http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/30/te...ECU.html?8hpib

i just finished reading the story located above and i wonder if anyone finds this news to be portentous in a real sense,or can we feel confident that we will be able to acquire hardware which will allow us
to do what we want to do.

I agree - this ”Trusted Computing” polava is of some concern.

I don’t know much about this “Trusted Computing” initiative – but it seems to have the potential to be misused by some companies/corporations to over-restrictively enforce DRM to the extent that it might start to put people off using the IBM PC platform in the future.

As I understand it - in the Hardware realm we have the TCPA - Trusted Computing Platform Alliance ( a couple of hundred companies working towards a common standard for the next generation of PC’s ) and in the software realm we have Microsoft with its Palladium ( renamed Next Generation Secure Computing Base) initiative – a “new” software architecture that will complement the TCPA’s Hardware specification.

To me at least, it seems inevitable that the TCPA in particular Intel and Amd will have produced the necessary modifications to the processor, memory and chipsets (Intel) etc etc within the next 5 -10 years – it also seems enevitable that Microsoft will have delivered its Palladium “software” in one form or another to a future version of Windows within the next 5 – 10 years. The question of course here is – What effect will the delivery of these two initiatives have on Linux ? It might be unpopular to say it, but Linux *might have to incorporate its own “version” of Palldium – namely software to complement and facilitate the new TCPA x86 Personal Computer if it still wants to run *effectively on the new x86 machines.

Relating to DRM – why do Music cd’s in Britain cost so much in the shops? The average music cd in the average british music shop “HMV” on average costs you around £13.99 that’s roughly 22 US dollars – I’ve heard that they cost around 9 pence to make – that’s less than 1% of what they retail for – of course, somebody is going to mention all the bits in between from the cutting of the cd to the shop – I can’t help feeling though that for too long the music industry has hidden behind this “costs in the middle” bit to get away with charging us massive amounts in the shops relative to what they should be charging us (IMO about 30-40% of what they currently charge us in the shops). Then the music industry moans about people getting their music for free on the internet etc, piracy etc ect and hence comes their enthusiasm for DRM – whats so foolish about this is that most people probably don’t mind paying a little for their new Oasis album ( I DON’T MIND) – but they don’t want to pay 15 quid!!!!!!!!!! – I would be quite happy to pay 4 or 5 quid for an album from a shop – but not 14 or 15 quid!

DRM might prove to be too restrictive for many – LOL - that’s foolish for the content providers because a significant number of people would just stop buying the content and further, *if there’s a viable alternative computing platform then some won’t even be using PC’s – hmmm………..

you're right on about the cost of albums, whether it be in the uk, or here in the us. but, then, it seems to be that most everything is priced not on a value scale, but a how much the traffic will bear scale. in fact, as far as i can see,most of the value has been wrung out of things by way of cost cutting schemes before marketing. i don't believe i'm being cranky about this either; just consider books, for example. a somewhat long time ago, when i was a kid, we would get these magnificent books for christmas-large fairy tale books with lots of stories and well bound with lots of beautiful illustrations, or historical or geographic volumes loaded with facts and pictures and art books of 500+ pages heavily illustrated. we were on the low end of the economic scale, so i know these were not beyond the pale of the working man's income and yet they were full of what i call value.
today, no problem seeing books over $100; the problem is more likely to be books with little content and cheesy illustrations wrapped up in a shoddy binding.
books are but one instance- houses, cars, shoes, on and on, even food have suffered the depredations of increasingly more greedy providers and their brown-nosing accomplices, the accountants, who have discovered a goldmine in the model of pointing out that
"if we cut just .x cents per unit here(thirteen fewer sesame seeds per bun), then we can post a savings of XXX$$$". doing this trick over and over leaves you with a limp wad of something fashioned nobody really knows or cares where or when being presented as the next best burger on the planet. your choice; take it or do without, because long ago the guy who was serving food individually selected and prepared for for value to the customer has left the business because he is not part of the corporate system which now
has a deathgrip on the market.
cd's and albums and the music business have done the same thing.
in the days of vinyl, i actually bought albums for $2.99(new releases) on which every song was worth copying-you had no problem playing the album, not just a cut or two. you bought an album for what was on it, not solely as a reaction to major pre-release hype which seems to be the industry game plan now.
i know that not everyone chooses their music because of industry presentation, but i believe that is the industry model and i,m hoping it will strangle them and we can get on to a more advanced thing where artists can produce and distribute work on their own and make a decent living doing so.
which brings me back to the trusted computing bit-i hope people will see this for what it is, and that is , an attempt to control the means of disseminating information of all types among people worldwide. oddly, this has , to me something in common with the bible not being available in the vernacular until the appearance of the printing press-even then, letting people get their religion on their own was frowned upon..
i'll shut up now, as this sort of stuff tends to take me all over the lot and the soundbite is already way too long to fit anywhere but the trashbin.

