No More Internet Anonymity

inkhaton writes "This Article tells of an Orwellian chip that, once installed in your computer (and not by your choice), will allow any website you visit to "read" your identity. The article goes on to describe how many benefits there are for using this to facilitate online business and even suggests some negative points. It ends with "Ultimately the TPM itself isn't inherently evil or good. It will depend entirely on how it's used, and in that sphere, market and political forces will be more important than technology." ... ugh. Well we all know what that means."

Real Identity?

Your real identity or someone who used your computer while they were over your house, or someone that borrowed your laptop?

Re:Real Identity?

Or the 3117 haxor who used the latest TMP chip crack to change their TMP ID to be the same as yours, which they got from the worm that still can get installed on your machine...

Re:Real Identity?

Or the 3117 [sic] haxor who used the latest TMP chip crack to change their TMP ID to be the same as yours, which they got from the worm that still can get installed on your machine...

Well I've heard of people misspelling words, but who'se heard of somebody misspelling a number? It's called 1337, dude.

Re:Real Identity?

no i think he was more going for e-lit short for e-literate, which is basically like another way to say skript kiddie.

these kids these days they're all e-literate and don't know how to hard code a crack in asm after having reverse engineered all traces of the hooks and calls from a compiled binary full of traps to make reverse engineering more difficult.

microsoft has made it far too easy, back in the day if you wanted to steal someone's data, you had to lug a 20lbs reel to reel magnetic tape, p[ull it over to a duplicatrion mainfraim and copy the contents onto anothe blank 20lbs reel to reel magnetic tape AND it Still only held 20 Megabytes AND WE LOVED IT.

Re:Real Identity?

Yeah, that's great except you might use several different machines on a particular day (home computer, work computer, cell phone). You might also have to replace your machine one day.

Unless you carry around an implanted chip [digitalangelcorp.com], how is the bank going to know it's the "real you?" Maybe they have a whitelist, or maybe you have to go through some verification process the first time to tie the machine to your account or something, but it sounds a bit hokey.

One other thing that gets me is how does the bank know your computer has a TPM chip. It can ask, but it has to trust that the computer will answer truthfully. If you set up an intervening program that says, "Sure, I have a TPM chip. You can trust me!" and then emulate the TPM, with a fake ID of course, I don't see how the bank can tell the difference. If I can think of that there's already a bunch of hackers who have, and they are all saying "Excellent" in their best Mr. Burns voices.

Re:Real Identity?

The real point of my above comment was: This system is effectively worthless until the fundimental security issues surrounding general use computers is resolved to a better state. It is likely an unsolveable problem as long as 'computers' remain general use computational tools, as general use includes all of the abilities needed to circomvent even the best security. Perhaps not in a timely fasion, which is what has generally been relied on.

Implimenting this in hardware means that it's inherintly less adaptable than software. Which means software will be able to adapt around it. Perhaps not in the machine itself, but it's just data out. It should be trivially easy to man in the middle your own outgoing datastream to be able to incorporate any TMP data you want, likely possible even without additional hardware.

Re:Real Identity?

Identity thieves will have a long field day..

I second that. The more perfect you consider an identification method to be, the more perfectly you will be fooled by a fake.

Re:Real Identity?

thats what the Library is for. Unless, of course, it becomes law that all public terminals require a fingerprint or retina scan before use to garantee that the user is known.

if things keep going this way...

Re:Real Identity?

someone who used your computer while they were over your house

Damn those wi-fliers!

Re:Real Identity?

Or perhaps all the 1337 h4x0rz will just do what they already do, sniff the traffic, steal some ID's and used them. Why does it matter if this is a TPM or your username and password?

SSL is pretty secure method for doing web-transactions. It's not perfect, but a TPM isn't going to make things any better. You can still hack around SSL if know how to use google effectively for research.

Once you know the method for how the server shakes hands with the TPM you can usually spoof it. Not to mention this would be a publicly available process so that all the webmonkeys of the world would know how to build a "secure" site with it. Even if it wasn't readily available to the public, it'd still be like trying to movie or software piracy. Where there's a will there's a way.

