EFF Position on Trusted Computing

Seth Schoen writes "EFF has just released our analysis of Trusted Computing. We find that the technology could benefit computer security, but must be fixed to ensure that the computer owner is always in control. We also propose a specific way of fixing it. There's coverage of our position at news.com. More articles should be up in the near future at the new EFF Trusted Computing page. Thanks to all the people who helped us understand this technology!"

In short

Don't trust trusted computing. It does not compute.

Bad assumption

This seems to be assuming "Trusted Computing" is intended to benefit users.

The real reason it exists is precisely to take control away from the computer owner and give it to the content owner. Given that, what is the point of the EFF proposing "fixes" to help keep the computer owner in control, when its primary design goal is the exact opposite?

Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]

Not with the current government...

Not just Executive, but Legislative, as well.

Our government responds to campaign finance, and the lion's share of that is done by large corporations and other aggregates that want to make sure that THEIR rights come first.

Most people don't understand enough about computers to understand how completely OUR rights in this realm have been trampled, already.

Re:Bad assumption

Given that, what is the point of the EFF proposing "fixes" to help keep the computer owner in control, when its primary design goal is the exact opposite?

Because it throws the ball back over the fence to those trying to force DRM on us.

In essence, the EFF has given these folks an ultimatum - "You want a trusted computing environment, but not the public backlash? You can fix it like this. Now put up or shut up".

Up to this point, the Palladium group et al could safely ignore most of us, since all of us opposed to DRM have basically just whined about it. Now that someone (and a respectable someone, at that) has offered them a way to get what they claim they want, choosing to ignore that will very tangibly clarify the real intent - If they ignore the EFF's recommendations completely, they all but publically admit they only care about stripping users of the right to use their own machines, rather than creating some fictional "safe" computing environment.

Re:Bad assumption

if it means giving control over what processes run on my computer to someone else

It does not. It means being able to prove what processes run on your computer to someone else, if you want this - if you need some services from that someone one. If you can't, that someone else simply would not deal with you, but it would not be able to control what is run on your machine.

EFF proposal is stupidiest I've ever saw (from CNET):

The EFF proposes amending the trusted computing initiative to include a feature called "owner override," which would allow computer owners, whether individuals or companies, to essentially lie to an organization that attempts to ascertain the integrity of their content.

This ability to lie breaks the whole idea - if somebody else does not trust you, he will not deal with you - no EFF will ever force him to.

Re:Bad assumption

>if it means giving control over what processes run on my computer to someone else

It does not.

Actually it does when more and more websites and software simply refuse to run at all. It is essentially extortion. You are given a choice to "voluntarily" agree to give up all right to privacy and give up control over your own computer, or you are denied use of your computer.

That computer sitting on your desk is little more than a worthless lump of metal and plastic if you are denied access to most of the internet and you are denied use of virtually all new software.

This ability to lie breaks the whole idea - if somebody else does not trust you, he will not deal with you - no EFF will ever force him to.

Fine, if someone doesn't want to deal with the GERNERAL PUBLIC then they are perfectly free to go hide a hole in the ground. They have absolutely right to expect the GENERAL PUBLIC to be denied ordinary control over their own property.

You are essentially proposing to 'offer' everyone a chance to have a polygraph surgically implanted in their brain. Anyone who doesn't 'voluntarily' agree then gets locked out of all buildings, denied use of the phone, denied use of the roads, denied use of money. To quote you, "if somebody else does not trust you, he will not deal with you". You don't HAVE to vuluntarily have this device implanted in your brain, but if you decline you are effectively thrown in prison. Sure, you're free to walk around your own house, but your house is the prison cell.

Oh, and that "polygraph device" they are implanting in your brain? When you 'voluntarily' use it, it has TOTAL REMOTE CONTROL power. It can force you to do anything, it can prevent you from doing anything, it can erase or modify anything. Of course you are perfectly free to chose to live in a prison cell for the rest of your life instead.

The EFF is simply saying that your computer is your property. They are simply saying that it should not be designed as a weapon against it's owner.

