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IBM stamping ID's into new PC's
IBM may not have grasped Intel's failure here. Attention IBM: I have been a religious Intel owner. Just the other day I bought several computers with AMD chips instead of Intel P-III's, because I don't want to be tracked - so as long as Intel wants to track me and there's anybody else in the chip-making business, Intel won't be getting my business. You just don't realize that people take their computers seriously - they don't want it ratting on them to every website they visit, they don't want it informing on them behind their back, they don't want Clipper chips performing insecure e-commerce "encryption" for them. It sounds (and of course IBM is releasing this tomorrow, so this is preliminary) like IBM has created a proprietary, closed system, which very probably includes a back-door in it for U.S. law-enforcement access, because otherwise IBM would have trouble exporting it worldwide. Only pointy-haired bosses are going to want to purchase such things. -- michael
IBM actually will put an encryption chip on all their pc's in the future, enhancing personal security not hindering it. see the register for more info. http://www.theregister.co.uk/990927-000012.html
Details on precisely what instructions are involved would presumably be necessary; if one is running Linux, then actually using the instructions requires that someone convinces you to install software compiled with the "Evil Privacy-Killing Instructions."
This will fall high on the list of Things Ulrich Drepper Won't Add to GLIBC; it is equally likely to represent Instructions Unlikely To Be Added To the GCC Code Generator.
Note that this furthermore represents Instructions That Aren't on PPC which would encourage the purchase of PPC-based systems or Alpha-based systems...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
This chip isn't being marketed at all as any "real" security solution. The article explicitely states this. In the event a consumer needs a more secure solution, IBM has add-ons and other products to suit them. The cryptography, they say, should be adequate for 80% of their customers. I agree.
Dude, I don't know what sort of top secret information you're planning on distributing, but 256 bits is plenty for me. If this encryption is honestly inadequate for your needs, I'd seriously suggest that you lock your computer in a safe someplace and never ever connect it to any form of computer network. Hell, you might want to dip the hard drive into some molten lead and throw into the middle of the Atlantic if you're that worried.
HTTPS (SSL) predominantly uses 40-bit encryption. "High security" versions of the same thing run at 128-bits. The last I checked, the "default" PGP key length wasn't anywhere *near* 1024-bits, which this chip supports.
Again, it's all a matter of *degree*. True, there is software out there that uses key lengths a lot longer than what this chip offers, but you won't find that software in mainstream browsers and e-mail clients, which means it's useless to normal people.
Additionally, you seem to forget the whole purpose of moving encryption into hardware: It's impossible to recover the private key via software. Today it's theoretically possible for a trojan or other malicious programs to snoop around your hard drive, find your software-based PGP private key ring, and from there, somehow recover the private key. This is not possible with hardware-based encryption, hence its attractiveness.
If there is a backdoor...
*IF* there is a backdoor. Somehow I doubt that such a back door exists. There's always the possibility that a back door will be discovered (and it's almost a guaranteed certainty, given enough time). If one is found, IBM will be nailed with lawsuits up the ass, criminal proceedings, you name it.
It doesn't make good business sense.
You know, it's certainly possible (I mean technologically, obviously) for the government to sneak in a hidden backdoor in Microsoft Windows. Does that mean we should ban and legislate Windows into extinction? It's also possible that they've secretly placed a backdoor in the operating systems that run on our Internet's routers. Quick! Ban the Internet!
Yes, each chip has a public key. If you don't want that public key given out, don't use software that makes use of it. Period.
I occasionally make use of a software-based PGP implementation, but you don't see me scrambling to hide my public key from people.
Remember: Multi-user systems are pretty commonplace nowadays (NT, Unix, even Windows-based workstations). It makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever to suddenly convert all programs so that they use this hardware-based encryption scheme over a user-defined one.
How arrogant of IBM to assume the subversive element of our society won't abuse this new privacy-invading 'feature'. What's worse.. they're actually encouraging the very thing this ID feature was supposed to stop - fraud!
To use an old, but good, example - if you don't have a secure channel with another person, you probably aren't going to be tempted to communicate sensitive information with it. But.. if you think you have a secure channel with another party.. you may be more willing to divulge sensitive information. The key word here is think. If that channel isn't secure.. you're exposing yourself to more risk than if it didn't exist at all! It defeated the very reason it was created - security. The use of this chip holds a similar analogy - if it is used for verification, then anybody who can defeat it can masqarade as anybody relying on it as a method of authentication. In short.. the barn door is wide open.
So privacy nuts... I suggest you adopt this approach instead - crack this scheme as fast as you can! Defeat it before people start relying on it - and issue a joint statement on why this is such a bad idea.
--
What I think we're seeing here is the difference between two philosophies.
The geeks seem to hold fast to the belief that: You can not expect differing results from the same behaviour. We've seen the Intel precedent, and the result, and so we're expecting (reasonably) that the same actions by IBM (X) will have the same outcome (Y).. Next time, when a new value of X is fed into the function, the same value of Y will pop out the other end.
