Replies

" I am deeply suspicious of so-called "Trusted Computing" and "Trusted Platform Modules". First, I'm supposed to believe that the designers have only good intentions and have not been bought off by powerful interests whose motives I disagree with. Well, I don't believe that. Second, a name like "Trusted" is marketing BS, on the face of it. Trusted by whom, to act how? Finally, the fact that TPM is mandated is like the ironic meme: "SOCIALISM: Ideas so good they're mandatory." CONTROL - CONTROL - CONTROL is what it's all about. Loss of choice, loss of freedom, loss of individuality. "

Well, that makes two of suspicious, but aside from a very few pirating and gaming watchdogs[1][2], I see no really seeing a cause for concern, esp. as concerns ideological content. It seems to me that requiring hardware trust in order for you to use your working hardware can easily evolve into requiring the user and or his content to be trusted, like as FB does. All in the name of the common good.

[1],https://www.fsf.org/news/lifes-better-together-when-you-avoid-windows-11

[2] https://secret.club/2021/06/28/windows11-tpms.html [3]Video: Is Windows 11 DOA Or The End Of Computing As We Know It? What is TPM?

I suppose I'm old-school...

But to me "trusted computer" means "reliable, well-designed, robust computer", and it has nothing to do with whether Microsoft or the government approve it.

I've been a computer systems design engineer (that's "system" as in: hardware + OS/drivers + applications) since the mid-1970's, and some of the industrial process control computers I designed and delivered in the 1980's are still working to spec in difficult environments. For a decade I designed and delivered spacecraft computers to the highest MIL-SPECs. I cut my teeth doing component and subsystem failure analyses in the early 80's as a subcontractor to NASA. These days I'm still doing high-rel work, although to be fair I'm working at a considerably higher level of integration; my days of designing with latches and A/D converters, and writing in assembler, are long past.

But you will understand that I bristle a bit when some untrusted company or untrusted government hack tells me I have to use their "mandated trusted" hardware and/or software.

Being old-school has this benefit: My present computer hardware is doing well, and may just outlive me, and I won't have to deal with the latest and greatest "mandated trusted" atrocities. :-)