As I have been saying for months, the only problem with TCPA and Palladium/NGSCB is that the design specifications require that the owner of the machine is FORBIDDEN to know his own keys (passwords). The sole purpose for that design requirement is "secure" the computer against it's rightful owner. The owner of the computer has absolutely every right to rip the hardware open and dig those passwords out with a microscope if he feels like it. And once he does that he does have full control over the system and is capable of doing exactly what the EFF proposes. The EFF isn't proposing anything that people don't already have every right and ability to do. They are just saying that there is no reason that people should need a microscope and other equipment to do it.

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It's a game -- flush out the rats of hidden agenda

The point of the EFF doing this is precisely to underline the fact that big business is attempting to take control of the end-user computing platform away from the user.

You see, the problem is not so much that big business is doing this, but that it is doing so by subterfuge rather than out in the open.

The EFF is just flushing out the rats here. If business were trying to take control of people's property openly then the EFF wouldn't need to put on an act of innocence and merely be "identifying dangers" as the proposed solutions as if business wasn't aware of them.

It's a good strategy. Big business can only respond by saying either "Oh yeah, we hadn't realized" (LOL), or else it can reply that this was indeed the intention. In both cases, the user wins.

My bet though is that the EFF will be met by total silence.

Sad to see EFF legitimizing this

You're exactly right. In "Trusted Computing", as the analysis points out:

...the computer's owner is sometimes treated as just another attacker or adversary who must be prevented from breaking in and altering the computer's software.

I can't put it any more directly than that without risking being modded "Funny". Your computer, in effect, belongs to them. (See?)

Even the proposed "Owner Override" seems to me a "how are you going to do that" issue. How are you going to assure that a change was made by you and not by some software pretending to be you?

There are other oversights too:

• "Identity" of software is determined by submitting a hash value, but how can you be sure someone's not sending a canned hash value?
• "Secure output can prevent information displayed on the screen from being recorded" -- until someone invents a screen-scraping monitor. If information exists, there's a way to copy it. That's just what information is.
• The most serious point of all -- that the EFF is lending credibility to this blatant grab for dictator-like powers by suggesting that it can be "fixed" and the problems "addressed", at which point we should all happily adopt it. Not me, brother.

I would have much preferred the factual analysis and then a great big "run away from this as fast as you can".

Re:Sad to see EFF legitimizing this

How are you going to assure that a change was made by you and not by some software pretending to be you?

Actually that is pretty easy, you press a special button/switch. Malicious software is incapable of faking actual physical control. I proposed exactly such a modification to TCPA months ago.

I e-mailed this one of the main TCPA proponents about this back in January. It was David Safford, author of Why_TCPA [ibm.com] and TCPA_Rebuttal. [ibm.com] I explained this system and pointed out that there every single claimed benefit of Why_TCPA works just as well with actual and full owner control like my (and the EFF's) proposed modification grants. He did not dispute this.

His only reply was to suggest this change would no longer keep laptops secure against a thief. This suggestion fails on two grounds. First of all it directly contradicts TCPA_Rebuttal where he claims TCPA is not designed to be secure against physical access and that this supposedly 'proves' that TCPA is not designed for DRM. If TCPA is not supposed to be secure against physical access then it is disingenuous to claim it is supposed to protect a laptop against theft. The second reason his 'theft' argument fails is that it is simple to combine a physical button-press with an owner ID code or password before full control is given. A theif cannot get this owner password, and software can neither get the password nor press the button.

Granting the owner of the machine to his own keys (passwords) that are locked in the TCPA chip gives the owner full control over the system. There is absolutely no justification for denying the owner access to his own keys. The only purpose for this design requirement is to use it as a weapon against the owner and for various varients of DRM.

Of course Microsoft and the TCPA proponents will never accept my proposal (and the EFF's proposal) because the only real motivation for this hardware change is for DRM-type purposes. If owners maintain actual control over their machines and it can't be used for DRM systems then the entire project is a waste of time. Everything else is just a smoke-screen. TCPA will not prevent your computer from being infected with a virus, and it will not prevent that virus from slagging your entire hard drive and everything on it. The only thing it will do is prevent the virus from distributing copies of your 'secure' music files.