On the other hand, it looks like the corporations see it as: The squeak wheel gets the grease. Intel took the brunt of the opposition to the concept. Now IBM has picked up the gauntlet and is trying to run with it. Public opinion has been tested, and now the news is old. There is less likely to be as much opposition to the idea now, since it's not 'sexy' anymore. And if enough large companies reach concensus on this, the cusotmer is likely to simply believe, or give in assuming they can't win. Intel, IBM, any X, will keep chipping away at the issue until the wall gives way.
Eventually, what this will become is a matter of will. We have already made clear the reasons why this is not a good idea. We see it as a solved problem - how many times can you run through the same process until it becomes too tedious, and we move on? Intel was shown to be wrong and has backed down (a little). Now IBM put a new spin on an old hat. Eventually, one side will get tired, and it's likely to be the side that has less PR money.
Eventually we will get tired of voicing the same objections. The customers and the public-at-large will get tired of hearing the same arguments. The right legislator will get greased, and it will come into being.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
The linked article never mentions a serial number ala Pentium III. Never. Not once. What it does say is that the IBM PC's will include a chip which performs some public-key encryption routines. Specifically, it will perform digital signatures. Now, how exactly is that an invasion of your privacy?
;-)>
I'm amazed at how many posters on this thread are running on the "it's another CPU ID" gripe when that has no basis in reality. Besides, these PC's will probably ship with P-III's, and why reinvent the wheel
To quote from the C|Net story about this:
------quote on--------
Big Blue, taking a lesson from Intel's blunder, worked with privacy groups, such as the Center for Democracy and Technology, on implementing the security chip.
"We found we could create a solution that does not create additional privacy concern, but built on a good security base and lets the user be the ultimate decision-maker," said Hester.
------quote off-----------
While it's true that the devil is in the details, and we don't know a lot about how this will be implemented, I have a hard time seeing how this a bad thing. Unlike the PIII ID feature, which provides no security at all for the user, this has the potential to provide a lot of security for the user. The reality is that encryption based digital signature techniques, which this chip will help enable, are the only way to protect people from identity theft online.
The big question is how avaiable is the documentation going to be. If it will be possible to write linux drivers and (say for example) allow GPG to perform RSA using licensed hardware, that seems like it could be a good thing. Depending on what the API looks like for this thing, it may be possible to turn around the "strong" signature capability and turn it into a "strong" encryption engine. Now that would be cool...
Has anybody tried reading the article?
The features of the security chip include key encryption, which encodes text messages, and "digital signatures", which act as unique "watermarks" that identify the sender of the document.
Where in that sentence does is say there is a unique ID embedded in each and every chip? To me, it sounds more like IBM is marketing a hardware-driven security engine, a "PGP on a chip", if you will. I do not see how this translates to a unique serial number on each and every chip.
(Whether you want to trust IBM's security implementation is another matter entirely.)
What does this have to do with My Rights Online? If every hardware crypto product on the market is a violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, Slashdot is going to become awful darn cluttered.
When I first read about YRO, I thought it seemed like a good idea. The Internet is a new medium in many ways, and I do not want the government panicking and trying to restrict it. However, YRO seems less about keeping a sensible eye on things and more about paranoid sensationalism, written by anarchists who think that all laws must be bad, all corporations must be bad, everything not invented here must be bad, ahhhhhhhhhhh!
Even if there is a unique ID embedded in this chip, so what? A Unique ID for each computer can be a useful thing. For example, if you are trying to implement property control in a large organization, an electronic serial number would be a Godsend.
The problem with Intel's serial number was twofold: First, they were marketing it for "secure online transactions", something which it is not appropriate for, and second, they tried to smuggle it into every system made, turned on by default. That is not good at all. But there is zero evidence that this scenario is even possible with IBM's chip, let alone going to happen.
Please. Keep your head. Do not react first and then stop to think, or you are just as guilty as the government for panicking when something new comes along.
(And before you tell me "Nobody is forcing you to read YRO": There is thing thing called feedback...)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I don't like this idea at all and if one of my future computers will have such a chip inside, I'll take major measures (soldering iron included) to make it not perform as intended. However, I'm not blind and can see the writing on the wall. Hardware authentication makes too much sense to be ignored. Given all the security scares (real and imagined), the government and corporations will want reassurances of security and a hardware solution will appeal (with reason) to them. Besides, I don't really object to hardware authentication on, say, my office box. Not that it can successfully pretend it is something else anyway... :> But as to my home machine: not bloody likely I'll install this thing willingly.
For my fellow paranoids (we know who you are!): keep in mind that all ethernet devices, including the NIC in your machine, already have a global unique identifier -- MAC.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Convenience is the great enemy of privacy. Corporations like IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Sun will always be able to justify (or perhaps legitimately believe) that the convenience of ID stamping or data broadcasting for their latest nifty upgrade-inducing "feature" outweighs the small decrease in consumer privacy. And because most of us are lazy - yes, even you noble Slashdotter - we will ultimately accept these small intrusions in the name of preserving our free time and sanity. Can you imagine living life in American without a SSN? It is legal I believe, and it would indeed greatly inhance your personal privacy, but it is incredibly inconvenient. What about eschewing license plates, and therefore cars? Possible. Not convenient. The process will continue as long as we are blinded by our love of "progress", as defined by the availability of neat new gadgets everywhere we go. Real progress is social change than enhances lives, not merely technology that makes life more ornate. Fat chance of changing our culture, though.
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!