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Army to Require Trusted Platform Module in PCs

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the wind-talkers dept.

Overtone writes "Federal Computer Week is reporting that the U.S. Army will require hardware-based security via the Trusted Platform Module standard in all new PCs. They are a large enough volume buyer that this might kick start an adoption loop."

13 of 337 comments (clear)

  1. Re:call me cynical, but by Dachannien · · Score: 3, Informative

    AMD drank the Kool-Aid some time ago.

  2. This does not lockout Linux by DrJimbo · · Score: 5, Informative
    TFA says:
    Is TCG creating specifications for just one operating system or type of platform?
    No. Specifications are operating system agnostic. Several members have Linux-based software stacks available. In addition to our work on the PC platform, we have a specification for Trusted Servers and are working to finalize specifications for other computing devices, including peripherals, mobile devices, storage and infrastructure.

    --
    We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
    -- Anais Nin
    1. Re:This does not lockout Linux by SiliconEntity · · Score: 4, Informative

      It all depends on who controls the root certificates that are used by the trusted computing hardware to verify the signatures of the BIOS and of the boot image.

      I'm sorry, but you don't know how Trusted Computing works. Almost everything you have been told about it is a lie.

      There are no root certificates used by TC hardware to verify the signatures of the BIOS and the boot image.

      What happens is that the BIOS, OS loader and potentially the OS itself send information to the TPM chip about the hashes of the software that is loading. User software can then, if it chooses, query the TPM chip and get a cryptographically send message telling what these hashes are. The software can use this to report the software configuration that booted.

      The root certificates get involved because the TPM crypto key never leaves the chip. The TPM manufacturer has a root certificate which it uses to sign each TPM key. This way people can tell that a message actually comes from a valid TPM and not a fake. It prevents virtualization of TPMs. This is what allows software to report its configuration in a trustable way. It is what gives the system its name, Trusted Computing.

    2. Re:This does not lockout Linux by mpcooke3 · · Score: 2, Informative

      While doubtlessly you are technically correct, for desktop computing i'm not sure it makes much difference.
      Since only the windows hash will allow secured files to be open and secured apps to be run.

      Microsoft will easily be able to convince the MPAA/RIAA that the only safe hash is the windows one and make the office formats "secured" to the windows hash. Some organisations like debian may not wish or be able to restrict peoples rights to their own machine so there will be no reason for anyone to value their hash (also you can bet microsoft will give kickbacks to companies that allow their formats to only play back under a windows hash).

      Ultimately everything that normal users want like to read files, play music, watch films, read emails could result in requiring a windows hash, at what point microsoft might as well just be doing all the signing with their own Root key all other OS hashes are useless. Except this way is slightly preferrable to Microsoft because the technology looks platform neutral.

  3. Re:Macs only? by lukas84 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Lenovo Thinkpads and Lenovo ThinkCentres. (Select Models).

    My R51 has one.

  4. Re:What's bad about it? by stoborrobots · · Score: 1, Informative
    It's deeper than the operating system, it goes right to the core of the system. The best explanation I've seen of it is from Ross Anderson's Trusted Computing FAQ.

    Other comments from Richard Stallman's Can you trust your computer and the EFF's paper Trusted Computing: Promise and Risk .

    Another good summary is this Benjamin Stephen and Lutz Vogel's video Misconceptions

    From Anderson's FAQ:

    2. What does TC do, in ordinary English?

    TC provides a computing platform on which you can't tamper with the application software, and where these applications can communicate securely with their authors and with each other. The original motivation was digital rights management (DRM): Disney will be able to sell you DVDs that will decrypt and run on a TC platform, but which you won't be able to copy. The music industry will be able to sell you music downloads that you won't be able to swap. They will be able to sell you CDs that you'll only be able to play three times, or only on your birthday. All sorts of new marketing possibilities will open up.