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But then they will argue

That users are ignorant of Computer Security, so it must be controlled by a more intelligent source, like Microsoft. (It's true most are, but does anyone believe MS will fix it?)

Security in Fortune 500 companies

I've been working in the security field for about 30 odd years, starting with securing mainframes back at Berkeley in the early 70s and am now providing consulting services to the major financial institutions in the US.

I think that any corporation that invests at least 10% of their budget wisely should be on the track to provide their clients and staff a secure environment in which to deliver their products. I have to deal with a lot of intrusions on a daily basis while overhauling the infrastructure. Currently we've implemented the .NET framework in an insurance company which has permitted them granular control of all security aspects of the deployed .NET applications. This is key, we don't just want to control the desktops but also the software running on them.

Which is nice.

Fear

In order for a computer to be more secure, it must monitor more aggressively for changes. This seems to be point 4 in the article (remote attestation).

However, by intuition, this would mean that your computer system would know and monitor your system and thus the user more and more.

Misconceptions about this design abound. The most common misconception denies that the trusted computing PCs would really be backwards-compatible or able to run existing software.

Well, crap... of course there is going to be compatibility problems... I am much more concerned that my system and my massaging of that system is going to be tracked and recorded at higher and higher resolution of detail.

Davak

Great timing

Right on the heels of learning that Outlook Express was mostly responsible for the HL2 Source Code Leak..

EFF's position is outrageous

The EFF basically wants your computer to lie to a content provider so that you can turn off the security and still receive their content. It might as well not exist in the 1st place then, which is probably their real goal.

The trouble is...

If this is unopposed, it will not be long until everything useful requires "trust". And so my PC, the one I paid money for, will not work the way I want anymore. Oh, theoretically it will, but in a practical sense it won't.

If a content provider wants to "trust" a device, then they should buy it for me.

My cell phone providers wants a trusted device. Great. They give me a phone, and I pay to use it.

Ask yourself this... is watching an HDTV version of Star Wars so compelling that you're willing to compromise yout ability to control your PC? If you answered "yes", then you and I simply have a completely different viewpoint on the subject that I suspect we'll never agree on.

Re:EFF's position is outrageous

Having my computer do what I want it to doesn't seem particularly outrageous to me.

Re:EFF's position is outrageous

How about this, since I can't control my computer, why should I have to pay for it. I would be much less opposed to not controlling it if I didn't own the hardware. Perhaps Microsoft will start liscensing computers as well.

Trusted Computing = IBM,INTEL,MICROsoft own you.

The will search your hardrive for any copyrighted material.

Next Tv's,Stereos

Doesn't that...

...defeat the purpose? I mean, everyone knows that end users can't be trusted. Given the chance, they'll do nothing but pirate movies, music, television and software, etc.

*** END SARCASM ***

I think DRM is a *good* thing. Once people have to pay for music, movies, etc. the industry will realize exactly what they were losing to piracy -- almost nothing. If someone could wave a magic wand and people had to abide 100% by the rediculous license agreements, you'd find that instead of buying what they were sharing, they would go without.

Or does Microsoft, the BSA, MPAA and RIAA really think all those people in Asia are going to pay a few months worth of wages for software or entertainment?

Re:Doesn't that...

Every currently proposed DRM scheme can be defeated by plugging an audio cable from the speaker jack on computer A into the line in on computer B.

You underestimate the stupidity of our opponents. They have in fact not only proposed such a system, they have had congressmen advocating it.

And how could they conceivably accomplish this impossible goal? Simple, they want to make it illegal to make or buy an ordinary recording device without a "Fritz chip" inside that would shut down the device when it detected specially tagged sound. They even proposed requiring that every single analog to digital converter have such lock-out technology embedded.

