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Trusted Computing Group Formed 107

An anonymous reader writes "How does it come that the formation of the Trusted Computing Group goes unnoticed at /.? On Wednesday, heise had the story. At last, we will get `easily-accessible specifications for trusted computing standards that will ultimately let people work, conduct transactions, and use computing devices with a new level of confidence' ..."
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Trusted Computing Group Formed

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  • Great (Score:1, Flamebait)

    This and now Apple which may be owned by a ruthless pro RIAA/MPAA media company out to drm everything on the planet. Can it get any worse?

    • Re:Great (Score:4, Informative)

      by chrisseaton ( 573490 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @06:29AM (#5715609) Homepage
      I hope that's mean't to be a joke, mate.

      Apple is buying the record company - not the other way round.
      • Re:Great (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @07:08AM (#5715651) Journal
        The shareholders of Universal will now be Steve Jobs boss. In todays sad greedy world they and not the CEO's run the companies. They can easily fire him if he does not cripple his own macs. Steve Jobs as a legal obligation as well to protect his now purchased record sales. If not then the shareholders need to fire him and replace him with someone else. Hmm Hilary Rosen is quiting the RIAA....

        Sony for example had a supperior IPOD clone but its shareholders and SONY entertainment sued them to prevent it from being launched. After all burning cd's= pirating in this world. These idiots will now own %50 of Apple.

        After all even only potential and not actuall loses in the single digits is enough for wall street to scream at and even fire upper managment.

        If you do not believe this look at Caldera before and after SCO was bought? They become SCO thanks to the shareholders and media executives.

        Its Microsoft or the RIAA. Take your pick on your new master. Mac or PC.

        • "These idiots will now own %50 of Apple."

          OK, I'm having a hard time understanding this. The shareholders own the company, right? So if the company is to be sold, the shareholders (the ones with a controlling interest) have to vote on it, right? Now, if the shareholders, who own the company, decide to sell it to another company, who makes the puchase with cash, how can they still own it?

          • They own part of it but not all of it. They certainly still have power and can ring financial hardships on the rest of the brokers if they all bail out. The rest of the shareholders from Apple will lose money if the music bussiness portion also loses money. This effects their stock prices as well as "potential" earnings. Apples shareholders will probably become just as motived as the Universal shareholders to stomp piracy via drm.

            Not to mention all the nasty recording executives will now be on Apples payro
            • Nice dystopian paranoid ranting, Billly, but what you're failing to understand is that the music business- at pretty much all levels- is shriveling up and losing the ability to command much consumer attention.

              If they do not MAKE MONEY they don't have clout. And DRM doesn't actually make money for various extremely obvious reasons: such as, it's possible to get around it as easily as resampling the analog output, without even doing anything very clever, such as there's a certain amount of returns involved f

        • Your stupid. It's Microsoft, the RIAA, or free software because you know better than to use MS or Apple's bsd wanna-be in the first place.
        • Or a closer parallel -- look at AOL and TW. Who's running the show now??

          Seems to be a general trend where in a merger, the more sprawling/grasping company eventually takes over control, even if they were the purchased, not the purchaser.

        • The shareholders of Universal will now be Steve Jobs boss. In todays sad greedy world they and not the CEO's run the companies. They can easily fire him if he does not cripple his own macs.

          Um, where have you been during recent decades? Unless you have a really significant chunk of stock, you have no say in what happens. It is (some) CxOs that are running wild, looting companies while receiving obscene salaries and stock options and destroying the shareholders investments. Hint: think Enron, WorldCom,

    • Re:Great (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 12, 2003 @07:56AM (#5715691)
      Probably not. But there -are- ways it could get better.

      1) Don't buy the stuff. Old computer works? Keep it. Delay upgrading as long as possible. Visit the computer store occasionally for upgrades, but leave without buying anything if all they can offer you is hardware with DRM.

      2) Don't listen to, or watch the stuff. Yeah, it's hard not to go to a movie now and again, I know. It's fun to do (albeit expensive). But most of the money you hand over for your ticket goes directly into the pocket of the people that are doing this to you. Rent a movie. Listen to an old CD you've bought, tape things from the radio, but don't go out and buy those new CD's. -Especially- not the DRM protected ones.