    TC will also make it much harder for you to run unlicensed software. In the first version of TC, pirate software could be detected and deleted remotely. Since then, Microsoft has sometimes denied that it intended TC to do this, but at WEIS 2003 a senior Microsoft manager refused to deny that fighting piracy was a goal: `Helping people to run stolen software just isn't our aim in life', he said. The mechanisms now proposed are more subtle, though. TC will protect application software registration mechanisms, so that unlicensed software will be locked out of the new ecology. Furthermore, TC apps will work better with other TC apps, so people will get less value from old non-TC apps (including pirate apps). Also, some TC apps may reject data from old apps whose serial numbers have been blacklisted. If Microsoft believes that your copy of Office is a pirate copy, and your local government moves to TC, then the documents you file with them may be unreadable. TC will also make it easier for people to rent software rather than buy it; and if you stop paying the rent, then not only does the software stop working but so may the files it created. So if you stop paying for upgrades to Media Player, you may lose access to all the songs you bought using it.

    For years, Bill Gates has dreamed of finding a way to make the Chinese pay for software: TC looks like being the answer to his prayer.

    There are many other possibilities. Governments will be able to arrange things so that all Word documents created on civil servants' PCs are `born classified' and can't be leaked electronically to journalists. Auction sites might insist that you use trusted proxy software for bidding, so that you can't bid tactically at the auction. Cheating at computer games could be made more difficult.

    There are some gotchas too. For example, TC can support remote censorship. In its simplest form, applications may be designed to delete pirated music under remote control. For example, if a protected song is extracted from a hacked TC platform and made available on the web as an MP3 file, then TC-compliant media player software may detect it using a watermark, report it, and be instructed remotely to delete it (as well as all other material that came through that platform). This business model, called traitor tracing, has been researched extensively by Microsoft (and others). In general, digital objects created using TC systems remain under the control of their creators, rather than under the control of the person who owns the machine on which they happen to be stored (as at present). So someone who wri

    --
    "Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
  5. Re:Trusted by SiliconEntity · · Score: 5, Informative

    From what I understand, Trusted in this context is used as in "I entrust it with my security" rather than "I find it worthy of my trust."

    No, that's a common fallacy; in fact, it's an intentionally constructed fallacy. Trusted in this context means that you have evidence to trust that the computer will behave in a specified way, particularly from the point of view of remote access. Normally when you connect to a computer remotely you have no way of knowing what it's doing. It could be essentially running any software at all. But if you connect to a Trusted Computer, it provides cryptographic evidence about its software configuration. Knowing what software it is running gives you grounds to know how it will behave; and to trust that behavior. That is the real meaning of Trusted Computing.

  6. Re:call me cynical, but by hector_uk · · Score: 2, Informative

    "OMG, you may not mention that our pet poster-boy company is just as evil as the very very evil monopolist. You have to say "Oooooh, but in AMD's case, blah blah blah ...", and since Apple's MacOS X includes mandatory activation even surpassing the invasiveness of Vista, you also have to say "Oooooh, but in Apple's case, blah blah blah ..."." OS X requires no activation, it does not even have a CD key, every retail copy is identical so it's impossible for apple to tell if you pirate it, that registration screen is mainly to set up user details such as your address book and that apple can send you crap to your email address if you neglect to check tick boxes. what the fuck does this have to do with anything.

  7. Re:Two sides by segedunum · · Score: 4, Informative

    BZZZT wrong... with a Linux based software stack, you should be able to sign your own code and thus ensure only code you've signed and code signed by others YOU trust can be run...

    Signing your own code is not what he's talking about. Signed, and encrypted, code downloaded to run on your machine from elsewhere and how it is used is totally at the mercy of what vendors stipulate can be done with it. If they want an effective way of timebombing software because you haven't paid up then they have the framework to do that. If they want to break data protection laws and start communicating usage statistics and other sordid details, encrypted and safe from prying eyes, then they now have a means for doing that. It also means that it is almost certainly going to be nigh on impossible to switch to a competing vendor's products.