You could be dictating a letter into an ordinary tape recorder, and if someone walked by on the other side of the street with a radio the "Fritz chip" would pick up the special tag in the music and the tape recorder would record dead silence until they walked out of range. You only discover later that there is a five minute dead zone in the middle of your recorded dictation. Your camcorder tape of your child's first birthday goes dead silent whenever it detects tagged music in the bacground, and the video goes dead black whenever it detects a tagged TV image anywhere in the background.

Reporters might be able to get a special licence for a special video camera that doesn't go dead in this manner, but it would probably have to embed a special tracking code in everything it records.

I'm fairly certain that this proposal is far too extreme to ever get approved, but there ARE people demanding it.

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"[T]he computer owner is always in control."

We find that the technology could benefit computer security, but must be fixed to ensure that the computer owner is always in control.

That's simple enough to solve. The computer will just be both owned and "0wnz0red" by someone else, most likely by the entity that licensed the operating system to the user, and the hardware imprinted for that specific operating system and all others irrevocably locked out.

And it will all be done with the click on a seemingly innocuous little virtual button that reads simply, "I Agree".

Trust.

The EFF is correct as usual. Trusted computing = Me knowing what the hell is running on my computer and having control over it. Anything else is untrustworthy computing. Anyone that wants to control what I can do with my own property (computer) can stuff it where the sun don't shine.

Trusted ... or Trustworthy?

Personally, I still prefer "Trustworthy Computing [trustworthycomputing.com]" over "Trusted Computing."

Token Based Trusted Computing

I used to intern for a company that works with a product called "WIBU KEY" now despite the fact their is a single note of one group "getting around" WIBU key, done properly WIBU should not be feasible to break.

Now WIBU is making something called "Codemeter" in which a user will be able to have licence information for hundreds of different software packages, that means if someone has MS word on their computer, and knows someone else that has it, they can use their licence on the Codemeter stick on their friends computer.

They are USB devices that can be carried on the keychain, and places like www.securikey.com are going to start using the new codemeter product.

It is MUCH better than other trusted computing schemes, since the data is not just being hanleded on the computer, all codes are "private" and all licence data is "private" on the key itself.

The way the part is manufactured you cannot get the data off of the key, if it is stored using a certain key mode. Since the key has its own integrated chip, it can use its key to decrypt as a private key that you need never know. If you lose your key or break it, you can go on-line, register a new key that you have bought, and get the data transferred to your new codemeter stick.

I was excited when I got to look at the product in its pre-development stages, and only wish that I had been able to stay on with the company to do more work with the new product line.

I think token based authentication is the way to go for the future, simply make programs that will not run unless large chunks of them have been decoded, and make sure small but important algos in the programs have to be run through the key every so often.

And as you detail attacks (if you reply) please note, spoofing the key doesnt work when the code runs inside the key, and if you use random checking algos against the key, it wont work either.

Any WIBU key hack on the net (which i researched) is totally based on bad programming by the target company, IE they sent "999999" to the key, and expected "99999" back, which was just bad programming on thier part.

Buzz OUT

I want a secure computer

Not a "trusted" one.

Just as I wish with my house. I want my house to protect me, my papers, possessions and privacy. I want it to be nobody's business what my house contains, even to the point of being able to protect myself against legitimate legal prossecution.

Oddly enough, that's what the Constitution was written to provide my house with.

It is up to me to secure my house with whatever technological measures are available to provide that security and understand how to use that technology. I'm perfectly willing to take the same responsibility for the security of my computer. Just provide me with the tools. Then go the hell away and leave me alone.

The second my house starts deciding for me what I may or may not keep in it or do inside it I get a new house.

The day my computer decides it doesn't "trust" me with what I'm storing in it or doing with it I pull the plug.

Fortunatly for me there are already hundreds of millions of "untrusted" computers already out there in the wild that do everything I might require my computer to do.

KFG

Fixing it

"We also propose a specific way of fixing it"

Namely, removing it.

Microsoft may be changing course

This article over at cnet [com.com] looks like Microsoft may actually be listening to the critics of trusted computing and rather moving towards what it calls Shield Technology - basically incorporating better firewall technology into the operating system. I for one would welcome this over trusted computing.

