Oho, a /.-basher, eh? I'd say there are far more idiots reading Newsweak than Slashdot.
Posted on 06/23/2002 8:03:20 AM PDT by Brian Mosely
Sunday June 23, 10:51 am Eastern Time
NEW YORK, June 23 /PRNewswire/ --?Microsoft is developing a new system to improve computer security that will address concerns about privacy, security and intellectual property, Newsweek reports in the current issue. Among the several benefits of the ambitious long-range plan, called "Palladium": it will seal information from attackers, it will block many viruses and worms from your computer and it will allow users to participate in new services and applications that allow control of their personal information even after it leaves their computer. Palladium could even help keep out spam from your inbox. To ensure security, the system requires special security chips, which Intel and Advanced Microdevices have agreed to produce. "It's one of the most technically complex things ever attempted on the PC," says Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds.
Technology Editor Steven Levy previews the new system in the July 1 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, June 24). Though Microsoft does not claim a panacea to security and privacy concerns, the system is designed to dramatically improve the ability to control and protect personal and corporate information. Even more important, Levy reports, it's intended to become a new platform for a host of yet-unimagined services to enable privacy, commerce and entertainment in the coming decades. "This isn't just about solving problems, but expanding new realms of possibilities in the way people live and work with computers," says product manager Mario Juarez.
The plan will also limit what arrives (and runs on) your computer according to where it comes from and who creates it. It won't let others pretend to be you. The system uses high-level encryption to "seal" data so that snoops and thieves are thwarted. It is also being offered to the studios and record labels as a way to distribute music and film with "digital rights management" (DRM) which could allow users to exercise "fair use" (like making personal copies of a CD) and publishers could at least start releasing works that cut a compromise between free and locked-down.
One hurdle in establishing this trust technology is getting people to trust Microsoft, Levy writes. To diffuse the inevitable skepticism, the company has begun educational briefings of industry groups, security experts, government agencies and civil-liberties watchdogs and is taking the unusual step of publishing the system's source code. Early opinion-makers are giving them the benefit of the doubt. "I'm willing to take a chance that the benefits are more than the potential downside," says Dave Farber, a renowned Internet guru. "But if they screw up, I'll squeal like a bloody pig."
(Read Newsweek's news releases at
http://www.Newsweek.MSNBC.com. Click "Pressroom.")
Translation: non-Microsoft software will encounter "problems"
But, I'm sure, they've really really changed this time.
I suspect that the real motivation behind this development is the inclusion of the firmware that would just happen to give Hollywood, Tokyo and Madison Avenue absolute control over the data users decide to store on their systems.
I'm surprised, but yes we can agree on that.
From MS's past history I think it likely that they will go there. They have quite a pattern of such attempts at control. It appears to in fact be the next logical step in their business plan.
Better hang on to your old hardware... If MS rams this hardware change through, nothing but signed MS software will run.
The business community can be lulled into accepting this by splashy pieces in Newsweek Magazine with phrases like "the system is designed to dramatically improve our ability to control and protect personal and corporate information" and other associated doublespeak. Businesses lose a lot of money due to IP breakouts and virus breakins... if MS offered them a way to "stop" that, they'd love it.
But go take a look at the MSNBC article and the patent documents and you'll see that DRM enforcement is precisely what this is all about.
And what a beautiful way for Microsoft to maintain its PC OS monopoly! Embed a public key in a chip, make sure that only Windows has the private key, and make it illegal to even try to crack the scheme.
Isn't slashdot owned by a corporation now.... ?
Maybe microsoft is putting a little pressure on them!
Oho, a /.-basher, eh? If MS rams this hardware change through, nothing but signed MS software will run.That would be difficult to accomplish. Linux runs on a wide variety of CPUs. So while it is true that x86 CPUs from Intel and AMD are the most cost-effective, especially when you figure in the economy of scale in motherboards, etc., it certainly isn't the case that MS could shut Linux out of usable high-performance CPUs. And if Intel thought to come out with a "trusted Linux" distro, it be a giant flop. I also hear a distinct silence on this from Apple.
Hobbyists aren't going to want to go out and buy high-end hardware, except possibly for the gamers, they want to run their stuff on cheap PCs as they do now. Linux developers, especially the Freshmeat crowd, can't afford to totally re-tool to another hardware platform.
What MS proposes would require a re-design of the PC hardware, so everything on the board up to and including the keyboard, screen and speakers is encrypted to evoke "trust" and to control content copying. The article specifically mentions public key cryptography, and if MS controls the keys, they'll control the platform, and what you can do with it.
And if Intel thought to come out with a "trusted Linux" distro, it be a giant flop.
The distro, more than likely, if Microsoft controls the keys.
I also hear a distinct silence on this from Apple.
That's not hard to figure out. Apple doesn't deal with x86 architecture, so if MS screws it up that's potentially more business for Apple.
I've been writing a piece of music and recorded a draft of it about a week ago onto my Win2000 machine with SoundForge. I then converted it to .mp3 with AudioCatalyst and uploaded it to my website.
Yesterday I downloaded it on my personal laptop at work, so I could hear it through different speakers. When I opened it with Media Player 7, the digital media security kernel kicked in and brought up a dialog box stating that I was opening a piece of music "recorded from a CD" and asking me if I wanted "migrate my license" and warning me about copyright infringements.
ON MY OWN MUSIC AND ON MY OWN MACHINES.
If such a simple security concept is already that screwed up, how does MS think it's going to credibly expand in that area? Palladium will just continue to prove that MS has expanded into markets it can't competently code in.
This is diabolical. If Microsoft is successful, Palladium will give Bill Gates a piece of every transaction of any type while at the same time marginalizing the work of any competitor who doesn't choose to be Palladium-compliant. So much for Linux and Open Source, but it goes even further than that. So much for Apple and the Macintosh. It's a militarized network architecture only Dick Cheney could love.
.....
Under Palladium as I understand it, the Internet goes from being ours to being theirs. The very data on your hard drive ceases to be yours because it could self-destruct at any time. We'll end up paying rent to use our own data!
This move will change personal computing forever.... and NOT in favor of the users. MS will truly take over the Internet if allowed to. It must be fought.
What crap. A properly designed system (to serve the security interests of the user, not the desire of Billgatus of Borg to control what can run on your computer) should be in software that can be installed or not as one sees fit.
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