      3) If you do go out to buy a CD, follow somewhat of a similar procedure to that of computer hardware. Bring your CD up to the counter. Tell them you have an old CD player, and all these protected CD's won't play in it. Tell them you've had to bring back about 10 CD's to various different stores because the protection on them was messing with your CD player, and if this one doesn't work you might as well just give up on buying them altogether. Whether it's true for you or not, it likely -is- true for the hundreds of people who really -can't- play these CD's, and at the same time, you'll be indirectly helping to protect your fair use rights.

      There's a number of ways you can let these people know that it's not going to work, that you're not going to put up with it, but you have to -do- something about it. This whole DRM movement that's sure to cost the computing industry billions before the end is about money..they want more of it. They don't want you to download MP3's or movies, they don't want you stealing software (not that either of those is necessarily right in the first place, but that's another argument entirely :>). They want you buying everything you want to watch, listen to or use. If they find out that by abusing their customers will result in no sales, you can bet the whole DRM train will be derailed before too long.

  • And it's an extremely sick joke at that.
  • by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @06:31AM (#5715614)
    TCG Members

    Promoters
    * AMD
    * Hewlett-Packard
    * IBM
    * Intel Corporation
    * Microsoft

    Contributors
    * Atmel
    * Infineon
    * National Semiconductor
    * Nokia
    * Philips
    * Phoenix
    * Sony
    * STMicroelectronics
    * VeriSign, Inc.
    * Wave Systems

    Adopters
    List available shortly.

    ie, when there are any

    • I've read this list 10 times - I can't find Slashdot in it!! I'd trust /. more than all the other promoters, contributors and adopters combined. Maybe /. is actively boycotting this committee??
    • by AftanGustur ( 7715 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @07:00AM (#5715644) Homepage


      Ok, so we know that OS and hardware vendors have their representatives but where are the consumer representatives ?

      This looks to me like if UK farmers an beef distributors would create "Trusted Beef Group" without any consumer input ..

      • The "Trusted Beef" is where they put the consumer input. :)
      • Only means what THEY can trust. It will surely have better security, but it is more in their interest than yours. Think of it this way: These corporations (Micro$oft in particular) are NOT on your side. Their only objective is to figure out ways to keep you trapped in their grasp, and, by so doing, capitalize on your dependence.

        I have a good idea where they are going with this whole "Trusted" Computing move. Things like open hardware standards and Free Software give you the freedom (MOST IMPORTANT WORD) to
    • Hello,

      I have used many of Atmel's products, and was suprised that they were in it. However, they make the fritz chip (and have sold lots already they say) now, which is why I would assume they are in (duh).

      I have serious doubts that Atmel would make the chip so Linux doesn't run. Why? Well because one of their growing markets is the Atmel AVR RISC microcontrollers.

      These microcontrollers are often programmed in AVR-GCC with avr-libc, which of course are open source. LOTS of universities use this when they
  • by Saint Stephen ( 19450 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @06:32AM (#5715617) Homepage Journal
    "The PC isn't done until Linux won't run."

    This has damned ominous ovetones. You guys better watch out, or they're gonna take the ball away from you just like they snatched it away from Borland, Lotus, Novell, &c. &c.

    Ah, well, in fifteen years Gates & Balmer will retire and then the world can make some progress, until then bend over and smile!
    • Why would AMD, Intel, IBM, HP, Sony, Philips, etc. benefit from a PC that will run only Windows? As hardware manufacturers, they would benefit from the OS's being a commodity. A good, free OS will decrease PC cost and therefore increase PC demand.

      Your remark could be right if MS was the only company supporting the platform. Funny you name Lotus as an example. It is now owned by IBM, one of the supporters...

    • TCG Members
      Promoters
      * AMD
      * Hewlett-Packard
      * IBM
      * Intel Corporation
      * Microsoft

      First of all, I wonder how MS can be part of a group aimed at "thrustworthy computing" if you look at the current record of MS trustworthiness. It's like inviting Saddam Hussein to participate as advisor for peace talks some place. Second, what is IBM doing in that list? They support Linux as far as I know, but being in a the TCG with members like MS is something odd, at the very least...