And what this guy said too :
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171227&thr eshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=95&mode=thread&cid=1426 1329 [slashdot.org]

My ID

Aren't we all Testuser from Beverly Hills, CA 90210 at [e-mail]?

It's even worse!

Your computer may be broadcasting your IP address to the world as we speak! Or so I've heard.

really

My TPM will have the following information.

Richard Cranium
9191919 Nunya Street
Overstock, MO 64999
901-555-5555

And if I can't do that .. then I guess it's back to my C= 64...

Re:really

And if I can't do that .. then I guess it's back to my C= 64...

i think the C - 4 will work better.

Question is

This is a lot like the MP3 market -

We already have systems that work fine without this invasive technology - just like we already have MP3 technology for making nice MP3 files to listen to and download.

Why then would we pony up more cash or change the way we connect to the internet just for the sake of adopting this new technology?

These approaches for more DRM and more end-user-ownership by the corps is almost always stick and almost never carrot.

duh

Ultimately the TPM itself isn't inherently evil or good.
 
I'd like to hear of any inanimate object that is inherently evil or good. Nuclear bombs aren't inherently evil or good, it's just how you use them. Otherwise they just sit there.

Re:duh

I'm glad it was Harry Truman and not you who made that decision in 1945.

Why? We're not really going to trot out that rubbish about needing to use nukes against Japan, are we? A few points to consider:

* Before the US dropped nukes, Japan was already sending out requests for peace through several countries. The sticking point was that the Japanese wanted to keep Hirohito as a figurehead emperor -- the exact same deal the US privately agreed to.

* Before the US dropped nukes, Japan was so defeated that the US could park battleships off the Japanese coast and shell at will -- without response.

* The much quoted figure of "1 million" US casualties in the event of a Japanese invasion is sheer fiction. The War Department put the figure at two hundred thousand casualties (horrific yes, but certainly not 1 million).

* General Leslie Groves, military commander of the WWII Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb, said bluntly, "There was never, from about two weeks from the time I took charge of this Project, any illusion on my part but that Russia was our enemy, and the Project was conducted on that basis."

Nutshell summary:

We dropped nukes on Japan in WWII for two reasons: to see them work in action and, more importantly, to show the USSR that we can and would use them.

Mark of the Beast

How else will the Anti-Christ keep track of you, and keep you from buying or selling? However, the mark is supposed to be in your forehead or palm of your hand. OK implanted RFID chips then.

i like it

(In fact, with TPM, your bank wouldn't even need to ask for your username and password -- it would know you simply by the identification on your machine.)

Now the people who break into homes don't have to sift through dirty underwear to maybe find a few crumpled up dollar bills, they can just turn on the pc and transfera couple of bucks into their bank account. Aaah, the modern age.

Pansy article

How blandly can someone describe something evil? Well, lets see!

I'm so mad I can't type. The idea that something can be put into a tool that I buy weather I want it or not, and then we will see if my privacy invasion is good or evil latter makes me want to throttle someone.

The tone of the article gives me a good idea of who to start with.

Any power will be abused. Mod redundant.

Not just this post, but the thread. Actually, I think this is already a 'design feature' of IPv6, and that's coming, too.

Anyway, I'm not sure there will be any such thing as privacy in the near future. Right now it's already becoming a luxury good, and pretty soon only millionaires will be able to afford it.

There is a solution, but no guarantee we'll reach it. We need to define an individual's personal information as belonging to that individual, and any use or reference to that information should only be with permission, and based on some good reason. To put actual teeth in such a legal principle, I think it needs to be coupled with a right to store your own information (presumably on your own computer). Without such a basis for protecting privacy... Well, you'd better get use to appearing all over the Internet when you least expect it.

latter-day cryptanalysts?

