UK Government Pushing For 'Trusted Computing'

Motor writes "As has long been expected — we are now beginning to see governments pushing for the use of so-called 'trusted computing' — chips installed in all computers that effectively remove control of the PC from its owner. While there may be security advantages to some of the ideas, few can doubt that it represents a fundamental shift in the IT world. A radical move away from an open technology landscape and towards a system that denies all access unless you have the right credentials. Governments will demand the right credentials to access their services — meaning approved software stacks (i.e Windows) with the right digital signatures. Vernor Vinge had it right ."

Comments

No, Thank You, Dear Government

[koestrizer]

My Linux machine is well-protected and I don't need your meddling nor do I need Microsoft's.

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[Gaygirlie]

My Linux machine is well-protected and I don't need your meddling nor do I need Microsoft's.

That is indeed one of the reasons why this will not work: there are people using all kinds of different OSes, including all the mobile ones, desktop OSes and whatnot. If the UK government were to only allow devices with the trusted computing built-in both the hardware and software they'd be instantaneously removing access for everyone who is used to using mobile devices to access those services.

Another case of government not understanding technology, yet still pushing everyone to adopt it.

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Actually TPM allows protection in both directions. It works a bit like banks' systems. With a TPM you can secure a laptop, give it out to anyone, and you can set it up so they won't be able to break the encryption even if they know the passwords.

If you work for a company, you can give out VPN credentials to idiots that are uncopyable. If they get infected with a virus, the VPN won't come up.

I've consulted for a bank, and here's the dream : full offline money. If you have a TPM they will manage your account in your laptop (or phone, or ...) and have full offline payments. Because the TPM will only give their program access to the data, they can still prevent you from simply adding money in your own account, while allowing fully disconnected payments to occur which the bank will only find out about weeks after the fact (and so can you on other's computers of course).

In general TPM's allow fully disconnected trust relationships.

Surely such features are worth something ? Several linux companies are already using them.

All it does is simply making sure that if you tell some company you're going to take good care of their data, you have to actually do it (or delete the data, you're perfectly at liberty to do that). I mean what do you have against this ? Other than "I want to pirate stuff" (which will still be perfectly possible, just slightly more involved).

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[craigc05]

Mentioned URL: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[pmontra]

Suppose you are a Linus Torvalds some years in the future. How do you create your own OS if your PC only boots existing OSes and you don't work for a company that can buy or create non TC hardware?

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[maxwell demon]

If you work for a company, you can give out VPN credentials to idiots that are uncopyable.

Are there copyable idiots, too? :-)

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[vadim_t]

Surely such features are worth something ? Several linux companies are already using them.

Not to me. Why would I want it? If the bank likes it, it's profitable for them, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily profitable for me.

Offline payments also seem largely unnecessary given how the internet is increasingly available anywhere.

Also there are a lot of potential pitalls. If you transfer money to me offline, can the money disappear if the computers are never synchronized?

All it does is simply making sure that if you tell some company you're going to take good care of their data, you have to actually do it (or delete the data, you're perfectly at liberty to do that)

That is a perversion. There's no such thing as me keeping "their data". It's my data, and I should have full control over it. If they really have "their data", then it just stays on their servers, where it's fully their problem. I don't see why I suddenly guarantee its security for no advantage to myself.

I mean what do you have against this ? Other than "I want to pirate stuff" (which will still be perfectly possible, just slightly more involved).

Loss of control. My stuff is mine, period, and I don't have to give lenghty explanations of that. But no, it's not piracy. On my hardware, which I paid for, I should have absolute access to every single bit of it.

I will certainly not buy anything that implements such a scheme.

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[chill]

Easily, if you hold the keys. The trick is the keys that sign the boot image need to be in your control.

Google does this with their CR-48 Chromebook. It will only boot Google-signed images. But, there is a small switch in the battery compartment to put it into developer mode where it'll boot any image.

I *LIKE* TPM, as long as I generate the signing keys for the images. Then it'll boot what *I* tell it, and not necessarily what MS or the gov't, or anyone else tell it to.

It ensure that *I* can trust my computer. Screw what they want to trust.

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[gman003]

Nothing is unbreakable. Intel's TPM works basically the same way game console lockout chips do, with some enhancements - and you'll notice that there's a thriving market in modchips and softmod hacks. Worst-case, Linus would've had to reverse-engineer and break the TPM. Best-case, you go to a jailbreakme.com-like site and disable it entirely from software.

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[Teun]

From the article:

These are making the public safe online and ensuring the country is one of the best in the world for online business; making the UK more resilient in the face of cyber attack and better able to protect its interests; proving a more "open and vibrant" cyber security environment; and having the knowledge, skills and capability to underpin these.

"Building the most resilient cyber defences in the world will not help if you are suffering from intellectual property theft," he said. "Trusted computing underpins security and can underpin growth, providing confidence in transactions, expanding markets and making them function more efficiently."

