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trusted computing, or treacherous computing?
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| AnotherWay83 |
look at what they're planning to do now...Microsoft, Intel, IBM, HP and AMD are all backing this up
read the whole thing here: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/tcpa-faq.html
excerpt:
2. What does TC do, in ordinary English? (TC=="Trusted Computing")
TC provides a computing platform on which you can't tamper with the application software, and where these applications can communicate securely with their authors and with each other. The original motivation was digital rights management (DRM): Disney will be able to sell you DVDs that will decrypt and run on a TC platform, but which you won't be able to copy. The music industry will be able to sell you music downloads that you won't be able to swap. They will be able to sell you CDs that you'll only be able to play three times, or only on your birthday. All sorts of new marketing possibilities will open up.
TC will also make it much harder for you to run unlicensed software. In the first version of TC, pirate software could be detected and deleted remotely. Since then, Microsoft has sometimes denied that it intended TC to do this, but at WEIS 2003 a senior Microsoft manager refused to deny that fighting piracy was a goal: `Helping people to run stolen software just isn't our aim in life', he said. The mechanisms now proposed are more subtle, though. TC will protect application software registration mechanisms, so that unlicensed software will be locked out of the new ecology. Furthermore, TC apps will work better with other TC apps, so people will get less value from old non-TC apps (including pirate apps). Also, some TC apps may reject data from old apps whose serial numbers have been blacklisted. If Microsoft believes that your copy of Office is a pirate copy, and your local government moves to TC, then the documents you file with them may be unreadable. TC will also make it easier for people to rent software rather than buy it; and if you stop paying the rent, then not only does the software stop working but so may the files it created. So if you stop paying for upgrades to Media Player, you may lose access to all the songs you bought using it.
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| jonsimmonds |
Technically TC does make sense, in the sense that it IS preventing the use of pirated programs, though it is kinda like microsoft would be in theory able to see everything you do on your pc.
I saw a good example of a pro side to TC, say for a goverment all documents can be made to only load and de-cript on goverment pc's thus reducing the chance of someone leaking a document to the press
Personally i wont want it on my pc, and if microsoft try to implement more TC code into windows, ill be moving full time to linux, as i want my privacy. |
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| St_Andrew |
and this is not palladium?
anyway i hate this kind of things.. i hate microsoft... But fortunaly i'm in love, with Linux :D :p |
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| Shabbaman |
| Pentium III and later processors are all 'marked', which in theory makes it possible to identify every computer. But whatever microsoft software produces will eventually be cracked... |
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| jonsimmonds |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shabbaman
Pentium III and later processors are all 'marked', which in theory makes it possible to identify every computer. But whatever microsoft software produces will eventually be cracked... |
yeah, but that is only a serial number, and so far ive never heard of anyone copying cpu's (yet!) and there is also a bios optiobn to turn it off (on pIII boards anyway)
and for TC to work properley it will need a chip on motherboards, which will take ages to develope, and some tech based site will no doubt produce a work around for it, a bit like how playstations can be chipped, and as you said the software will no doubt be cracked to, i very much doubt TC will be with us in the next 10 years, even when it comes out, just use old hardware and you wont have it. the only problem will be once it comes out MS will encourage all programs to be written with TC in mind. |
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| whiskers |
| so don't throw away those p200s, someday they'll be worth a lot |
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| MrSquirrel |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shabbaman
Pentium III and later processors are all 'marked', which in theory makes it possible to identify every computer. But whatever microsoft software produces will eventually be cracked... |
The serial number broadcasting is, by default, set to off and must be turned on by the computer user if they choose to do so. It is in some ways a useful feature because it gives you computer a unique identifier which a site, such as a banking site, could use to make sure the person logging in as you is at least more likely to be you. But it can also be used to track your web srfing habits, which is why everyone freaked out and Intel backed off on having the feature on by default.
MrS |
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| jonsimmonds |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrSquirrel
The serial number broadcasting is, by default, set to off and must be turned on by the computer user if they choose to do so. It is in some ways a useful feature because it gives you computer a unique identifier which a site, such as a banking site, could use to make sure the person logging in as you is at least more likely to be you. But it can also be used to track your web srfing habits, which is why everyone freaked out and Intel backed off on having the feature on by default.