There is a solution, but no guarantee we'll reach it. We need to define an individual's personal information as belonging to that individual, and any use or reference to that information should only be with permission, and based on some good reason. To put actual teeth in such a legal principle, I think it needs to be coupled with a right to store your own information (presumably on your own computer). Without such a basis for protecting privacy... Well, you'd better get use to appearing all over the Internet when you least expect it.

I've been thinking about this; the problem is the legal route to this is pretty much a nonstarter already. But maybe there is a loophole; I think we should all start a church. The Church of the Super Paranoid, or something like that. That way we could cry religious persecution if intrusive privacy-stealing measures are used against us. I'm certain I would have no problem convincing a sizeable chunk of the Slashdot population to swear and affirm (on a stack of punched cards) that their right to crypto and absolute mastery over who sees their porn stash is both vital and indispensable to the very core of their identity. I think it could work.

At the very least, the crazy fundies will lobby for laws that would help us... :0

Tin foil router

Tin Foil Router! Limited time! $99.99 with 802.11X! Stop those nasty data packets from going through to the websites you visit! www.x10.com

This would make encryption mandatory

This will never fly, and not for the reasons we would hope for.

Here are the scenarios:

1) Chip reports stuff, but data stream is wide open, so middlemen can change whatever they want.

2) Chip reports stuff, but with shitty encryption so the gov't can still do its wiretaps and echelon won't break. System is hacked within a couple days and the whole 'chip' idea becomes worthless.

3) Chip reports stuff, but with robust encryption. The site you are talking to knows who you are, but people between you and them can't sniff your actions other than knowing that 'some sort of communication took place'.

Plus variations. This could actually make webs of trust (a la the direction that Freenet appears to be going) more secure, since you know that your neighbors haven't been man-in-the-middled.

Old News

But good to see the mainstream press catching up to it. This chip is part of a larger effort by major software developers and hardware manufacturers to mostly stop piracy in all forms and control what you can do with your computer and when.

Read the TCPA FAQ [cam.ac.uk], and take a look at Against TCPA [againsttcpa.com], an anti-TCPA site if you're interested. For an alternate perspective, you can also view the official Trusted Computing Group site [trustedcom...ggroup.org].

Personally, I hate it, I don't think it will succeed, and I will *never* buy a computer with such a module installed.

This only works if hackers play by the rules

Of course, all a hacker needs to do is keep an older model x86 or PPC system around. Obsolete computers are a dime a dozen, and you can keep them running for decades.

And we are moving closer and closer to disposable PC's, anyway. In less than ten years, I predict that brand new, complete systems will be selling for less than $50. Got my computer's ID? So what, I throw away my computer every month!

Re:This only works if hackers play by the rules

You could basically even do this today. Most pieces of your system will not be labeled. Presumably it's just the CPU and/or Motherboard that have this ID crap in them. If it's just the motherboard, you can swap that out for $70 every couple months, and anything but top-shelf CPUs aren't that much more expensive.

The truly ridiculous thing about this is, it doesn't even put a dent in the cybercrime it's supposed to prevent. If you can get your system without giving up your identity (steal it or buy it through someone who "loses" records), and don't report your identity truthfully to anybody while using it, you're still just as anonymous as now. And if they come to get you, you just have to thermite one specific spot on the mainboard as well as the hard drive like you would today. Bam, all evidence gone. And until that day, you're free to molest six year olds and use stolen credit cards to your heart's content.

There are so many easier ways of preventing these problems than to try to force an ID on everybody. Make one-time disposable credit card numbers a mandatory feature. Consumers will use it because it saves them the hassle of cleaning their credit report after fraud. Hey, look! We can cut down on fraud by creating MORE anonymity, rather than less. Or how about the banks making websites that enforce strong password standards? How about ANYthing except a system that's even MORE transparent to the end user, and thus easier to crack?

Pentium 3

Sounds like the flopped unique ID that came on the P3 chips... we all know how successful that was.

That means....

I can't look at porn anymore :(

Hardware Cookie?

I suggest we refer to this hardware cookie as a shit biscuit.

I'll be setting up a concession stand ...

... selling desoldering stations, tin-foil hats and faraday-cage panic room kits ...