Don't forget consumers

Whatever changes are made to DRM, just remember what the consumers' position will be when DRM is commonplace:

Bent over, taking it in the poop chute.

The

That's a CRAZY idea. As usual, let's compare computing on the information super highway with driving on our own freeways.

What would happen if we let people drive their own cars? They would repair their own cars, "upgrade" them too! But if they are in control, they may not make repairs as needed and then their cars would fall apart on a public super highway and cause other people to die and stuff.

Oh wait... we have a "license" to help ensure that the public has a bare minimum amount of knowledge and skill to operate a vehicle safely on public roads.

Now let's return to cyber-reality again. Instead of "trusted computing" how about "trusted users."?

Let's say that the price of admission to the information super highway should be controlled in the same or similar way to the way we control access to the roads. What a fabulous world we'd live in! "License to SPAM" wouldn't exist. Maybe there are a lot of bad things I haven't considered but is it much worse than requiring a driver's license write a check?

Wow... imagine getting a ticket and your license revoked for SPAMing... or for operating a computer with a virus...

"The Responsible Computing Initiative" is born!

Trusted Computing, but who is the trusted party?

Trusted computing is being promoted as a computer platform that users can trust, but it's really more about creating a platform where third parties can determine whether the users themselves can be trusted.

Trusted computing benefits content producers and service providers more than it benefits users. The reason is that producers and providers are usually the ones whose systems are being acessed, while the users are the ones accessing these well-known systems. It is the nature of the transaction that trusted computing will favor the well-known party over the party that is "anonymous".

Think People Think.....

when the hardware gets hackered and cracked, then you will have to upgrade....

Whats the difference between hardware and software when it comes to bit flipping?

to put something in hardware gains the advantage of speed but the inflexability of change.

Related News

Microsoft Preps Major Security Strategy Shift [wininformant.com]

Microsoft's chief security strategist made the surprising statement that the company is about one-third of the way to its goals for Trustworthy Computing. I guess there's a lot more going on internally than we're aware of.

The article also says, "Microsoft's short-term strategy will shift from patch management to what the company calls 'securing the perimeter.'" What this means is that they're working more closely with firewall companies.

Etch SW into HW and Make User Data the ONLY I/O

As Jason noted earlier: "...'Trusted Computing'...exists...to take control away from the computer owner and give it to the content owner... what is the point of the EFF proposing 'fixes' to help keep the computer owner in control, when its primary design goal is the exact opposite?"

Home PC users should tell scummy Big Brothers Micro$oft, Intel, Hollywood, etc. to shove it. I'm not going to pay you for a DRM'ed PC, and let you charge me usage fees, force-feed me content, view my private info, etc.

If businesses (or home users) need ultimate security, jump back to the days of a closed hardware box with etched-in software; the only I/O was user data, so, no I/O was ever considered program code (no more viruses!). This would mean that the box would have to leave the factory with a DEBUGGED, etched-in O/S; DEBUGGED, etched-in office-suite software; and hardware slots into which additional purchased software (made by any company, etched onto hardware cartridges, and memory-isolated by the hardware box) could be plugged.

This would mean NO MORE BELLS-AND-WHISTLES CRAPWARE...keep it mean, lean, and bug-free, because any patch will have to be a free replacement cartridge (or you piss off your customers).

This would mean that the closed box with hardware-cartridge expansion is a BUSINESS MACHINE. You could still buy the PC of today for your home use and program the PC to your liking...but it could never corrupt the business machine. Want to bring your work home with you? The BUSINESS MACHINE could easily be of laptop design.

The point is, the CRAPWARE and viruses of today's PC...could never touch your BUSINESS MACHINE or its user data.

END OF STORY. PROBLEM SOLVED. No more asinine "Norton Anti-Virus" and its drug-addict subscription fees. No more asinine "Microsoft Windows Updates" because of over-featured, crapified software released too early. No more script kiddies. No more employees putting WHATEVER CRAP THEY WANT onto the BUSINESS MACHINE.