    Some people seemingly have no idea what the trust in Trusted Computing actually means. What it means is that external people and organisations, particularly software vendors, content companies etc. have a way for them to trust my computer or equipment. Whether I can trust the computer or electronic equipment I own, and what software run on there actually does, is an entirely different matter. It's a fundamental shift in the idea of how computers work that will probably end in anarchy and chaos.

    http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

  8. just in case... by joe+155 · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...you're interested I read a rather interesting article about trusted computing the other day ( http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html ). He makes some good points.

    --
    *''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
  9. Next Generation Security by trend007 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hi all,

    TCG/TCPM stuff, though not completely finished (the DAA mechanism that was introduced in v1.2 is a good example of how the TCG adapted to outside criticisms, and they're starting to work on v1.3) and surely not understood (the word "trust" is a huge factor in that), is having the same effect as PKI a few years back. Except that nowadays times of ignorance and fear (in particular of the big companies behing the TCG) multiply this effect by thousands. "Trust" is more and more acting like the point of concentration of the security problems, its complexity being coupled with new emerging (and very innovative) threats.

    First think of the TPM as a chip that provides standard cryptographic functions (RAS SHA-1, HMAC, AES), so instead of doing it in software anyone will be able to use hardware implementations. Furthermore there are facilities for key creation and management. With the special focus on this "security chip" (such chips already existed in various forms), the designers hope to improve drastically the level of security of modern computer science (95% of emails are spam, botnets of millions of computers, hackers make huge money out of their job, ransomware, etc. etc.).

    Obviously this TECHNOLOGY (and please always keep this in mind: it's a tool, it is to be used by other applications, most importantly OSs, to improve security; apart from secure boot, that is not compulsory at the moment, there's no obligation to use the TPM even if it's here) is not perfect, it will evolve. It will have to CONVINCE, to get TRUST. As I'm saying to most of my Trusted Computing colleagues, I think that challenges set by the opponents of TCG are actually a means to improve the security of this technology (but beware of popularity-seeking criticisms, not all the criticisms are well-founded).

    Read tha FAQ:
    https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/faq/TPMFAQ/

  10. Re:Trusted by mrchaotica · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually, Trusted in this context means "the people in control can trust my computer to be secure against me," where "the people in control" refers to those who hold the private key to the TPM. In the case of the general public, this is the Trusted Computing Group (which includes such bastions of personal freedom as Microsoft); in the case of the Army it should be the Army, but I fear it will still be the Trusted Computing Group.

    See, that's what's so bad about Trusted Computing: if the owner of the PC had the private key, it would be great. But because some external entity has the private key, it's evil -- and it was intended to be that way!

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  11. Re:Oooh great... by xanalogical · · Score: 2, Informative

    > a set of regions locally ruled by governors, viceroys or client kings in the name of another

    Empires come in different flavors, not just militaristic but economic, philosophical, legalistic, etc.

    The American Empire partly arises from a careful weakening of the sovereign membrane between countries, such that they begin act as one, with direction from a power center outside of many of them. Some examples:

    1. The US hooking into the European SWIFT financial network to monitor non-US transactions.

    2. The US requiring air flights that _both_ originate and terminate in other countries, such as Canada, to comply with US laws, in _case_ the flight strays over US airspace (reciprocal rules do not apply re US flights that might stray into Canadian airspace).

    3. US tracking of Canadian financial and medical transactions, because the companies in Canada are multinationals with offices in the US, and therefore such transaction data *leaks* across the border into various processing centers.

    4. An effort to apply US copyright and patent laws around the world, for a more uniform legal environment.

    5. The destruction of many privacy safeguards in Europe because the US finds they get in the way of security and business.

    The US is dictating terms to other countries - it is not a give-and-take healthy interaction of equals, with foreign ideas having an equal chance to take root in the US. The other nations look more and more like those "client kings", ruling with the permisson of the multinationals, many of which are based in the US.

    I'm NOT saying something silly like Bush is an emperor. I'm saying the US is calling the shots, for many countries. Probably a better term would be the American Hegemony - the dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force, to the extent that, for instance, the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its advantage; or more broadly, that cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the dominant group.