      • Microsoft was allowed in or they would have taken the group to court for stealing their idea( Trustworthy Computing ). ;)

        The DOJ was a Trustworthy Computing group in that they fought to smash Microsoft but George Dubba's gang disbanded THAT TC group.....

        It appears that anything with the term "security", "trust", and "open" in it finds Microsoft cuddling up to it these days. Love their "open" XML in MS Office. NOT.

        LoB
    • You wish. There's an army of Gates and Balmers out there waiting to take their place. If things continue as they are in fifteen years we might be looking back whistfully on the good old Redmond days.
  • Translation (Score:4, Informative)

    by watzinaneihm ( 627119 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @06:39AM (#5715623) Journal
    Mandatory babelfish translation [altavista.com]

    Or a zdnet article [com.com]
    • Bablefish translation:
      AMD, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft created a new alliancealliance alliance

      Is that a bablefish error, or was the origninal article repetetetitive, redundant, and repeat the same thing three times?

      -
  • Interesting quote (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 12, 2003 @06:52AM (#5715634)
    related articles [google.com]
    "Although TCG is being billed as the TCPA's successor, most of the TCPA's members had no idea of its imminent demise. The TCG sent out a mass e-mail message to all of the former group's members this morning at roughly the same time the press release announcing the TCG's formation went out."

    -- eWEEK:
  • ominous technology (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wadiwood ( 601205 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @07:05AM (#5715648) Journal
    This feels like linking the application to the hardware and perhaps the user so nobody else could possibly use it.

    I feel that might be good for some things, like my prescription drug might be better off in a container only I could open. I'm not sure I like the idea for software I buy. It is like saying if I buy a book, I can put it on my bookshelf in my house but if my brother tries to read it, or I try to take it on the bus, it will have blank pages.

    I suspect that the reason for most of this extra security is not concern for the user and their data, but some way of making extra profit by the manufacturers ie, if the authorised user is indisposed or incapacitated, then the hardware and software has to be re-purchased.

    I'd like to make things difficult for a thief, but for me that mostly means encrypting and backing up data, not rendering the hardware and software useless by anyone but me. How inconvenient. Every time I want to rebuild the hard drive, or install a new one or buy a new computer, I'd have to buy the apps all over again.

    I can see I'm going to get so very good at open source products.
    • I feel that might be good for some things, like my prescription drug might be better off in a container only I could open

      I agree with what you are saying in the most part and I don't want to quibble, but what if you were lying on the ground spasming and needed a tablet, but nobody could open the bottle, that would suck.

      • That sounds good, but if I was on the ground spasming, I wouldn't want a stranger trying to stuff a tictac or anything else down my throat.

        For most things, once you're out on the ground, it's too late for the pills. For epileptics it is best to make sure they can't hurt themselves, ie try to get a pillow or rolled up jacket under their head, and then let them finish. And then for around 20 minutes or so you have to tell them who they are, they're ok, over and over...

        If a diabetic is going nutty, try
        • Well, if you need your nitroglycerine or your glucose pill, you've got just a few minutes before it's too late. If a passerby is bright enough to recognise a problem, they're likely also bright enough to read the label on the pill bottle you're vainly clawing at.

          Let's take "only the registered user can access it" to an extreme: doors will no longer let anyone inside who isn't registered to that house. Great for preventing burglary, and never again will you have to worry about losing your keys -- your house
          • Hi Reziac

            I think your door key example is why people aren't supposed to secure their homes with booby traps. And we usually use a few people to house fires who can't get out of their homes because of window shutters or door deadlocks, deadlocked while people are at home (oops). My new deadlock automatically undeadlocks when I open it from the outside to get in, but I'd have to bust the windows to get out of my bedroom, unless I had time and presence of mind to find and use the keys.

            We already have s
            • Trouble with emergencies, you generally don't have time to find and use keys to get OUT, not to mention that for most people, presence of mind escapes long before they do (this is why they're called "emergencies" :)

              My pickup truck isn't exactly a race car either... tho not quite in diesel's "get out and kick it a few times to wake it up" range... unless it's heavily loaded, then anyone can outrun it. When I was towing a heavy trailer cross-country, even the slow trucks laughed and pointed as they passed me
              • There are a lot of rules in Australia that try to prevent contracts that expect drivers to break the limits. Things are much better than they used to be, because the employers/hirers cannot push the limits as far as they used to.