The first quoted sentence is the usual self congratulating typical for British politicians, nothing to see here, move along.
The second part of the quote starts with divulging who is sponsoring this 'action'.

Bah!

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[Dog-Cow]

All idiots are copyable, and most have been.

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[RCL]

Mobile devices are not a problem. Looked how locked down the iPad and iPhone are. That fits right in with the spirit of trusted computing.

You realize that according to figures that you can on the web jailbroken iPhones constitute from 10 to 30% of the market? And those are certainly "conservative" estimates, because judging from iOS piracy rate ([1] [2]) percentage of jailbroken iDevices should be much larger!

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[Dr_Barnowl]

Linux can use TPM just fine.

It's one of those double edged swords - you can indeed, create a trusted platform. The question is, where does the trust reside?

Despite all the the hoo-haa about MS pushing Secure Boot for Windows 8 machines, part of me thinks it's a good thing - it will help to prevent a certain class of rootkit. The downside is that I don't trust MS not to abuse the feature to make it harder to load other operating systems on your machine. A colleague of mine was impressed enough with a certain LiveUSB this week that he intends to try it out on his ageing, ailing, overcrufted Windows machine at home. If Secure Boot was enabled on his machine, this would not have been possible.

Given the amount of software on my Windows machine at work devoted to snooping on what software I run, what files I have on my drive, and what websites I visit, the attitude is that my employer does not trust ME. To be honest, I wouldn't trust the average user not to foul up their computer. I might even welcome a trusted platform, if it meant that all this cruft went away and I could devote the resources to actually doing my job... but as a software developer, I can't run in an completely trusted environment, by definition, I have to be able to run software that has not been approved by our IT department, because I'm writing it.

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[kermidge]

Thanks for the link.

Okay, I read. I followed the included link http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html and read it, then spent another couple of hours reading more from a few of the links included in that article. At first blush there is some seriously horrifying stuff going on, much of it masquerading under the simplified banner of "think of the children"-style of emotional appeal but whose ultimate goal, and real appeal to the powers that be, is ultimately profit and control. Then it gets worse, IMO.

To me the warning of the dictum latterly attributed to Lord Acton (?) of "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." applies. [I suspect that that thought precedes written language.] If the power exists, it will be used - similar to yet farther reaching than "The 400" effectively control the US economy concomitant with its realpolitik. (I came across an article yesterday about researchers using systems analysis to determine that 1381 multi-nationals effectively controlled the planet's economy, all sans benefit of conspiracy but rather merely efficiency, but cannot find the link just now - science 2.0, perhaps; it was interesting reading, and it doesn't require a tin-foil hat to accord it some credence.)

So, if I have this a-rightly: TC does not, or will not, eventually, require more than a CPU and, at root, certain few government keys. It will be independent of OS, BIOS or UEFI, separate on-board chip, application code, what have you. Non-TC CPUs will be isolated to unconnected hobbyists; there will be no Internet functionality independent of approved TC CPUs. By extension, it will not even be possible to have private electronic-based communication amongst "ourselves" using PGP and such, because non-TC comms will not make it through any of various Internet intermediaries. And I suggest not counting on darknet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing_Group gives a quick look at the initial industry players.

At the moment, so far as I know, volume production of chips is not a trivial or easily hidden activity; further, absent genuine keys or imaginary effective counterfeits, independent and free electronic interaction will not be possible. If you think that's a gloomy overthink, it was worse before I read the comics section.

What with proprietary formats and such, DRM, DMCA, etc. - tip of the iceberg and all that - I see this as a snowball rolling down an endless slope such that the only hope is that "the" singularity when it may happen might prove a more benign overlord or, perhaps, even companion of sorts. Meanwhile, let's continue to have fun. It's only cradle to grave, right?

On the off-chance anyone got this far: sorry for the long post. I first read on some of this back in the early 90's, and found it to be sufficiently scary and depressing then after doing a bit of extrapolation.

Any smart people with non-smart-ass ideas on how to deal with this? I'm a bit more than curious, even 'tho, at 64, it may not be personally relevant for long.

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[shutdown -p now]

The right question to ask is: what proportion of people who bought iPhone or iPad would have still bought them if they were non-jailbreakable?

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[RCL]

Hard to estimate, given that a lot of second-hand iPhones are sold jail-broken. Certainly less users would buy it if they couldn't run pirate apps or use it with their favourite telco.

Re:No, Thank You, Dear Government

[amiga3D]

I suppose you could work in a virtual environment.

Sad to see another country cutting its own throat

[Crashmarik]

The U.S. has been doing it to itself with an insane tax code, and product liability laws from the netherworld. Europe is going down the road of not trusting its people.

Re:This won't last.

