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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.
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
XP was excellent
That's what inspired me to switch to Linux full-time, I'll say that much for it.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
For anyone who says: "XP was excellent" I will ignore anything that comes after. It was nothing more than a collection of resource wasting Themes on top of Windows 2000 which was actually a good operating system.
I found that this technology has two edges to it. The first is its use for DRM, but the second is something I've found useful.
A TPM chip can come in handy with BitLocker. It means that brute forcing a drive's password becomes not an option, as an attacker is faced with the full 128 or 256 bit keyspace of AES. Unless an attacker can uncap the TPM chip, brute forcing a password will only cause the chip to lock due to excessive attempts and not allow access in any way.
It also provides peace of mind. With a TPM + PIN + USB flash drive, if my laptop gets stolen, if I have the USB flash drive on my keychain, I know the laptop's contents are protected. Even if the keychain is stolen, there is still the PIN which has to be guessed. If the MBR or BIOS are modified, it will be detected, and not allow the machine to boot. Not 100% security (XKCD rubber hoses and cold RAM attacks will beat it for example), but good enough.
Problem is that this type of technology to ensure malware hasn't tampered with the boot process tends to be far more often used to keep legitimate people out of their device rather than to allow legitimate device owners to keep control of their data.
Had TC been an open standard, it could have been a great thing. Think: locking down one VM such that no virus can taint it, which you can then use to scan the rest of the system with assurance that the results are valid.
But instead it was a joke. I was doing standards work while the TC "standard" was being hammered out, and while they were in the same Hotel as real ISO standards work, you had to be there from a member company and sign an NDA to even listen to the discussions. We didn't take them seriously (the normal ISO/INCITS rules are that anyone who shows up can participate, you only need to be from a paying company to vote, and that minutes are always public).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Stop being revisionist on history.
Win XP was atrocious when it first came out. Remember all those horrible virus/worm attacks?
Even with SP1, it was crap. It took SP2 to restore normalcy.
Microsoft's problem is that it is too big. Instead of spending resources on improving products and innovating, it prefers to pay the market droids to churn out snarky negative attack ads bashing rivals' products, and paying online shills to do their dirty work on tech sites. Even on the so-called 'legit' tech review sites e.g. Computer World and ZD Net, they are infested with Microsoft shills. The 'reviewers' have been bought off by Microsoft to gush praise on Microsoft products. I know what's going on, so please stop the denial.
Microsoft has never made quality software. It got lots of money from maintaining a MONOPOLY. That's why it is panicking due to its floundering mobile market: Surface, Windows phones, Nokia acquisition, Mojang acquisition, 'Metro on your Win8 desktop whether you like it or not'.
I for one will be happy to see Microsoft crash and burn, and something new and non-Microsoft emerge from the ashes.