                For instance there are cameras along the Hume Highway that links our biggest towns, Sydney and Melbourne. They photograph the truck at various points along the highway and then use those to calculate how fast the truck was going. If the truck makes the distance, say, in less t
                • That 3 months or 80% of income rule sounds useful -- should help prevent abuse of contract workers, anyway.

                  The US has the Teamsters Union to "protect" truckers, but as with most unions, it protects itself first and its members second. There's all sorts of required hours, stops, location, etc. logging meant to prevent running overlong hours, but for cross-country drivers it's still an issue.

                  One thing they learned the hard way in California, is that drivers tend to fall asleep MORE often if it takes a LONG
                  • Yes. People still do it. I've done the nullabor once, each way (east west) and once north south (ouch - like 200km of uneven concrete steps with 24 open-gate shut-gate stops) but not by myself, we were sharing driving. On the east-west trip, one guy managed to fall asleep, fortunately he woke up when he went onto the shoulder, and fortunately it was a good flat shoulder. After that we were much stricter about changing drivers every stop or every second service station (they are around 130 to 180km apart
                    • Kangaroos have nothing on deer -- talk about born and bred to be roadkills. There are big stretches of Wyoming where the nighttime speed limit is 40mph due to all the damned deer on the road!!

                      In most states, you're not allowed to take what you hit; it belongs to Fish & Game and is collected for public meat auction in the spring. But in Arizona, you can legally gather roadkill for personal use, tho the regs specifically disclaim any warranty as to the quality of the meat. :)

                      Calif. found they had more d
                    • or brahmen cattle

                      Although they're not often roadkill. Dunno why, but perhaps they are less nocturnal. There's nothing worse than a wombat though. They tend to kill the car. And sometimes the driver too. We don't have night time speed limits although perhaps we should. The only place a speed limit is variable depending on what time it is, for the same stretch of road, is a school zone.

                      In Canberra, I had to drive through a farm to get where I was going, and if I was late the cows would be bedded down o
    • The name might be an indication of who/what company is at the heart of this 'group'. Wasn't it Microsoft who had to have a "Trustworthy Computing Day" to try to show that a Microsoft product COULD be trusted?

      IMHO, there is an attempt being made to lock data to applications and those applications will be Microsfot applications. If they aren't to begin with, they will be eventually( as was the case with the browser ).

      The EUL in MS XP already allows them to update the OS such that it can disable apps if they
  • How does it come that the formation of the Trusted Computing Group goes unnoticed at /.?
    I have a lot anwsers to your question :
    Slashdot wait that a minimun of two submitions of the same storie to be sure to make a dupe !
    Slashdot don't believe in trusted computing!
    Slashdot don't believe in news that's not already posted on Slashdot !
    Anyway, Slashdot don't post news that's are not already posted on Slashdot !
  • by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @07:26AM (#5715662) Journal
    First it was the turn of Palladium to be rebranded as The-Next-Generation-Secure-Computing-Services or some such. And now TCPA has been replaced by TCC! So the original TCPA/Palladium FAQ will become invalid, all the Slashdot debates on evil Palladium will be ir-relevant.

    Is this a new strategy?
    1. Announce something evil. Give it a name.
    2. Educate consumers about what it does.
    3. Debate the pros and cons in fiery fora.
    4. Modify the name/acronymn a bit, and ram the same evil stuff!

    Seems to be working.
    • It's not a new strategy it's something that has been around for a long time and it's about the power of names and definitions.
      For other examples see:
      Freedom Fighters vs. Terrorists
      Inprisonment and torture vs. reeducation
      etc...
    • by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @03:57PM (#5717084) Homepage
      I think the best way to counter this is to focus on the single central objectionable "feature" they all include. They ALL require that the owner of the machine is not permitted access to his own encryption keys. In plain english it means the owner is not permitted to know his own passwords.

      Every single objectionable feature of these systems rely on that one point. Trusted computing advocates have no defence against this argument. They may try to argue that keeping the keys secure protects you from malicious software. This argument is easy to demolish by designing the hardware to only reveal the encryption keys based on a hardware switch. Malicious software simply cannot touch a physical switch.

