[Gllug] The Palladium Scheme

[Alain Williams]

On Wed, Jun 26, 2002 at 04:23:01PM +0100, Jim Bailey wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 26, 2002 at 08:48:31AM +0100, John Southern wrote:
> > 
> > > http://theregister.co.uk/content/4/25891.html
> > 
> > I remember the previous MS security chip. They managed to put one in a 
> > Mattel Aquarius computer :-) 
> >
> I have just read the original article on News Week as well as the
> Register article, I hope I am wrong and the spin the main stream tech
> media will not be so uncritical as the News Week article.  If The
> Register is right however about this then Linux and the GPL could be in
> serious trouble.  This is one to watch and maybe get involved in, it
> makes the DMCA and EUCD look like a side show.

Actually the chip is not the big problem as the specs seem to be open
(http://www.trustedcomputing.org/docs/main%20v1_1b.pdf - I haven't read it properly
so do shoot me down if I have it wrong) and it is concerned with letting the OS boot.
It is their new OS (Longhorn) that will be interesting.

My understanding/summary of what it is all about:

* To protect the user ( & various big businesses) M$ will take care of of it
  with Longhorn ... which will in itself depend on this security chip and won't
  work if your box doesn't have one -- oh, another hardware upgrade ?
* Longhorn will refuse to speak to web sites that can't authenticate themselves
  as being trustworthy - presumably by only running secure M$ apps.
* Longhorn Web sites won't speak to a non authenticated browser.

This splits the web in 2 - those that M$ likes & the rest.

* You (or Disney/...) will be able to limit the use of documents/films/...
  This means that if a document has not been produced by an approved M$ system
  then another M$ system will not read it (it may contain a virus/...)

This makes communication between M$ & non-M$ desktops difficult.

* ISV (Indenpendent Software Vendors) will have to have their s/ware approved
  by M$ before a M$ system will run it (how much will that cost ?).
  Where does that leave in house development ?

Well, you say, it is easy to break the encryption/... that this relies on.
True: but M$ then hits hard with the DMCA on anyone that does or has s/ware
that does.

M$ will attempt to push something like this through.

-- 
Alain Williams

#include <std_disclaimer.h>


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