What might be called Windows 2005 (currently codenamed Longhorn) has already got the first steps of Palladium at its core. If I remember from the 'preview' I read the other day (I can't be bothered to find the article - it's buried deep in a pile of magazines ) Microsoft have the intention of including the software side of DRM/TCPA early so that new versions of software (read: Office) can interact with it prior to the hardware side of DRM/TCPA taking effect, by which time people will already be used to it

However, my views are a little brighter Windows does a lot of things differently with the hardware - it takes the information given to it from the BIOS regarding harddrive size as gospel (unless a 3rd party piece of software is loaded first). Linux, however, doesn't have to. Indeed, I have had a 15Gb harddrive in a P-60 before now and it worked fine. Thinking along these lines, perhaps the Fritz Chip and Windows will be so intertwined that it will only effect Windows, thus leaving Linux free!

Here's me hoping!

With the amount of money some larger companies have invested in Linux and Unix, I don't see this palladium b.s. as anything more than MS trying to look 'respectable' after turning out a decade of horrible software.
If they did succeed with it, 2 other fairly large companies would be out of business. Norton and Symantec.

Hi Thymox

>>> Thinking along these lines, perhaps the Fritz Chip and Windows will be so intertwined that it will only effect Windows, thus leaving Linux free! <<<<

Linux will of course be "free", initially - the question then is "How will a "free" Linux be able to interact *succesfully* with a restricted/trusted TCPA x86 computer - Open source software frequently gets modified, then the modified version get released - suppose an original piece of open source software is certified to run on a TCPA computer hence becoming recognised as a "trusted" piece of software - with the frequent modificatons, each new version will have to be re-certified as a "trusted" piece of software in order to run in palladium - this is going to cause Linux and the GPL problems

If Linux is on the banned list, we could order parts from eBay or from foriegn nations who have enough sense not to jump on the bandwagon. I hope I can find some.

I hope your right Quantum - lets hope Ebay's computers aren't enjoying some INTEL/AMD "Trust" in 5 years - the problem is that because of E-Buisness/medical confidentiality and a host of other things governments Worldwide go on about , governments are likely to put pressure on the harwdare manufacturers *Wherever they are* to build in hardware encryption features - possibly in the future it won't matter whichever Processor/motherboard manufacturer you go to, they'll all have hardware encryption built in - if this situation arises as I suspect is eneviatble then I worry that everything else will slip in through the back door ie DRM, unhealthy Certification etc ect ect

SkyLine, what I meant was that *hopefully* the hardware component of the setup (Fritz chip, or whatever it's gonna be called) will only come into play when a TCPA OS is used - such as Windows. If you don't use the TCPA OS, then the chip has nothing to do, so does nothing.

If we think of it like a car immobiliser, perhaps my point will be put across a little better. The _basic_ immobiliser does its job fantasically by interrupting anything from happening at the ignition end of things. However, if you bypass this and hotwire the car, the immobiliser is pointless, but still present. Only if the immobiliser is put deeper into the system (so that hotwiring still wouldn't work) does it become truly effective. I was saying that we should _hope_ that the TCPA rubbish puts the Fritz chip closer to the ignition so that we, running Linux, can hotwire it... if you can follow those broken analogies, you're doing better than me

Hi Thymox

>>>> SkyLine, what I meant was that *hopefully* the hardware component of the setup (Fritz chip, or whatever it's gonna be called) will only come into play when a TCPA OS is used - such as Windows. If you don't use the TCPA OS, then the chip has nothing to do, so does nothing <<<<<

Your right - the harwdare component won't come into play without the software component in the OS - The problem then is - how is Joe Bloggs running Linux without a trusted component to the Linux OS going to be able to interact with Bill on his x86 TCPA box with a trusted software core - the answer is that he won't be able to - Bill will only want to do business/interact with computers that he can be sure are running a trusted software component - Bill will not want to do e-business/share files/media content with an OS that hasn't got a trusted software component - after all - how can Bill be sure that the content he sells you won't go any further. The obvious answer for Linux is rather than become inceasingly marginalised in Bill's new trusted world were Bill only does business with Trusted OS'S/Trusted harwdare Linux will have to incorporate software which will enable it to run Trusted/certified applications/content.

I doubt that Linux users will somehow be able to circumvent or avoid the situation regarding the new TCPA x86 computers that WILL come - I wish we could - I like to have a couple of copies of my favourite OASIS album, to be able to share it with my friends, to feel reasnobly free on the internet etc and free on my own computer.

My opinion would simply be that if Linux wants to continue to grow effectively and run on x86 PC's effectively, it will have to embrace "Trusted Computing" in one way or another - It will get increasingly marginalised if it doesn't.

Most likely, Linux will use trusted xomputing only to work with other PCs that need it. Torvalds will hopefully have Linux ignore it. I do see severe security problems at both hardware and OS levels since Microsoft is in charge of both. Govs may have to use older computers with Linux.

Ok, I guess what I was trying to say is:
Lets hope that Uncle Bill and Uncle Sam are both so absorbed in the idea that the whole world runs Windows that they make a system that specifically targets Windows machines. Other OSs, because they're not Windows, will not have problems. If the OS doesn't ask the chip to authorise access, then authorisation cannot be failed. Please tell me you understand what I am rabbiting on about?

Unfortunately, I imagine that there are some nasty people in the world that would spot this potential loophole and make sure it is plugged.

http://p2pnet.net/ez/index.php/news/...view/full/300/

Interesting link

Darn, buttersoft beat me to it. The original FAQ can be found here.