      -
  • by Anonymous Coward
    `easily-accessible specifications for trusted computing standards that will ultimately let people work, conduct transactions, and use computing devices with a new level of confidence' ..."

    Confidence for who and of what? Hardly for users.

    Confidence that users will have no freedom?
    Confidence that anything non TCG/TCPA and non DRM is locked out?
    Confidence that there will be TCG backdoors?
    Confidence for software & content providers?
    Confidence that your system can be wiped/accessed remotely at TCG's whim?
  • by Thaidog ( 235587 ) <slashdot753@nym. ... om minus painter> on Saturday April 12, 2003 @07:45AM (#5715682)
    ... but I trust nobody but myself... not my Mom not my Daddi... and certainly an orgainzation with all the loopholes that this will create... It's a great idea in theory... Standards are the most important thing that can possibly come of this...
  • "I'd no sooner put my John Thomas in the hands of a lunatic with an axe than I would trust Microsoft with my data"
    • are you for real? how long did black adder run? i saw a book of the scripts in booksamillion once; i'd get it just for that if you can recall the outline of the plot or something better. that's hilarious even if you are er..editing it.
  • The Right to Read (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 12, 2003 @08:10AM (#5715707)
    This article appeared in the February 1997 issue of Communications of the ACM (Volume 40, Number 2).

    (from "The Road To Tycho", a collection of articles about the antecedents of the Lunarian Revolution, published in Luna City in 2096)
    For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college--when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.

    This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her--but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong--something that only pirates would do.

    And there wasn't much chance that the SPA--the Software Protection Authority--would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment--for not taking pains to prevent the crime.

    Of course, Lissa did not necessarily intend to read his books. She might want the computer only to write her midterm. But Dan knew she came from a middle-class family and could hardly afford the tuition, let alone her reading fees. Reading his books might be the only way she could graduate. He understood this situation; he himself had had to borrow to pay for all the research papers he read. (10% of those fees went to the researchers who wrote the papers; since Dan aimed for an academic career, he could hope that his own research papers, if frequently referenced, would bring in enough to repay this loan.)

    Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory.

    There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal. Dan had had a classmate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging tool, and used it to skip over the copyright monitor code when reading books. But he had told too many friends about it, and one of them turned him in to the SPA for a reward (students deep in debt were easily tempted into betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger.

    Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison.

    Programmers still needed debugging tools, of course, but debugger vendors in 2047 distributed numbered copies only, and only to officially licensed and bonded programmers. The debugger Dan used in software class was kept behind a special firewall so that it could be used only for class exercises.

    It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers--you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's
  • by Katravax ( 21568 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @08:17AM (#5715716)
    It feels like we've been fed buggy apps for two decades, and now we're told the solution for unreliable software is restriction of our abilites and freedoms. It almost sounds like they've intentionally created the problem, having had the solution in mind the whole time. What happened to the concept of solving buggy apps by getting rid of the bugs in the code?
  • by hughk ( 248126 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @08:19AM (#5715724) Journal
    The problem with any system is that it can be compromised. If I do online banking and enter my access password, it may be captured in a number of different ways before it goes out to the bank. The problem is that the paassword can be discovered in a number of ways before the post goes via https to the bank's server.

    Even when my password hits the https client software, how do I know that the information is really being sent securely? I don't.

    The counter example used by the digital rights people is that when they send me a key to access controlled media, how can they be certain that I don't intercept the decoded bit stream?

    In the first case, it is reasonable to have a trusted platform because the user can choose to accept what software he runs. In particular it can allow me to differentiate between an allowable update and one that isn't.

    In the second, then then the owner/user of the system can not be permitted to have control. If the user is permitted to have full control then the platform must disclose to the access granter that the link between the media decryption engine and the output can no longer be trusted.

    One can argue that the first is reasonable but the second would prevent anyone from looking at digitally licensed media on an open computing platform such as Linux.

    In any case, this all supposes that the platform as installed, is indeed secure. It probably isn't. Even systems that implement a good security reference monitor can be compromised by poor configuration and software layers that cross security levels. For example, the original NT kernel is very good, but it has been slowly compromised by the surrounding software.

