRM is bad".
s/DRM/encryption/
Yippee, lets ban encryption too. After all, terrorists use it, must be bad.