Posted on 04/25/2005 5:39:47 AM PDT by r5boston
After nearly a decade, Microsoft's vision for how to protect especially sensitive information within Windows remains largely that--a vision.
For years, the software giant has promised to deliver a secure way to shuttle around key bits of information. Once known as Palladium and more recently dubbed the Next Generation Secure Computing Base, or NGSCB, the approach was once a key part of Longhorn, the next version of Windows. Although the first piece of that is arriving in Longhorn, it's only a thin sliver of what Microsoft has been working toward since describing its idea of "trusted Windows" a decade ago.
In the next version of Windows, which Microsoft chairman Bill Gates will show off on Monday at a company sponsored conference, Microsoft will use the concepts of NGSCB to ensure that Windows-based machines start up without interference. The primary benefit of such an approach is that if a laptop is lost or stolen, the data can't be accessed simply by booting the machine up using another operating system.
"If you lose your laptop in a taxi, no one is going to get at your data," Windows chief Jim Allchin said in a recent interview. "The hardware is not going to let you boot that software, and there is a way for us to do full-volume encryption."
That may indeed be a popular feature, but it's a far cry from Microsoft's broader plan, which was to use NGSCB systemwide as a secure vault for particularly sensitive information such as passwords or bank records. Such information would be kept in hardware and then securely transmitted between a computer's components, such as memory, the hard drive and the monitor.
The change, Microsoft says, is the result of customers telling the software maker that they didn't want to have to rewrite their applications.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.com ...
Buy some stock in a tech-support company. NOW!
He makes it sound like this is a new thing. Linux has had this feature for quite a while now.
I have that problem on a regular basis now!
I have that problem on a regular basis now!
(Helps to include the quote I'm responding to.)
Yeah, OS X has had the same thing.
May be. But I don't see LINUX advertised as the
basic operating system in any of the new computers.
Gates has sold his products to the manufacturers
so well worldwide that none of the BIG CPU mfrs.
are going to touch Linux. As I understand the
issue, Linux is very popular with those puterphobes
who like to build their own machine from motherboard
up.
Thanks for the link..
Hmmm. Where to start....
The Big CPU manufacturers? Like Intel? AMD? IBM? Apple? Linux runs perfectly on all of those. What kind of comment is that?
"puterphobes? People afraid of computers? Perhaps you mean "puterphiles." Still not correct these days, though, as there are quite a few Linux distros that are very user-friendly. Heck, my 6-yr-old likes to boot up Linux to play some of his games. The only thing I did for him was create his user account. He's learned everything else on his own.
So, that's a reason to write the article as if MS invented the stuff?
As I understand the issue, Linux is very popular with those puterphobes who like to build their own machine from motherboard up.
I've never met a computerphobe who did that...
Dell and Linux
HP and Linux
Apple and Linux
IBM and Linux
There's even Microsoft and Linux
M$ told the "journalist" that they did [invent it], and so that's what the "journalist" wrote down. It's called Tech Journalism 101. If it's in a M$ press release, it goes in the story.
Now you've done it. I can see it coming:
"Linux is for six-year-olds. A REAL man wants a REAL OS. < grunt >"
How interestin'! OS X has had the ability to encrypt all data in the user's directory space since Panther (10.3) and the ability to prevent external boot-up (via password lock in Open Firmware app) since 10.0.
I accidentally erased all my puterphiles.
But Wilson would offer no road map for how Microsoft gets from its fairly narrow secure boot-up feature to its broad concept of a more secure way to run sensitive code within Windows.
"We are continuing to work on other aspects of the vision," Wilson said. "The timing schedule is still being worked out."
So. Two years later and it's still vaporware. I feel for anyone who has to create chips to work with MS stuff. I suppose MS is paying them hard cash to become one with the collective.
Alright, guys, as a Mac user, I think we should let MS guys discuss this without any jabs from us. I mean, what if we started a thread talking about some wonderful new thing in Tiger, and they came on and started talking about how Longhorn had it before Tiger?
Okay, bad example.
LOL! Then let 'em use LFS.
That's not what he's talking about. Windows has supported encrypted filesystems since Win2K - you know, that version that was released five years before 10.3 - and BIOS boot passwords are older than the hills on x86 machines.
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