Anyone who nags about:

(1) the locked-down, basic-software-etched-in-hardware box,
(2) the cost/inconvenience of cartridges versus the FREE-FOR-ALL of downloadable Web software (such as broken-software patches, utilities for things the O/S should have been doing in the first place, etc.), and
(3) lesser user freedom (to add additional, company-unapproved software to his work machine)

HAD BETTER THINK ABOUT ALL THE WASTED TIME AND MONEY WE ARE NOW SPENDING ON VIRUSES AND OUT-OF-THE-BOX-BROKEN, CRAP-FEATURE-LADEN O/S's AND SOFTWARE.

Do that, and software etched in hardware...with I/O consisting ONLY of user data...DOESN'T SEEM TO BE SUCH A BAD BUSINESS IDEA AFTER ALL...does it? :-)

Attestation

With Microsoft, IBM, and other major players involved in this process, the EFF doesn't have much of a choice but to work with what they've got. I don't think that the EFF agrees with the Trusted Computing initiative; as they say in the article, most of the changes described by the initiative can be implemented at the software level. I agree that that is where the changes should take place.

I agree with some of the other posters here and I don't really see anything useful about the attestation process (see the chart at the bottom of the page). I'm especially concerned about all of hardware specs that I know nothing about: Do you honestly expect me to think that the Bush administration isn't salivating over this? Can you say "backdoor"?

It sounds pathetic, but the only way I see out of this is through education and certification. People should be certified to connect to a network, and if they screw up, they are responsible. It's the way it works (usually) in academia.

What a mess.

Other Problems with Trusted Computing

There are some other problems with Trusted Computing that the EFF article fails to address.

One is the difficulty of dealing with upgrades, failures and replacement of computers, if your data is locked to the old machine. TCPA had a hugely complicated process you would have to go through to migrate any of your "secure" data to the new machine. It involved going back to the manufacturer, getting a special transfer key, moving the data over and having it get re-encrypted. Microsoft hasn't said what they're going to do, but it's an extremely difficult technical problem to solve while retaining the security.

Another problem is the PKI (public key infrastructure) issue. For remote attestation to work, it's necessary that the TC chips have some kind of crypto certificate that says that they are legitimate. Microsoft has said nothing about who will issue these certificates and who will revoke them if a machine gets broken into. Setting up a successful, global PKI is a prerequisite for DRM type applications and will be an enormous job.

The article also overlooks that the sealed storage feature, which the EFF mostly views favorably, can also be used to achieve lock-in and secure closed formats. Microsoft Word could store data encrypted using the TC hardware, such that only Microsoft-signed applications can access the data. This kind of lock-in does not depend on the remote attestation features that the EFF is so concerned about, and would not be addressed by their Owner Overrides.

Competition will make trusted computing OK

I know no one wants to hear this, but the dark picture painted by the EFF of the ills due to Trusted Computing is not likely to come to pass.

The main point that the EFF analysis overlooks is the role of competition in the marketplace. Yes, TC could allow web sites to require you to run particular software; yes, TC could allow vendors to encrypt their data formats making it impossible for you to switch to a new software package; yes, TC could be the foundation for DRM and restrictive licensing.

But the point is that not all companies would use TC to do these things. Users would have a choice between companies which impose very strong restrictions on how end users can manipulate their data, and companies which offer open and unrestricted data formats. If all those limitations which TC would allow companies to impose are so bad, customers will refuse to buy the software of those companies. Competitors which offer unrestricted data formats will win in the marketplace.

Look at what is happening today with online music. By the end of this year, there will have been several launches of online music services, each with its own tradeoffs of per-song pricing, subscription fees, and download restrictions. This is competition. The market will respond, and we will get to a situation that provides a balance between the desires of all parties involved. Some DRM will exist, but it will be in a form that customers can accept.

In the same way, TC can be used lightly to enforce DRM and other restrictions in a way that users will not find objectionable and onerous. Competition will evolve a balance between the desires of the vendors and those of the customers, just as it does for prices, features, licensing and all other elements of a software purchase. Neither side is in a position to dictate terms.

The real problem

The real problem, as I see it, is not trustworthy computing, it is certainly not protecting the users, and it is not even corporations--rightly or not--seeking to protect their investments by invasive means.

