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Trusted Or Treacherous Computing?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the eyes-in-the-dark dept.

theodp writes "Just because Richard Stallman is paranoid doesn't mean Microsoft's not out to get you. For a hint about the possible end-game of Microsoft's Trusted Computing Initiative, check out the patent application published Thanksgiving Day for Trusted License Removal, in which Microsoft describes how to revoke rights to render based on 'who the user is, where the user is located, what type of computing device or other playback device the user is using, what rendering application is calling the copy protection system, the date, the time, etc.' So much for Microsoft's you-should-have-control assurances."

3 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Patenting stuff like this is a good thing by ross.w · · Score: 3, Informative

    It stops anyone else from trying it.

    --
    If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
  2. Perhaps this law by ArielMT · · Score: 3, Informative
    Law enforcement? How? What law might you be considering?

    "Malware" isn't illegal. I know of no reasonable law that defines what this might be.

    Perhaps a little-known law called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (18 USC 1030), reasonable or not, defines malware as illegal.

    And any law that purports to make "malware" illegal is utterly unenforcable - do you really believe that some teenager in Romainia is going to be dragged into court in California for a single offence of this type?

    Granted, the enforcability of this law, just like any U.S. law, tends to stop at the border, so no a Romanian script-kiddie isn't going to be dragged into a California courtroom, and he won't be dragged into any Romanian courtroom either unless writing malware's a crime in Romania as well.

    --
    It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
  3. Re:Hands up, everyone who DIDN'T see this coming.. by russ1337 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Encryption was moved from the Munitions list to the Commerce list in 1996 "because of the increasingly widespread use of encryption products for the legitimate protection of the privacy of data and communications in nonmilitary contexts"

    "November 15, 1996: Encryption products that presently are or would be designated in Category XIII of the United States Munitions List and regulated by the Department of State pursuant to the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2778 et seq.) shall be transferred to the Commerce Control List,"

    http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo_crypt_9611_memo. htm