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Trusted Or Treacherous Computing?
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."
Anyone who has ever believed that Microsoft is genuinely on the consumer's side in any kind of licensing question is so naive they shouldn't be allowed out of the house without a minder.
-- Old Man Kensey
Since my laptop was stolen about five months ago I can appreciate the qualities of a system which could be used to at least cripple hardware which was stolen or otherwise suspect.
As a realist, though, I cannot possibly trust that a large organization could implement this properly without willingly abusing it or unwillingly fscking it up.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
I saw it comming more than two years ago ...
What DRM is REALLY REALLY REALLY about
Or maybe it's just a way for them to manage licenses? Like you purchase a license to view a movie. They send you the .WMV and the license to view the file. You upgrade your computer and want to migrate all your purchases to the new machine. So you request to remove the license from the current system.
Maybe someone should read the patent in question?
If you believe your password has been compromised, or your PIN had become known to someone else, then for 'high-value' systems you need to be able to administratively indicate that any 'authority to behave as you' is not to be believed any more.
The 'personal' computing market is splitting.
If you inflict this kind of feature on a lawyer, doctor, or engineer, who is trying to go about their professional work, you cause loss and damage and you get your product thrown out post-haste as unfit for purpose. Lawyer, doctor, and engineer have plenty of money and need the top-grade service.
If you give someone a cheap deal on a Star Wars DVD because of them being willing to accept the possibility that their permission to view it might disappear unexpectedly, then that's rather like having a 'standby list' of people who might or might not be able to get on a plane at cheap prices according as whether the plane fills up with full-price passengers.
Sorry, but I happen to think that's crap. Much like the government, whenever a controversial law/license is proposed, and its supporters, when confronted with an egregious abuse it would permit, use a phrase along the lines of 'Perhaps in theory, but the law would never be applied in that way' - they're LYING. They intend to use the law that way as early and as often as possible.
Those situations would fall under the jurisdiction of law enforcement, not Microsoft.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
If you want to protect the user, you give the keys to the user (or let him chose them). No encription that hides the keys from you is there for your benefit.
Rethinking email
Of course it's "treacherous", not "trusted". It's about taking control away from the owner, the user; and giving it to a remote entity. Hasn't it always been?
Clear evidence of this comes to light when you think closely about the proposed "Owner Override" feature that would effectively disable an onboard TPM chip...or maybe not, depending on whether or not we're being lied to about that.
First off, if this feature is really everything we're told it is -- that it really disables the TPM chip -- then what is the entire point of this? To have software, music and video vendors build their content around a supposedly "unbreakable" remote control scheme in their power...only to be broken by a built-in flick-of-a-switch feature?
And if we are being lied to about "owner override", then it's clear there is something they want to maintain hidden from us.
Either way, it won't work. Somewhere on the motherboard, between the keyboard and the hard drive, if you will, data must be unencrypted. You just can't keep something that is exclusively mine and in my possession, a secret from me!
Stallman is not a paranoid. He is a cynic, and an accurate one. He merely rips away all the happytalk and states the problem in stark terms. That's not paranoia, which is a loaded term come to be used by PR masters to smear opponents. That and "conspiracy theorist".
Stallman and I are old enough to remember how Microsoft has comported itself for a quarter century. They are consistent liars and cheats, and pointing this out is just a service to the yunguns who don't even remember MS criminally falsifying video evidence -- and getting caught red-handed, too -- at the monopoly trial. IF you or I had done that, we'd still be in federal prison. MS just had a president dump their criminality into the shredder, and then made even more monopoly money.
They perform no action idly. They've a plan, and it involves killing competition and keeping all the money in the world for themselves. It's a mission statement.
Not only are they not under control of the public, they are also not subject to any form of auditing. If MS wants to play policeman, they will need an Internal Affairs Department that can bust them for pulling stupid shite like this. "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
~Lord Acton
And for the record, Richard Stallman is very good at foreseeing problems way before other people, but that does not make him paranoid, just foresightful.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
In all honesty, this dude might be a professional paranoiac with an easily google-able catchphrase, but you are a fool, a knave, a liar, and an enemy of liberty everywhere.\
Anyone who knows jack or shit about law enforcement knows that they can, do, and will use every law and tactic available to prosecute whoever they think are the "bad guys".
And that's not a slag on law enforcement - that's called "doing their jobs". Obviously, they can get overzealous. And do. And will.
The point is that you give people power, and they will abuse it to the degree they are permitted . That's why Arlo Guthrie got busted for littering (when his real crime was being a dirty hippy), that's why Al Capone got nailed for tax evasion, that's why the Patriot act leads to waitresses on a plane thinking they can kick off breast-feeding mothers just because they feel like it, that's why we've got another 20 years of releasing the falsely convicted based on DNA evidence (too late for the wrongly executed), and it's why your flip attitude is functionally equivalent to saying "exterminate the jews? go ahead - if the authorities are against them, they must have done something!".
And so anything - a new law, a new technical system - that isn't done with an eye to how it could be abused, well, it's foolish and ignorant and entirely predictable, and predictably the people who mean to fuck over everyone ignore these things as plainly as can be.
You really need to study American history again if you don't get this shit by now. Our founding fathers understood this stuff, and that's why "checks and balances" are a part of our government (2000-2006 excepted). You know that scence in Pulp Fiction with the multi-way Mexican Standoff? That's how the US government is supposed to work; go too far, and you'll get blown away, because you can't take out all the other dudes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Surveys have shown that users are willing to give out their passwords for a piece of chocolate. Cars are Hijacked every day, and the user just gets out of the car leaving the keys to the attacker. I'm not saying that a TPM chip is the best way to solve the problem, but merely putting it in the users hands doesn't solve much of anything.
I think the real problem here is the lengthening of the digital divide. The people who would benefit from these features are the people who would hand out their password for a chocolate crisp. These people might have some to lose from Treacherous Computing, but not as much as those who are smart enough to know better.
I wonder if Microsoft is aware that they are driving away the technically savvy? Most of us who use Windows and have some tech savvy are the gamer audience and even though making the move back to running a Unix-derived OS of some sort will impact my primary use for my home computer, I am still starting to seriously plan for it. I wonder how many other gamers are thinking the same thing? I wonder if Microsoft has considered how much losing a big share of the gamer market will hurt them? It is my opinion that a significant chunk of the home market is Windows because that's what the games run on, and if game developers suddenly find it economical or desirable to port their games to different platforms, that could have a pretty significant impact on Microsoft's stranglehold on PC gaming.
Of course, I'm probably just a statistical anomaly, but I like to hope I'm not... heheheheh
It's worse than you imagine. There is no clear policy on who will obtain the master keys for Palladium or Trusted Computing signature authorities: as things stand, Microsoft will own and sell such authorities. New software signatures must be purchased. This effectively grants Microsoft tremendous access to other company's, or person's trusted keys, and makes installing your own personally created keys prohibitively difficult.
This also provides BIOS and booatable hardware DRM, in order to control over booting systems. While such is good from a security standpoint, it means that with very trivial changes in hardware such as DRM-managed CD and DVD and USB devices, nothing other than a host-designated, signed Windows operating system will be able to boot the machine enough to install new keys and install a new OS. While the designer of such technologies may not envision such abuse, it's certainly within Microsoft's history of anti-competitive behavior to do this.
Point of order: that is false. Surveys have shown that users were willing to give out things that they claimed were their passwords for a piece of chocolate.
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"
. htm
"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