I have to agree with you here. Not everyone wants to work inside his or her box. They feel it's intimidating (even tho' it's really quite simple to build an entire system from the case up).
Posted on 06/28/2002 8:09:49 AM PDT by 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
The main effect that it is going to have is immediately raise the price of computers due both to the cost of the chip, and also due to the elimination of a lot of low end competition that can't compete when the barriers to entry are made higher.
I think there will always be a market for very fast number crunchers and servers, and if the f**chip slows them down, it won't be there.
See what you morons did? Just buy your music like everyone else.
For goodness sakes.
I seem to recall hearing a report that Clinton put copyright protection at a higher priority level than that, pulling resources off anti-terrorism to chase down bootleg movie operations -- anybody know more about that?
I have to agree with you here. Not everyone wants to work inside his or her box. They feel it's intimidating (even tho' it's really quite simple to build an entire system from the case up).
Tell me how this will make your computing life better. Let's see. You try to fire up Easy CD-DA extractor to make some mp3s from a CD you bought to put in your RIO or iPod to take to the gym and your computer locks up because you ran "illegal code." One thing comes to mind: "Hello Mr. Smith, all your base are belong to us!"
The RIAA is stupid. They refuse to evolve and they know deep down inside that that will kill their member labels in the long run. Rather than promote PC production tools so they can phase out recording studios, they insist on binding artists to them through costly recording studios that could largely be duplicated at a fraction of the cost by a few PowerMac G4s, synthesizers and a few 100-count spindles of CD-Rs for recording potential gold master cuts of a song. They refuse to change their business model so that the onus is on the artist to create the gold master and then have them produce it and distribute it. The record labels want to maintain absolute control over all but a handfull of artists (the cashcows like Metallica, Britney and N'Sync). That just isn't economically advantageous to them anymore. Moving to the model I suggested and selling directly online from their website would allow them to (a) cut out the middlemen for many sales, (b) split the sale with the artist to create a better image and (c) continue to be profitable.
Most artists will rake in more cash from a few concerts touring for a CD than they probably will make on the record sales itself. How? Ticket sales, merchandise sales and the ability to sell live materials such as DVDs and live albums. Artists have plenty of ways of raising revenues. They can open paypal accounts and announce online how to send them micropayments. They can also distribute high quality mp3s on Kazaa and Gnutella with ads for that paypal account at the beginning and end of the song. Most mp3 fiends would like to be able to send $.50-$1 for a song they really like rather than pay $18 for a CD. The only "problem" with this model is that it benefits the artist. Oh wait, that is who should be the only one financially benefitting from a copyrighted material in the first place, the creator.
As a CS geek I can give people like you but one good piece of advice re the Fritz Chip: keep it the hell away from my PCs and Macs. If you attempt to force it on me you'll get a crash course in "applied 2nd amendment 101."
Yeah, like in #88.
No, that isn't the alternative. We can honor our founding generation by balancing copyright holder needs with public needs. We need a rich public domain. The public domain is our country's cultural legacy. It says as much about us as the works of Aristotle, Plato and Socrates about the ancient Greek world. We need to limit copyright to a single 20 year term for non-functional copyright with a second 20 year term possible. Functional copyrights need to be limited to only 2-5 years. Source code written before I was born should not enter the public domain after I'm dead and gone. It gives the public absolutely nothing in return for the restraints on individual rights needed to maintain its artificial scarcity. No generation of software developers can look at the code and learn something from it. That said, you are being very intellectually dishonest. Of course we have an alternative, it's called prosecution of mass bootlegging. Caught selling bootlegs on the street? Lock the person up. Caught running a T3 into your house to host 30GB of 320kb mp3s, do the same if the computer is running Kazaa or Limewire with file sharing enabled. If the person has created a private IceCast host let them go, it's for their personal use and not for the public at large. The DMCA is a thought-crime statute. We had laws on the books before it that were balanced and provided the legal basis for taking down serious copyright infringers quite effectively.
New, intentionally crippled, hardware that they don't really need might be an even tougher sell.
Stupid? No. Practical. My point was that if you make your music, data, software, etc. available in a form that can be copied by a computer, it will be copied.
The answer to the problem isn't to give Microsoft and hordes of greedy lawyers control over what can and can't be done with my computer. You may be perfectly happy with these people controlling your computer, I'm not. I use other solutions because they work better for me, and I won't have Microsoft dictate to me what I can and can't do with the hardware I pay for, period.
By the way, maybe if you toned down your rhetoric people would be a little nicer?
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