Slashdot Mirror
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
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?
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.