Microsoft's Palladium and the "Fritz Chip"

Kicka$$gear-News (computer enthusiast site) ^ | June 28, 2002 | Dr. John

[RicocheT]

Palladium and the "Fritz Chip"

You all should know about Senator Fritz Hollings, and his tireless attempts to make PCs incapable of copying music files or running "unauthorized content". The Trusted Computing Platform Alliance" or TCPA, is a hardware and software based system for preventing computers from doing many of the things they are now capable of. Microsoft, AMD, Intel and many other companies say they are now working very hard to integrate TCPA features into hardware and software, including future versions of Windows.

At the heart of TCPA is a new chip added to motherboards, which have been affectionately dubbed "Fritz chips" after the good Senator. But there is a double meaning here, since you can expect computers based on TCPA technology to go on the fritz far more often than their non-TCPA counterparts. Eventually, Intel and AMD say they will incorporate TCPA into future processors. Lucky us.

Palladium is the software end of the business, and will be built-into future versions of Windows. The basic idea is that the Fritz chip will constantly check the machine state, and the "authorizations" for the OS and each application on the machine. The OS will only boot if nothing is "amiss", that means no "unauthorized components or content". The spin they are putting on this draconian move is that "PCs won't necessarily get faster, just more secure".

Is that what computer owners want? Slower computers that can't copy MP3 files without paid authorization? I don't think so, and I doubt that talk about "secure computing" will change many minds. So the question is, will folks run out to buy a "Fritz chip" computer, or will they shop around for Fritz-less options? My guess is the later. However, most computer users are far from techno-savvy, so if they get bombarded with propaganda about TCPA making their computers secure from hackers, maybe the IT industry will be able to bamboozle large numbers of casual computer users. But the relatively smaller community of power users will certainly not go quietly into this good fight. So the next question is, will there be "Fritz-less" computer manufacturers that specifically sell only systems that have no TCPA components or operating systems? What will become of Linux as Microsoft moves completely to "Palladium", especially if the internet becomes TCPA-ified?

The bottom line is this. Computer and software makers are desperate to lock down the ability of modern computers until they are nothing more than paid content providing systems. This is not what computers were made for, they were made to be multifunctional, programmable devices with almost unlimited capabilities. Capabilities that the MPAA (motion picture assoc. of America) and RIAA (recording industry assoc. of America) want eliminated ASAP.

Finally, will TCPA create a black market for Fritz-less motherboards, or will it just make the last, fastest, Fritz-less computers the most popular on earth? I can imagine a big run on the last round on non-TCPA hardware as soon as it becomes known that all motherboards after a certain date must have the Fritz chip installed.

Dr. John

See this article for the technical explanation: "MS Palladium protects IT vendors, not you" http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25940.html

[eno_]

Why? If you want DRM out of e-books, you have to think of something better... oh... yeah... e-books flopped. Reserve space now in landfills for those Fritz-chipped PCs. They will be just as popular.

[discostu]

I think it was a Sedaka tune, one of the people I used in "combing" this data (link long lost I'm afraid) was born at the end of November '71. The closest anybody I knew had to a good song was my department's intern who was born when "feed the world" was #1... of course even that song sucked but at least it had a good purpose.

[eno_]

Oh yeah, what's wrong with land mines? Civilized armies keep track of their's. Uncivilized armies will kill civilians randomly anyway.

[rdb3]

You were born in '71, too?

[discostu]

the difference is e-book was a seperate thing with no other reason to buy. With AMD, Intel and MS signed on fritzchipped PCs will sell well because there's no real competition, and plenty of reasons to buy other than MP3s. And e-books were just wierd, really small nitche market.

[discostu]

No I was born in '69 (inbetween the moon launch and the landing), A few of my friends were born in '71, and more in other years. There were about 20 of us going through this excercise, and one was finding MP3s (I know that makes me evil) of the songs nobody could remember. Rubbish, all rubbish. Good songs only make it into the top 10 on accident, and they aren't allowed to stay long.

[Tribune7]

Now the really bad news: There may be NO ANSWER. It may be that recorded music as an industry will shrink massively, only because it is more important to more people that they retain their privacy and Ist and Vth rights than it is that the recording industry continue to thrive.