Routing Around the Damage?

So, does the TPM constitute damage, and will the Internet route around it?

My vote is yes. The Internet will route around it by gradually dividing from what is currently called the Internet. Most people will use what used to be the Internet, and will consider it to still be the Internet. A minority of tech savvy people will be running on an alternative network, and will consider their network to be the Internet.

There will be one way links between the Internet and the former Internet (new can suck data from old, but not the other way around). The new Internet will be under the radar, but will be a hotbed of technical innovation. In time the new Internet will appear on the radar, as the majority hear of it and decide that they want to be able to do all the neat things Internetters can do as well. The majority join the Internet. The Internet gets 'tamed' as large companies join it. The Internet routes around the damage by breaking away over time. The cycle repeats...

Re:Haven't we learned anything?

> Forcibly installing such chips into our computers is, well,
> illegal.

Nobody is (yet) proposing to forcibly install anything on your computer. They are proposing to make it nearly impossible to find a computer for sale without a TPM chip and impossible to get onto the Net with a computer without one. So far as I know that is not illegal.

I agree with the rest of your points.

We all know what that means...

>ugh. Well we all know what that means.

Sigh. Yes. Everyone will just sit around slashdot whining about it, and not lift one finger to get control of it via their elected officials.

Re:Cars have VINs and license plates

Cars have VINs and license plates to identify them on public roads. This places some limits on driver freedom but is hardly Orwellian.

TPM, or something like it, could end up in the same category.

You went to McDonald's for lunch...did they record your license plate and/or VIN? Did you drive up to your bank to make a deposit, and if so, did they check your license plate and/or VIN before letting you access your account? Did the city government make record of your license plate and VIN as you traveled through various intersections? Did the park and recreation department take a record of your entrance and exit times when you visited city park?

Basically, just go back and look at all of the arguments that were made when Intel proposed the Processor Serial Number as a GUID. The arguments remain, and will always be, completely valid.

Jim

Evil vs. Good

Well I never really considered little yellow cloth stars or number tattoos "good" or "evil" in and of themselves... but you know while we are at it lets brand everyone's social security number on their arm... you know so you can't lie to women at bars about being Leonardo DiCaprio.

AMD64 cpu UUID?

I was poking around on my new AMD64 machine the other day, and I ran dmidecode [nongnu.org]. Can anyone explain this?

• Handle 0x0001
  • DMI type 1, 25 bytes.
  • System Information
    • Manufacturer: System manufacturer
    • Product Name: System Product Name
    • Version: System Version
    • Serial Number: System Serial Number
    • UUID: EC491BB3-BE1F-DA11-B1EB-7B871839F7B3
    • Wake-up Type: PCI PME#

Re:AMD64 cpu UUID?

When in doubt ask Google. [dsps.net]

Also a a Wiki [wikipedia.org].

Re:AMD64 cpu UUID?

I'm sure the poster knows what a UUID is in general - however I think his question was whether this was a single code already burned into the CPU/etc, or just a dynamically generated one which could change from time to time. The websites you link have no info relevant to determining this.

For example, I just generated 3 UUIDs that are all appropriate for my machine using uuidgen - as suggested in the site you linked. Obviously these would not be suitable as unique, unmodifiable IDs for my PC. However, I could safely use them in databases, or to identify objects that I create.

This is circumventable.

In order for any web site to "read" my identity (assuming the chip is installed), data from the chip would need to be sent over HTTP. So, if you are not using a browser capable of sending it, or your OS does not have a driver to access the device, the device is useless. Not to mention, there is nothing to prevent you from using a browser that supplies false information.

If this were done purely in hardware, the data would be encoded in the network layer, which means that the data would not leave the subnet (assuming current network technologies used on the internet).

Re:This is circumventable.

Not to mention, there is nothing to prevent you from using a browser that supplies false information.

Unfortunately the Universe may grow old and die before you manage to compute a valid data packet without having access to the private key (which is burned into the chip and can't be read back, ever.)

