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Should We Be Afraid of TPM Chips?
AcidArrow asks: "I was looking to buy a new laptop and since I wanted to be on the bleeding edge, I thought one with the new core duo chips would be just what I need. Among the features on the laptops I was looking was 'Trusted Platform Module chip for the safety of your data'. Now, I don't know of any real uses for a TPM chip yet, but is this something that should worry me, or keep me from buying a laptop with said 'feature'? I don't intend to use it and I would like to disable it, if possible, but I don't want to make it easier for anyone to track down what I'm doing on my laptop."
Is it possible to get a model of said laptop without a TPM chip? It should be. If you go to Dell and buy a laptop, you're for the most part, able to customize nearly everything to suit your needs. Would the TPM chip be any different. I read about them and see no reason for most people to have any use of them. Nothing like shoving new or unwanted technology down everyone's throats.
What's the matter, James? No glib remark? No pithy comeback?
You might want to do a little research on the efficacy of finger-print identification systems - in short it is pretty much nil. The cheap ones can usually be fooled by simply retrying a bunch of times with the finger at different angles, the more expensive ones can be easily fooled with the equivalent of a jello mold of the valid fingerprint - which can often be lifted directly off the scanner itself via the skin-oil left by the most recent user. So your 2-factor authentication is really more of a 1.1-factor authentication.
Firstly you can disable the chip from BIOS or driver software
1. Is this even the case with the new Intel macs?
2. If you disable the chip from bios, can the OS re-enable it without your consent?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Had you read the link you would have had answers to your questions, but you obviously didn't... instead you prefer to write in bold making statements that have already been answered and trying to play specious logic games.
When the TCG, and technology companies behind it (which includes Intel, IBM, Microsoft, AMD and many many others) come out and openly discuss this hardware and its potential for improving security, but also the very real (and currently being implemented by Microsoft) threat of massive privacy abuse, survellence and near-total control it allows, instead of just spouting meaningless "It's not evil. It's just hardware" platitudes then, perhaps things will improve.
It all comes down to one thing -- something people like you refuse to face: "If you don't have access to the keys, then this is not about security" -- Alan Cox. You don't have access to the keys, and TCG hardware (as it is currently implemented) is not about security.
Uhhm, no. It's actually the " Hey! There's a baby in that bathwater! " "defence".
You don't seem to understand, or (at least) you haven't read the link. The alternative is that you are just being dishonest.
A TPM could been a boon for security... but, as it is currently implemented, it is just a means for big brother levels of control and not security FOR the user as it should be. The link you so carefully ignore lays out a means to get the benefits of a TPM, without the huge damage it causes.
This would, naturally enough, undermine the control that could be exercised by technology companies -- and I'm guessing from your responses elsewhere, that's your (and the technology companies') problem with the proposal. Your claims that this hardware is somehow "neutral" and that software will make the decision are completely bogus. The TCG had already made a political and moral decision to cut the user out of the loop by ensuring that the root key is hidden even from the person who paid for the hardware. It doesn't have to be that way as the EFF, points out and you dodge around so desperately.
That decision and their attitude should serve as a big warning flag as to the real purposes of the hardware.