[arth1]

This is the entirely wrong way to think. Like most technologies, this one has good uses and bad uses. To ban a technology because of bad uses is no different whether it's you doing it or a government doing it.
Lack of TPM is a deal breaker for many businesses and individual - being able to encrypt a laptop in a way that the HD can't be used if removed from the machine, and can't be booted without verifying biometric data against the TPM signed data means that even with the machine, it's just a brick without the user.

The first time around, privacy advocates were concerned that TPM would be used by the big corps to lock in the sofware more efficiently than any dongle, and create a DRM hell. But it didn't, because the vast majority of users aren't interested in paying extra for such a feature. But those who are haven't changed the playing field.

Two words...

[Doctor_Jest]

Fuck. Off.

I will be the final arbiter of what runs on MY computers. Not some nebulous "trusted computing" that is in the back pocket of proprietary software conglomerates. There's no point in it unless the real agenda is to wrest control from users' hands. (The recent "secureboot" crap for Windows 8 is a prime example.) It's my computer. It's my data. It's not yours. It won't ever be yours. And no amount of fearmongering will convince me you have my best interests in mind.

Kiss my ass. No, really. Not on the left cheek, not on the right cheek, but RIIIIGHT in the MIDDLE.

There is an intellectual property-security complex

[0xdeadbeef]

Actually, no, Richard Stallman had it right long before Vernor Vinge.

DRM has never been about getting paid, it has always been about keeping control. And for all the shit Microsoft got about Palladium, the Apple zealots sure turned a 180 in 2007.

But the zealots are right about one thing - the iPhone is the future of computing. And that future is a boot stamping on a human face, forever.

TPM

[Ogun]

Because the certificate authorities have a really proven track record.

Also, it really helps against buffer overrun exploits which in now way is a common thing...

The usual bollocks, in other words.

Re:Security?

[colinrichardday]

Except that BitLocker, like other such programs, is susceptible to a cold-boot attack. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitLocker_Drive_Encryption

Re:There is an intellectual property-security comp

[spottedkangaroo]

I agree on all counts except for one thing ... If you click through to the article (Vinge had it right), she's talking about his idea that it rises slowly without any disaster to get people to go for it. Surely Vinge built on ideas from others, everyone does. But they're specifically talking about how accepting we all are (will be?) toward it. In his Rainbows End, a character specifically says that we traded freedom for safety, implying that it was a willing transition.

RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

The article quite clearly states that the government wants *its own* computers to have TPM installed, it doesn't mention anything about home users.

Re:Sad to see another country cutting its own thro

[NeutronCowboy]

The European Union is specifically not a country, not for any intents or any purposes. What the EU has is a common foreign policy and a system of rules that minimizes the impact of national borders on commerce.That's it. And the common foreign policy is on top of the foreign policy of each member state, not a replacement for it. The EU is much more a loosely federated club with very lax rules and even laxer enforcement.

Wanna know what a weak federal government looks like? Look at the EU.

Not for you

[EdZ]

This sounds less like requiring a TPM for access to, say, the jobcentreplus website (i.e. requiring TPM for the general public) and more an attempt to stem the tide of embarrassing governmental data breaches, i.e. requiring new government and MOD hardware to be a bit less rubbish in terms of data security. Requiring new hardware to access government services for eh general public won't happen, simply because there'd need to be a way to grandfather in all the non-protected devices in public libraries, distributed through government programs, etc.

Re:So much British

[digitig]

The UK does not produce anything except some biscuits and cereals (biscuits = cookies).

They are way down on the list of things we make; our pharmaceutical, engineering, chemical and booze industries are much bigger. Here's a moderately recent list of UK exports.

Re:This won't last.

[greenbird]

The first time around, privacy advocates were concerned that TPM would be used by the big corps to lock in the sofware more efficiently than any dongle, and create a DRM hell. But it didn't, because the vast majority of users aren't interested in paying extra for such a feature. But those who are haven't changed the playing field.

You, my friend, are either blindly naive or an idiot. The article blatantly and clearly states that primary purpose of this is to create DRM hell. The only reason it hasn't so far is that any products that use this are FAR less useful than products that don't use it and thus worth much less to the market. A nice government mandate will eliminate any ability of the market to make choices about such things. This has NOTHING to do with security. It has everything to do with control and the governments and established elite are finding that they are losing it. Wake up. Please.

From the fine article:

Owen Pengelly, deputy director of policy at the Office for Cyber Security..."Building the most resilient cyber defences in the world will not help if you are suffering from intellectual property theft,"

"Security advantages" hahahahaahah

[unity100]

A chip that allows utter control of a computer remotely, and security advantages ?

underground crime networks wouldnt blink an eye and would not waste even a '0-day' before they hack them to their advantage.

Politicians are stupid from an i.t. perspective. They shouldnt be allowed to talk on anything i.t.