    It would be possible to make a dedicated system into a trusted platform, for example, an ATM. It is practically very difficult to implement a genera; purpose system in a trusted way.

    • The global ideia with TCPA is to provide means to

      Make sure a remote system is running in a trusted state.

      Make sure data stored localy in a trusted environment can only be accessed by that trusted environment
      And by trusted environment, I mean an OS you installed,configured and control. This by oposition to thinks like:

      Someone booted an OS they control in your machine and access/modified the data stored in it.

      Someone took the harddrive and pluged it into a machine they control.

      It doesn't forbid you

      • The point is that with TCPA, the hardware checks the signature on the software and the software allows only authorised updates. Great idea, and the principle has been discussed for a long time. The problem is that if there is any duff software in the trusted path then the system can be subverted. Then there is the issue of how to organise keys in a non-hierarchical environment.
  • Actually... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by inode_buddha ( 576844 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @08:19AM (#5715725) Journal
    I honestly don't think that trusted computing will be possible or extant until there are trusted humans.
  • The headlines read "Trusted Computing Group wants to beerben TCPA"

    I dunno what "beerben" is, but that whole sentence sounds so dirty. =)
  • Trusted! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 12, 2003 @09:09AM (#5715792)
    They need to get rid of the word 'trust' as it's misleading. If I was to set up to make a product that allowed the user full control of their system would that be 'untrusted' and if so by whom? By the morons pushing TCPA?

    The word they are looking for is 'RESTRICTED'! Just how much trust are we supposed to have in companies who collude to bring us a technology that has been deliberately given a misleading name?
    • Re:Trusted! (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's just the standard usage of the word "trusted" in the security community, and the same usage it has been for decades. No need for the tinfoil hats.

      A "trusted" system is, ironically, the one that can violate your security policy. It's "trusted" only because it has to be. If that component couldn't violate your policies, you wouldn't have to trust it, and thus it wouldn't be called a "trusted system", now would it?

      From a security point of view, you don't want to be forced to trust any more components
  • Emulation? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The TPM spec is open, right? So what if a program like Bochs just emulates the security chip?
    • Umm. 'cause the keys are on-chip? And the chip can (potentially) contain an endorsement key signed by the chip manufacturer.

      • You can still have bochs (or some equivalent) proxy the chip, forwarding requests to the actual chip, and intercepting all the data, including the clear data coming back from the chip. Turning this system into reliable DRM is orders of magnitude more difficult than most people seem to realize. Not necessarily impossible, but far more difficult than a cursory examination would suggest.

        Of course, I have no doubt that there will be attempts to use the chip for naive DRM, which will limit the access for casua
  • OK, as off topic as this may seem, let's consider the formation of networking standards on the 'net. TCP/IP was adopted at large by the internet because it was an openly developed standard, and therefore as far as I can tell it worked. It still works to this day, IPv6 notwithstanding, and was favored as such over things like DECnet and the ISO 7-layer.

    The point? It wasn't developed by corporations.

    (Yes, on the other side, you had the Hayes standard for modems, but that was a survival tactic.)

    If a

  • It's because ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jc42 ( 318812 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @11:05AM (#5716026) Homepage Journal
    We all understand that "Trusted Computing" simply means whether or not Microsoft trusts us to run a program.
    • Re:It's because ... (Score:4, Informative)

      by CynicTheHedgehog ( 261139 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @01:57PM (#5716631) Homepage
      I would have just modded you down, but I'm tired of this kind of ignorance. There are multiple forms of trusted computing, some innocent, others questionable. Since 2000 IBM has offered an (optional) ESS (Electronic Security Subsystem) in their Thinkpads and Netvistas. All it is is an embedded smart card with a keypair and some crypto functions. It's a passive device...if you feal like encrypting something then you have a convenient mechanism with which to do it. Before that, in 1998, SISTex offered the Assure EC networking device that merely served as a secure interface between an IBM compatible workstation software, local resources, and the network.

      TCPA specifies a similar device (the Trusted Platform Module), only it also has a few registers used to store and report security integrity metrics as well. Again, a totally passive device. From what I gather, the idea is that the BIOS and/or OS will use these registers to store the version of software, virus checkers, etc. Another system can query these registers to see if you have what they're looking for in the way of security (I wouldn't want to accept E-mail from a server that, say, wasn't patched for Code Red).

