Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Kills Off Its Trustworthy Computing Group
An anonymous reader writes Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group is headed for the axe, and its responsibilities will be taken over either by the company's Cloud & Enterprise Division or its Legal & Corporate Affairs group. Microsoft's disbanding of the group represents a punctuation mark in the industry's decades-long conversation around trusted computing as a concept. The security center of gravity is moving away from enterprise desktops to cloud and mobile and 'things,' so it makes sense for this security leadership role to shift as well. According to a company spokesman, an unspecified number of jobs from the group will be cut. Also today, Microsoft has announced the closure of its Silicon Valley lab. Its research labs in Redmond, New York, and Cambridge (in Massachusetts) will pick up some of the closed lab's operations.
Swinging axe, heads be rolling up in that bitch.
Trusted computing was always destined to be vaporware. Nobody wanted it.
Now that they have made all their software trustworthy there is no more need for the group, right? Declare victory and go home.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Microsoft products will get easter eggs again?
The NSA has considered them a trustworthy source of security leaking holes, so no need to worry about it anymore.
I've never shorted a stock; but every time this new guy makes a move I think about it. OMG... a cloud of mobile things... totally not MS's core comp. It's like what they did to Flickr. It's the same kind of stupid trend following. It's just that it's on a much, Much, MUCH larger scale. If this one craters like I think it might, it'll be taught in business schools for the next 50 years as "what not to do".
Oh sure, a lot of people on /. would like to see MS crater; but be careful what you wish for. Do you really want AAPL to be the A no. 1 tech company for EVERYTHING, including your workstation?
The only silver lining I see here is that CEOs might wake up and realize what they're doing wrong. They'll stop doing what everybody at the cocktail party says, and concentrate on their core customers and competencies; but for MS it might not come until post Chapter 11.
And an insult. It was like Microsoft trying to usurp your own computer and tell you what it could do and spy on you too.
Trustyworthy Computing had the idea that apps could prevent you taking screenshots and assert insane privileges on your own computer.
It was offensive as hell.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
must be cool
He's closing departments and firing people left and right. I wonder what Microsoft will be like in 5 years.
I think someone "missed" the punchline to all of this.. they handled the MS Security Updates notifications and the Patch Update communications.
This was predictable after the August and September debacles.. they already knew they're jobs were gone..
Developers who claim the code is "Self Documenting" should not be allowed to wield sharp objects at your servers.
All patches will have to be defaulted off.. or you might as well abdicate to the Cloud.. good luck holding them Accountable for "anything".
"The security center of gravity is moving away from enterprise desktops to cloud and mobile and 'things' "
This has been microsoft's goal since they announced Windows 8 and it's bad. The cloud is not trustworthy, it was shown to not be many times over and no sane enterprise will allow the cloud to take over local desktops/servers.
The title could've been a lot more clickbaity.
"Microsoft Kills Off Trustworthiness"
Maybe buzzfeed will take care of it.
"Conversation" is bad enough, but what does the word "around" in this type of sentence even mean? That the conversation never actually gets anywhere or accomplishes anything specific, but just circles 'around' and 'around' a problem that should be analyzed, detailed, and solved (or firmly documented as unsolvable or uneconomic)?
sPh
This is great news on one hand, but a sad reminder of how some of the core ideas behind this "technology" have advanced. I remember when the first bits of information on "Palladium", as it was called at the time, started to leak out. There was a lot of talk about how software companies could lock down their applications to restrict their use or make them disappear from the device on a whim. Also there was speculation about how the government could use it to track and watch everything done on the device. Well, look at what we have today - applications and data stored in datacenters that the government has easy access to. Downloaded apps can be disabled for reasons as silly as trademark disputes. And social networking websites are making billions tracking the activities of their users and selling the data.
Fortunately, some of the other nefarious goals have not come to pass. We still are able to use whatever device we want to connect to the internet and are not limited to a walled garden. We also can transfer media files between (most) devices without needing a license for each device. And encryption capabilities are easier to implement and for the most part protect our privacy instead of protecting the software companies' "intellectual property." We definitely owe a debt of gratitude to groups like the EFF and Free Software Foundation for standing up to the lobbyists that pushed the trusted computing platform.
.... they've just found a different avenue to cement DRM with appstores and walled gardens. Mark my words trusted computing will return under "security" and "convenience".
It happened to the game industry with diablo 3 and destiny (an always online DRM'd console game).