Do not panic

[Zoxed]

No need to panic: this is a suggestion from an UK civil servant. Even if it did became policy one day the work would be farmed out to a least-cost supplier, the project would be 5 years overdue and 6 times over budget. If it ever made it into anyone's home it would be cracked by 12 year old in her lunch break :-)

Thank you, Governments, you corporate sled bitches

[Predatory QQmber]

That is indeed one of the reasons why this will not work: there are people using all kinds of different OSes, including all the mobile ones, desktop OSes and whatnot. If the UK government were to only allow devices with the trusted computing built-in both the hardware and software they'd be instantaneously removing access for everyone who is used to using mobile devices to access those services.

Another case of government not understanding technology, yet still pushing everyone to adopt it.

oh, i think it understands that part alright. if you have TPM and signing keys to it you can run whatever you like. this is pretty cool feature for servers and workspace hardware. if you have the keys, that's it.

BUT the whole point here is not about technology so much as about taking away people's access to the hardware they supposedly own (which, coincidently, would also nicely decrease number of "kinds of different OSes" people use and even number of their versions). and there are a looot of organizations besides the government that would benefit from such unethical and dirty move. and all of them don't give a damn about how people do and/or want use their hardware. it's about lockdown, it's about using your tech in a way someone else devised for you.

and that "mobile devices" industry you speak of has been like that for years, maybe decades.
ever heard about signed or even encrypted altogether OS kernels; bootloaders that check those signatures and deny boot; boards that modified in a slight, insufficient way to benefit its performance, but sufficient enough to make unfeasible hassle of bringing up its support in another OS without insider knowledge ? you should have, HTC recently made quite a news with graciously giving away keys to some of its customers. a rarity.
all while Nokia's N900 allows you to run Maemo, MeeGo, Android, pure GNU/Linux (which means that pretty much any distribution is not a problem to get running) and this list is short only because:
1) some core software components are still closed and spec-data is not available
2) proprietary OSes vendors have no interest in allowing anyone to run their OSes without their explicit permission since its purchase by end-users is not in theirs business plans, only shoving down users throats by the middle-men is.
it's short but for others it's nonexistent, an even bigger rarity in contrast to the majority where you, a customer, just fucked without an option (and no, being a forced luddite by not buying any tech is not a real option).
a Portable PC, not just "phone" or "tablet", but even Nokia don't want you to have it and deliberately shutting down N-projects and providing shitty marketing and lousy distribution for N900, N9 and refuses to sell N950 altogether.

it's just one small step for this shit coming to desktop, general computing, world. this kind of step.
of course it can be easily mitigated by legislating a law obligating PC vendors giving away keys together with hardware. but who would want that ? not many enough people.

so, "not understanding" that people "using all kinds of different OSes" is not the case here. they just don't give a fuck about people's needs. most people don't give much fuck about their needs even and prefer to lie to themselves that they take joy and happiness in unquestionably serving their abusers needs, bathing in willful ignorance until their very death.

PS: i must say, Slashdot's comment-making page is ugly, awkward, unproductive, slow, as if it were WYSIWYG while actually being embarrassingly featureless, mess.
like it were made to mostly write small, substance-less, inflammatory comments or nothing at all. or maybe i'm missing something.

He was just preaching to the choir

[arglebargle_xiv]

Speaking at a seminar on the subject organised by Wave Systems,

Wave Systems' entire business model is built around DRM-enforcement hardware, a business model they've been failing with for at least a decade (they also have backing with lots of venture capital from companies hoping it'll eventually pay off big, so they can afford to to continue to fail for years to come). Since he was speaking at an event they sponsored then of course he's going to endorse "trusted" computing. It was just a sound bite to keep the sponsors happy and make sure they covered his speaking fees and lunch bill, nothing more.

It's a step towards TV

[koan]

Where you sit drooling and not involved, I mean come on... that was the ideal right? Stupid drooling and desiring to buy and be like those on TV.
That declined with the Internet, and of course the loss of financial control and distribution of media.

The powers that be don't like the Internet right wikileaks?

Too many issues

[msobkow]

There are too many issues of lock-in and lock-out associated with so-called "Trusted Computing", in particular the potential to block users from installing their operating system of choice on the hardware they own.

So far the TPM initiatives deployed by the vendors have failed one after the other. X-Box, PS3, smart phones -- every TPM system I know of to date has failed to provide the protection promised, while restricting freedom of choice by the general public.

As a result, the only ones who really benefit from TPM are those who want to implement hardware DRM (digital restrictions management.) I'm not willing to give up my software freedoms to support the media companies.

Please READ Vinge

[johnwerneken]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/jun/29/guardianweeklytechnologysection5
Vinge was an OPTIMIST. The "SHE" (secure hardware enviornment) is a dangerous and probable prosal but only one of five scenarios.