Instead, the problem is a generally uneducated user base. I don't mean "uneducated" in the sense that they are in any way unintelligent, but that for some reason they are simply not interested in learning the intricacies of computers and related topics. They simply want things to <I>work</I>, they don't care <I>how</I> they work. And the truth is it would take an immense amount of invasion of privacy before the average computer user noticed, much less began to raise a fuss that might stop a company from heading in that direction.

The question, then, becomes how do we educate people who do not wish to be educated? If we write them off, is the cause lost? It seems even vocal critics such as the EFF go mostly ignored by companies even as the hordes of us behind them applaud. Bill Gates just smirks and buys himself another ivory back scratcher.

Can the tech-savvy win in a world of technological indifference?

Give them just enough to hang themselves.

Well, I thank the EFF for this analysis, but I think they've missed an important tactic. Let Microsoft and Co. lock out non-MS software all they want. They're at a fundamental disadvantage. If they wish to exacerbate their tenuous position vis-a-vis monopoly, fine. If they want to gamble shareholder confidence on a risky offensive against the general good will of the net public, we should help them.

The EFF warns that Microsoft's IIS web-server could block web-browsers other than Microsoft's IE. Well, Apache can just as easily be made to block IE. After all, Apache has run the majority of Internet web-sites since 1996 [apache.org]. In other words, if MS doesn't play nice, we shouldn't reward them by rolling out the red carpet. Kick MS off the net (maybe for just a year or so.. mercy and all). You can start sending the message now [devin.com].

Not telling

From the article:

Refusing to provide the information required by remote attestation won't work, Schoen said, because such a refusal is still giving something away. "In criminal cases, you can take the Fifth Amendment," he said. "While the jury is not supposed to infer anything from that, the general public certainly infers that the person is guilty or has something to hide."

I think this will work, and this would be a feature that I would love to have. You can infer whatever you want about the contents of my hard disk. I remain innocent until proven otherwise, or is that not the way things work anymore?

Er, Does this work

According to their idea, you can lie about changes you've made.But you can't claim that something that was never true about your computer is true. While this provides more compatibility with the dictionary definition of the word 'trusted', it doesn't solve all that much. Imagine a DRMed version of CIFS that only connects to MS clients. Under the EFFs scheme, a client that runs a hacked version of Windows is OK, but a client that never ran Windows isn't. Samba is still dead.

Neuromancer here we come!

Where can I buy a box with "owner override"?

It will only take one vendor doing it, and I'd pay a few extra bucks for my Linux owner override feature to work.

Ice, ice baby.

Trusted Computing: Govt Censor's Dream-Machine

I think folks may be focusing too much on the capitalist implications of an abused Trusted Computing Platform. Government censorship is a much more serious threat.

For the "good of the people", President Bob dictates that everyone in the United Federation must use a trusted computer platform or go to jail. Dissidents? Bye-bye. Free press? Bye-bye. Long live President Bob!

If you don't have root to your own machine, you are not free.

Trusted computing isn't about your trust.

Trusted computing is about creating a platform the content providers can trust. Not the computer owners.

Whether the content provider is a network admin rightfully protecting the company owned computers on his network. Or microsoft/riaa wrongfully protecting the computer YOU own from copy infringing materials and from things they just don't like even though you have every legal right to do them.

Return to the Dark Ages

All that "trusted" platform does is preventing things that were developed over decades of technology development, and replaces them with things that no one thought about because they are useless.

1. Make sure that the user is typing at the keyboard, and not another program is doing it. That means, no remote access, no automation, no pretty much any feature that allows users to use interactive software unless it's sitting on the box behind his desk. Yes, one can try to send locally encrypted data blindly over the network -- then where is going the server to stuff it to be decrypted? And if it will be able to, why someone else won't be do the same with his own keystrokes, even if it will take a bunch of mechanical relays "typing" on a "secure" physical keyboard?