...or does anyone else get a slight chub hearing that M$ is not doing so hot anymore? Will there be a day that the M$ lawyers get the axe, and all this BS about their licenses will go away too? I don't mean that I'm glad to hear of the job losses, but I mean come on, we're talking about some of the brightest people in the world. They should be able to use their brains in ways to make a living - even if that means that the computing world gets better due to lack of restriction by M$ on these people's ability to design things.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
I'm guessing the desktop isn't the enviable real estate it once was. They're probably going to fumble around in the mobile space some more. The last time they were caught this flat-footed by a new technology, IBM was trying to start up competition with them on the desktop and Microsoft's position was quite strong. They just had to... borrow... the TCP/IP stack from BSD and they were good to go. They just had to poke IBM in the eye a couple of times to convince them to go elsewhere. I suspect they'll find Google to be a somewhat more difficult competitor to deal with. Especially given the state of Microsoft's search engine and... mobile platform.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Guys, before saying anything stupid, at least go read wikipedia.
Trustworthy Computing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trustworthy_computing
Trusted Computing is going well and strong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing_Group
Trusted Computing is not DRM, but DRM could use Trusted Computing ... and lots of other mecanism too. Learn the difference and stop spreading FUD about a great technology.
Exactly. Microsoft tried to secure the software against the users, and tried to tell everyone it was more plain security.
I'm glad users didn't swallow it. MS's lame attempt at confusing everyone got the ridicule and hate it so richly deserved.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
From a business viewpoint, I just don't see how one of the wealthiest companies feels a need to have to reduce their workforce, especially research labs... Do they really need to increase their profits by cutting corners. If I had that type of money, I would be keeping every bright minded individual I came across, even if they haven't done anything amazing as of recent, as long as they are doing a good job and 1 great thing does come out every once in a while, why not keep them working. It's not like they need to meet profit margins, even breaking even a few years in a row can't be all too bad.
Fuck you dice and your bogus planted "stories". That's my answer.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Twc was a group not a technology. An attempt to take a GRC approach to compliance and improvement.
E
It was not externally focused.
During boot, Windows will write log entries to the TPM. Every time a module or driver is loaded, the signature, hash code etc. is written to the TPM.
When the OS is up and running a client can request the TPM to issue the collected log entries, digitally signed with a key residing in the TPM. The boot log is then sent to a "health certificate" server. The health certificate server can inspect the log (after verifying its authenticity thjrough the signature) to see if any untrusted or known malicious software was loaded during the startup process. If everything checks out OK, it can then issue a "Health certificate".
Other devices on the corporate/private net can be instructed to quaranteen servers until they can present a valid Health certificate. Ie. the TPM can play a central role in preventing malicious software from propagating on internal Networks: If a server suddenly load more drivers than expected, loads non-whitelisted drivers or directly blacklisted drivers, nobody wants to talk to it.
Reading slashdot one-liner: (irm http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot).rdf.item | fl title,desc*
Google and MS are largely in different markets while IBM and MS hat very hot competitors in the corporate datacenter and corporate desktop. Google runs an autistic org (try to communicate with them) and churns out top-notch stuff. MS needs to hold then hands of millions of muppets who think they are gifted geniuses. IBM even more so because their products are clusterfucks.
I don't trust myself to comment...
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Microsoft isn't as dumb as it used to be.
They had to "kill" the whole Patch Update Maintenance model (for free) before they could resurrect it (for pay).
They originally tried to "kill" Linux support models the same way they "killed" Netscape.. give it away for free.. but that only worked in a few cases.. Red hat survived and Oracle justified it.
Now "XP decades" later that is turning out to be a very expensive mistake.
The NSA competition for Cloud ownership is driving Microsoft business away from the Cloud.. and the Court documents are accelerating the Trend.. so its "back to the premise"
The only rational business model that has succeeded there, that didn't depend on frequent competition, it the "yearly support Contract" which Red Hat and Cisco" have excelled at.. predictable income, a base model for future funding that Warren Buffet has demonstrated as very effective.
But they shot themselves in the foot by giving everyone "free Updates forever".. so they had to get serious about "Sunsetting" products when it was not in the original EULA terms.. especially that pesky "XP" problem.
So they have to "discredit" their old "freebie" Patch mangement and Update system.. no one was buying MOM or System Center.
And orginate a "new" one.. frankly they could bootstrap it with a revised "XP is now supported under the new (for pay) Support Service" that is a yearly subscription, not a million dollars or so per year.
A simple $59.95 per year for "XP Support" would jump start such a business immediately World Wide.. and then adding in Business services as greatly reduced costs, VLSC and new products as they come along. Its not a debate over the "Technology" whether XP is pretty enough or "Modern" enough.. but a simple matter of numbers. Windows 7 might be easier to bring such a product to market since Microsoft retirees and those familar with the code base would still be available.. letting so many recently go.. and hiring back as "Support Contractors" would make it an especially easy Start up business with attendant Tax breaks "on shore". And advertising it was a business orignated and "made in North America" would just goose it further.. foreign nationals have their own opinions about their local service providers.. and it far from "not good" .. explicative deleted.