      So there's a key stored in your TPM. Worried about privacy? Don't be. That key is never used except to sign other keys, alias IDs, that you use temporarily to conduct transactions. Like getting an alias for your credit card number when buying something online.

      All of these are passive devices that you, the operating system, or third party apps may or may not use. None of these technologies have functions that allow the conditional execution of code based on security metrics. That is an abuse that must be built into the OS, which can be done today in software.

      Then there's Palladium, which is *not* TCPA. It's not even based on the TCPA. It's similar, but it consists of both hardware and software components (Windows) and is potentially much more sinister. Palladium's only member is Microsoft, and I don't really trust that. But I don't have to, because there are now ubiquitous, open standards (TCPA) that will likely take favor.

      We need trusted computing. It's coming. You can help yourselves by at least being informed:

      "The Need for TCPA" (David Safford, IBM) [ibm.com]

      "Clarifying Misinformation on the TCPA" (David Safford, IBM) [ibm.com]

      • Re:It's because ... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @03:46PM (#5717047) Homepage
        I would have just modded you down, but I'm tired of this kind of ignorance...

        "The Need for TCPA" (David Safford, IBM) [ibm.com]

        "Clarifying Misinformation on the TCPA" (David Safford, IBM)


        I have read both of those documents by David Safford. They certianly do counter many false arguments against TCPA, but they do NOT in fact counter valid criticism of TCPA! His defence of TCPA completely fails. The last two paragraphs of my second E-mail exactly why.

        I actually had a brief E-mail correspondence with David Safford. He replied to my first E-mail, and failed to respond to my second E-mail. Here is the exchange:

        ----------

        ME: TCPA - simple solution to eliminating opposition

        I just finished reading "Why TCPA" and "TCPA Misinformation Rebuttal". There is a simple way to eliminate virtually all of the opposition to TCPA.

        None of the benefits of "Why TCPA" rely on security against the owner of the machine. The "TCPA Misinformation Rebuttal" claims that TCPA is not designed to to be secure against physical access. Every criticism of TCPA that I know of is based on fact that the owner of the machine is DENIED access to contents of the TCPA chip.

        The solution should be obvious, include a physical switch to enable access to the contents of the TCPA chip. Perhaps a button that needs to be held down during power-up. This gives the critics everything they want and it in no way interferes with the claimed purposes of TCPA - it's not supposed to be secure against physical access anyway!

        Any resistance to including such a switch can only be proof that the critics are right. Maybe I'm cynical, but I don't think the TCPA alliance will ever approve it. I believe the driving force behind TCPA is to make computers "secure" AGAINST their owners and so corporations can make PC's "trustworthy" tools against the "untrusted" owners.

        I'd love to be proven wrong. If TCPA comes with an "owner override switch" I'll be the first person to run out and buy it.

        ----------

        Savid Spafford's reply:

        It is not intended to be secure against owner authorized physical access (ie access from someone who knows the pin for a given TCPA protected key.) We certainly do want to defend against theft of a laptop. We don't want to had over your encrypted filesystem master key to someone who has stolen your machine.

        TCPA does have a TPM_TAKE_OWNERSHIP command, which, given physical access to the machine, resets the chip, deleting all user level keys.

        Thus the physical owner of the machine can take full control, but cannot see any secrets from any prior owner.

        dave safford

        ----------

        Me:
        Thanks for your reply.

        "We certainly do want to defend against theft of a laptop."

        Contradiction.
        Your TCPA Rebuttal said "TCPA chips have not been designed to resist local hardware attack". If it can protect a stolen laptop then tamper resistance is not "pure speculation", it's already here. It voids the claim "show[ing] that TCPA was not designed for DRM" and instead shows that TCPA "requires...you don't trust the owner".

        It is not intended to be secure against owner authorized physical access (ie access from someone who knows the pin for a given TCPA protected key.)

        Great! If you think my idea for a mere switch to enable access was too simplistic then feel free to require the owner to supply a PIN to enable the export of the unencrypted keys. Of course, the owner needs to be able to know the PIN and to hand it to the TPM at will. A repeat TAKE_OWNERSHIP would still wipe out old keys.