2. Trust the software application to provide the "safe" data. That means, no scripts, pipes, interpreted languages, or anything else that combines multiple "products" into an application. Because anything combined will have to be trusted as every component, ane every component (including "data" that is the interpreted program and the interpreter that runs it) will be trusted just as much as the complete system.

3. No virtual machines and emulators. Does not even deserve an explanation.

4. No user-created OS-level software, no matter in what language. Same.

Any of those features, if can be overriden by the user, undermines the system in its very core -- user may have a big red switch, but unless he can discern which particular software is running at the moment he is flipping it, he can not distinguish between bypassing the controls for his own program, for someone else's legitimate software, or for a worm/virus/malware/... Same applies even to self-signing system, with a nice addition of a problem in a networked environment, when one can not physically sign the application on all computers that should be able to run it, and all other methods will mean the ability to transfer and modify secret keys by the user.

So basically we will get a nice computer with all the features expected from ZX Spectrum, but in a "secure" environment. Obviously there should be something that will provide a replacement for those things. And there certainly will be -- there will be a remote access program that will be "trusted" that it already checked the validity of input on the client end, and can be "trusted" on the server. Single application signing service that will "let" the user run some software. Long explanations that emulators are only used by pirates, and that OS authors smell bad, so no self-respecting user would want to do any of those things, ever.

And the company that will bring it to you.... No, not _that_ company, the other one.

Trust, Computing, Privacy, Convenience(God rights)

This analysis is very well scoped out to the extent that it focusses specifically on the topics of privacy, internet security and computers. But it seems to raise more issues than it defines. In a networked environment that is increasingly defined by technological convergence, the lines between physical and online presence are already becoming blurred. When the day comes that computers are able to routinely link to and manage our material comforts and all of that "stuff" is networked in, who defines our rights to privacy and the level of access we are allowed to what we already have? The EFF says the individual should have the right of ultimate access. (It's hard to disagree with that, isn't it?) But some sectors, if not most sectors of the government could argue that, "for security reasons", they have a legitimate claim on the right of access to private identity. Identity theft is one issue that tends to feed legitimacy to this argument, as do the precedents of social security numbers and drivers lisences as accepted standards if identification. Privately governments are mostly concerned with being able to identify, locate and regulate people (that's what governments do). Of course businesses that produce convergence technology will argue publicly that they should have God rights because they "understand" the technical issues better than the mere mortals they service, while privately conspiring to lock in their market and stake out their claims to access and distribution. (That's what businesses do) But who defines where the concepts of ownership and privacy starts and end, when our computers become wearable and our consumables are wired in? That's what individuals should do. But with all these other interests out there, will they?

OMG!

OMG! All Libertarians are evil! OMG! OMG! Libertarian thought is evil thought and must be stameped out. OMG! OMG! Freedom is evil and bad OMG! OMG! I actually read the articles. The EFF is right. I don't think they are exactly Libertarians though. We are going to have a left right civil war in this country and the left is going to precipitate it. The A pox on the Democrats and the Republcans. Screw the left right labels. I am proud to be a Libertarian who isn't tring to force or brow beat others into "thinking correctly." That is what the left and right do. Libertarians are not "right wing" they are not leftists either, they are concerned with personal liberty.

Re:EFF

Libertarians always say they don't believe in handouts, so why should I give EFF a handout then?

Libertarians don't believe in handouts funded by individuals who didn't explicitly and personally agree to provide those handouts. So, say, if money that was taken from me via taxes is being given to the League of Gay Midget Eskimos without my consent, that's a bad thing. I may be more than happy to donate to said League if it were my choice -- but being forced to do it at the risk of men with guns coming and putting me in jail is a different matter.

The EFF is the same way. I don't believe in enforced handouts to the EFF from folks who don't support them -- if you don't like the EFF, you shouldn't be forced to donate to them. On the other hand, if you believe that donating to the EFF is something you wish to do -- perhaps even something which is aligned with your own enlightened self interest -- then you should be every bit as free to do that as to donate to the Gay Midget Eskimo fund. Which is to say, very.

Re:I disagree with the EFF.

Wake up.

Regards,

Fredrick