That is the most salient thing posted on this thread. If the recording/music industry goes the way of the buggy whip makers, it goes the way of the buggy whip makers. We'll all just have to soldier on.

[Criminal Number 18F]

They want to sell bits of control over your system to the highest bidders.

They already have. If you run XP, every time you do an internet search, the machine connects to a server at Microsoft and stores your computer information and search terms there in a database.

I bet that gives everyone here a warm fuzzy. Imagine what President Hillary! could do with that data? We'd be FReeping together in the camps.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

How long has the recording industry been around in its present form?

If Edison had invented the CD burner instead of just the wax drum, would the recording industry have arisen in the first place? Why do we have to sustain it indefinitely?

Considering that the history of the industry is one of continuous change for the purpose of excluding those over 30--if not 20--the industry doesn't need nor get my money. And the same goes for movies, pretty much.

[discostu]

Actually I think that feature is in IE not XP. And Netscape does something similar but only if you use their crappy search page (I'm a Netscape fan, it's what I use, but lately I tend to be rather disappointed in them).

[rdb3]

They already have. If you run XP, every time you do an internet search, the machine connects to a server at Microsoft and stores your computer information and search terms there in a database.

You got a link or something for this? I'd like to read up on it. I hope that this is not the case, but you never know.

[Psycho_Bunny]

I said this on another thread about Palladium and it bears repeating:

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.

And what if there were a lock-out mechanism....imagine it....locked out by my own music because MS can't code straight.

[eno_]

That is whistling past the graveyard. There is no commercial alternative to Microsoft. The alternative is Linux. The first Fritz chips will be optional. Intel is not THAT stupid. Unless and until there is a legislated mandate that all PC hardware be Fritz-chipped, people will reject it. And if it should ever become mandatory, watch the bootleg market for mobos with it. Imagine turning PC smuggling into a multi-billion dollar busienss! (Maybe this is what the Drug Warriors are hoping for as their next gravy train.)

These days you can run Linux and Open Office on a washing machine's microcontroller. There will never be a shortage on non-Fritzed hardware. (Gee, this could put the phrase "on the Fritz" back in style.)

[eno_]

E-books are an excellent idea. I read e-books on my iPaq quite frequently. The UVA online library rocks - all the books are out-of-copyright. But I would never ever ever buy an e-book that I had to register my ownership of and report the resale of (if I was even "allowed" to resell it). It is positively 1984-style creepy to register your books. Not even East Germany had a system for that. These are the reasons e-books failed - and e-book people STILL don't see that - they are so blind.

You could put all the money ever made by DRMed music in a thimble for the same reasons.

[chilepepper]

Yah, it takes alot of money to maintain that Hollywood lifestyle. Coke is EXPENSIVE now a days, and have you ever checked out what a new tricked out Mercedes costs?

[Bush2000]

And if it should ever become mandatory, watch the bootleg market for mobos with it. Imagine turning PC smuggling into a multi-billion dollar busienss!

You're kidding yourself. When it comes to people getting high, they're willing to do just about anything. But crack open a case and work on a motherboard? Get real. It's a hobbyists' niche.

[discostu]

I'm bad clientelle for any of that kind of stuff. I'm not into portable computing, PDAs, e-books, the whole subset doesn't interest me. I like to get away from the electron once in a while, no cellphone or pager either. I'm a techie, but I'm not a saturation person. Now if they ever get those electric paper things they keep saying are right around the corner I might change my tune.

[eno_]

They will. When I saw 100-packs of CDR blanks in mall kiosks, I knew it was over for the major labels. "White box" PCs are 30% of the market now. People do roll their own now, and increasingly will if that is what it takes to keep evil like Fritz chips out of their PCs.

[eno_]

I have posted on FR from an iPaq connected by Bluetooth to my GSM/GPRS phone (with a color screen, natch) connected to the Internet via Voicestream's iStream service. I supose that would be "saturation."

[eno_]

Pagers are soooooo American retro. I would not be caught dead with a pager. SMS is the thing.