        And it can still be secure against thieves because they don't have the owner PIN.

        Your TCPA rebuttal was informative and dispelled some false criticisms, but it did not address the real source of the criticisms. Between your email and "Why TCPA" and the TCPA website I still haven't seen a single justification to deny an owner access to his keys. To
        • From the TCPA main specification:

          The PRIVEK and PUBEK MAY be created by a process other than the use of TPM_CreateEndorsementKeyPair. If so, the process MUST result in a TPM and endorsement key whose properties are the same as those of a genuine TPM and an endorsement key created by execution of TPM_CreateEndorsementKeyPair in that TPM.

          Making it short: though the TPM should NEVER export the PRIVKEY, a TPM may be programmed with a set of known keys.

          • The PRIVEK and PUBEK MAY be created by a process other than the use of TPM_CreateEndorsementKeyPair....

            Making it short: though the TPM should NEVER export the PRIVKEY, a TPM may be programmed with a set of known keys.


            Wrong, doubly wrong, triply wrong.

            First of all the the word "MAY" has a precise definition in specification documents. It means something is not prohibited. Just because they MAY allow you to do something does not mean you WILL be able to do it.

            Secondly it does NOT say you can program it w
  • by David Leppik ( 158017 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @11:19AM (#5716067) Homepage
    From the FAQ: [trustedcom...ggroup.org]
    Was TCG formed to specify Digital Rights Management technologies?
    No. The focus of TCG is on protecting user data and secrets (keys, passwords, certificates, etc.) from external software attack and theft. This greatly reduces the risk of identity and data theft. It is not TCG's intention to address DRM requirements. As a result, the specifications do not include provisions to prevent owner tampering.
    From my reading of the FAQ, TCG is taking the password protection some laptop BIOSes have and extending it to encryption services for the OS and applications. This allows the user (a.k.a. programs the human runs) to verify a person's identity, the computer's identity, and the computer's boot parameters. Thus, you might have your bank account information encrypted in a way which requires your password on your computer-- hard disk thieves are locked out.

    They keep saying this isn't DRM, but it's most of the building blocks you need for DRM. And most of the applications they mention are possible without hardware support via an encrypted filesystem. All you need for Palladium is an OS which refuses to boot without the right user, computer, and boot parameters.

    The other thing to note is that they keep stressing RAND (Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory) licenses. Non-discriminatory means every organization pays patent licenses on the same formula. If the formula doesn't contain provisions to allow for open source software, then open source software can't use the standard.

    • You got confused with the FAQ. TCPA is not about proving futher means for software to determine access control. Thats what we already have. But software can be and is modified to ignore security control.

      It works the other way arround: the TPM module will allow the software to access secure data only IF the software environment has the right integrity metrics. TCPA doesn't require anybody to enter a password. The keys needed to access the data are stored in the TPM (hardware), which will NERVER give them ba
    • They keep saying this isn't DRM, but it's most of the building blocks you need for DRM.

      Quite true. On the other hand, this system does make it easy to implement what they are talking about (allowing the user to verify what's installed), whereas implementing reliable DRM is still going to be extremely difficult (given the ability to combine an emulator with a proxy to the encryption chip, which will provide the ability to examine all data going into or coming out of the chip).

      My guess (given the industry
    • by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @04:28PM (#5717201) Homepage
      Was TCG formed to specify Digital Rights Management technologies?
      No. The focus of TCG is on protecting user data and secrets (keys, passwords, certificates, etc.) from external software attack and theft.


      They are lying and I can prove it. This protection is based on concealing the encryption keys. There is absolutely NO justification for concealing these keys from the owner of the machine. Malicious software cannot press a physical button or switch. They could therefore allow the keys to be revealed based on a physical switch (perhaps requiring a password as well). Including such a switch preserves every single claimed benefit of the system.

      The ONLY justification for not allowing this is because the system IS IN FACT DESIGNED FOR THE PURPOSE OF DRM. If they allowed the owner of the machine to access his keys in this maner it would destroy the ability of the system to enforce DRM. It would destroy the ability for companies to enforce vendor/monopoly lock-in.

      -

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