MrS |
its examples like these that are a pluss to trusted computing, no more cases of peoples credit card details geting stolen. |
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| DigiNut |
So basically, they're telling me that I should spend my hard-earned cash on what is essentially a dumb terminal running terminal apps off a domain server. Well aside from the VERY obvious privacy issues, I see a number of other problems with it:
First, there is not necessarily any domain server, which must mean that they plan on doing this through Internet - trouble is, some people don't even have Internet, let alone fast internet with 100% uptime. Even if they did, think of the bandwidth it would consume to have all this rights management crap and remote scanning going on all day.
Second, security in the form of, for example, firewalls and local user rights, would have to be dispensed with entirely, since they would provide a very convenient means of blocking the application servers (or phone-homes, however it is structured). This opens up a great new opportunity for hackers who find security holes in the TC platform to release worms, virii, and other nasties into every single user's PC without them even knowing about it, much less being able to clean it without the proper "authorization."
But most important of all, the concept by its very nature is distinctly anti-competitive - it is being done solely to discourage competition with popular "trusted" software and hardware products. Companies that want to win the war need only grease the right palms to ensure that their competitors are never "TC-compliant." They also want to take away the First Sale rule and the constitutional right to reverse-engineer - how interesting. I'm surprised that the U.S. government would have the audacity to file an antitrust suit against Microsoft (not that the suit itself wasn't necessary, deserved, and long overdue) and then support this kind of nonsense. But I'm sure the technology intrigues them because it will enable them to spy on users and censor them.
I'm curious as to what effect this would have on the music production industry, I could see it as seriously limiting people's abilities to share samples, distribute music, etc. Are they going to have a host of new file formats that only work on specific software? No more of the generic .WAV file that basically any tracker can sequence? Are people going to have to pay to get their tracks digitally signed so others can listen?
I have an inkling of what this technology will actually do. Unlike the current situation where there is still some interoperability between different hardware (PC, Mac, Alpha) and operating systems (Windows, Linux, BeOS), TC will most likely serve to further divide and isolate the computer n00bs who buy their equipment from Future Shop and Best Buy, and the more experienced users who put together their own systems and perhaps use Linux or some other lesser-known OS. Reading that article conjures up the image of two very distinct technological "sects", the free-enterprisers who all work tirelessly together to build a private free community, and the consumers who get everything perfect the way they want but pay through the nose for it. Think of it like a two-tiered system...
Ah well, I know that was a ridiculously long post and I apologize to whoever I've bored stiff, but this is the first I've heard of TC and I find it very interesting and rather shocking. I hope that as a future electrical engineer, I'll never be in the position of having to work on this technology... |
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| AnotherWay83 |
| diginut, u're rite, but u shud read the whole article...it answers those questions u've raised...it is definitely anti-competitive...microsoft knows that the safest way to prevent loss of customers is to tie them in as securely as possible and make it as difficult as possible to move to a competitor's product... |
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| jinxed84 |
unless they start encrypting your speakers, and monitors i dont think they can do much. the signal has to come out clean and decoded somewhere right? just copy it after that point.
say you have an encrypted format that for some reason you can only play on your computer because of some software hangup. you play it once, output the signal to something like a MD player or cd burner. its not like CD players are going to become obsolete any time soon. sound wont fundamentally change so much that we wont like listening to cds/MD's in our lifetimes. our favorite type of music, almost the entire industry is based on what? vinyl something that must be 60 years old. we have enough technology now to satisfy us if the industry starts to get bitchy and take away certain "freedoms".
these things are just to stop the casual pirate. the encriptions will be broken, probably quickly too. companys arent as smart as some people think for example(either that or they are cheap). there was onc cd encripting method which can be nullified by drawing over the edge of the cd with a sharpie. AMD tried to lock thier chip speeds so you couldnt overcolck them. that was solved by connecting two points with a #2 pencil line (or some conductive ink if you want to do a better job) consumers are more stingy than the companys and will allways find a way to pay less/not pay at all for something they want
and like someone said about the software. theres always linux. and its freeeeeeeee
SUMMARY : DONT WORRY ABOUT IT :toothless :p |
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| arctic |
| If new windows os' get this, i simply wont upgrade, and i will seriously look into linux with its windows emulators etc. |
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