For example:

1. Computer says: "My public key is 0x1234...89"
2. Remote site says: "Ok, dude, mine is 0x9876...01. Do XOR on this data that I encrypted just for you: ... ciphertext follows."
3. Computer says: "Ok, I decoded the ciphertext using my private key. The data is this, encrypted for you: ... ciphertext follows."
4. Remote site says: "Ok, you got it right, I reckon you do have access to that private key, and so your public key is also yours, and so you are who you say you are. I trust your data now."

If you break this sequence then the authentication fails.

I don't mind

Not? No. Simply because I'll download a patch/update to my browser which will - given the query for the ID - return either any code I entered (for example the id of some damned politician, hehehe) or a new one every hour.

And these morons will waste a huge amount of time. And, as usual, all they'll catch are other morons.

Anonymity with the TPM

While the bulk of the article makes it sound like TPMs will destroy all privacy (which isn't true), here's an important sentence:

Users will still control how much of their identity they wish to reveal -- in fact, for complex technical reasons, the TPM will actually also make truly anonymous connections possible, if that's what both ends of the conversation agree on.

Yes, TPMs can be used to remove privacy, but only with your consent. They can also, with the consent of the parties involved, give you much stronger privacy than is possible without a TPM.

I've talked to people in many of the major companies that are behind the Trusted Computing Group, and they're well aware of this issue. I spent a bit of time talking to the head of the trusted computing project at AMD, and he understands very well the lessons of the Intel CPU serial number fiasco of a few years ago, and the TCG has include technological features to protect user's privacy. Is this because they are great privacy guardians? No, I don't think so -- I don't think this guy is going to be the next president of EPIC or anything. I think it's a strictly business decision: They see that people won't accept the technology unless it protects privacy (just see the tone of the article this Slashdot story is about), so they've put in measures in order to make it more acceptable.

Some technical details: The current TPM specification is version 1.2. Prior to 1.2 there was an "officially supported" pricacy mechanism based around the idea of a PrivacyCA -- basically, you got pseudonymous credentials (a certificate) from a PrivacyCA, and used that in transactions. You could get a different certificate for each person you interacted with, so transactions weren't linkable, or you could even get multiple certificates to use with the same person so that you had different identities to use with them. The problem being that you still had to show your unique ID to the PrivacyCA, so you had to trust them not to link all your transactions together. However, version 1.2 introduced a stronger notion into the standard: direct anonymous attestation. With this, your anonymity is protected with cryptographic means, without the need to trust any other party. Of course, when you authenticate, the site you are interacting with has to agree that it will accept such anonymous and untracable identities. Some sites will probably allow that (discussion boards, etc.) and some probably won't (banks, credit cards, etc.). But that's a market decision, not a technological one. You have the power, with the technology, of having even stronger anonymity than you have today, so the market needs to insist on merchants using that. As was seen with the serial number in the Pentium III, enough people care about privacy to make industry sit up an pay attention.

How this could be a good thing.

Imagine if you could create as many identities for yourself as you wanted. You could go so far as to create a separate identity for every single site you visit, even. Imagine that you can program your web browser to invent dummy identities automatically in order to accomplish this. There; privacy issues solved.

The nice part about this system is that you'd never have to enter a password or a credit card number again, and no one would be able to steal your identity without stealing your physical computer.

... and look how well that turned out!

Intel quickly made the serial number disabled by default, and few web sites ever started using it. If people *really* have issues with such a system, they won't use it, and they won't buy products that require it. If they don't buy it, companies won't sell it. If it's an issue, media attention can get people to vote with their dollars and keep it from being a standard. The only thing that worries me, though, is the Microsoft comment. If somehow Windows requires this system, it'll become a de facto standard. But MS has tread pretty carefully so far - e.g., restrictions on how often you can activate a copy of Windows are pretty lenient. But we'll see if that holds. Even still, though, MS won't want to make consumers buy new PC's or accept something they don't like in order to buy the new Windows for fear of losing business. So it comes down to whether people really oppose this or not.