Slashdot Mirror
Atari Founder Proclaims the End of Gaming Piracy
OMGZombies writes "Speaking on a conference held yesterday in New York, the Atari founder Nolan Bushnell said that a new stealth encryption chip called TPM will 'absolutely stop piracy of gameplay'. The chip is apparently being embedded on most of the new computer motherboards and is said to be 'uncrackable by people on the internet and by giving away passwords' though it won't stop movie or music piracy, since 'if you can watch it and you can hear it, you can copy it.'"
... mostly useless, as in Microsoft encryption or other schemes?
I had the delightful adventure one day to having to reinstall Windows. What I didnÂt know, is that my personal folders, which I had opted for encryption on disk using the Windows XP encryption suddenly rendered my personal folders unavailable.
Since it seems nobody actually uses Microsoft encryption, I could find NO sites for clues on how to break this (and of course, breaking in, would also mean the encryption itself is useless).
So in my experience, having encryption is only useful if you have a good backup. But TPM chips and other DRM-like stuff doesnÂt usually leave you with a good backup (and if it does, it will also be useless on that grounds).
SO many people are going to curse this, and pirate even more, if TPM is used in non-business scenarios, because thatÂs where it is suited, not for home use (and I believe TPM will be GREAT for businesses and maybe anti-virus industry).