The Trusted Computing Group (TCG) is an alliance of Microsoft, Intel, IBM, HP and AMD which promotes a standard for a `more secure' PC. Their definition of `security' is controversial; machines built according to their specification will be more trustworthy from the point of view of software vendors and the content industry, but will be less trustworthy from the point of view of their owners. In effect, the TCG specification will transfer the ultimate control of your PC from you to whoever wrote the software it happens to be running.
This is every major corporation's wet dream. Somehow I'm not suprised that it exists.
Words simply fail me at the awe-inspiring BigBrother-ness of this concept.
At the extreme, Trusted Computing could stop you from running untrusted applications, but I doubt that'll come to pass. The worst-case I could see is that untrusted applications will be run in a sandbox. So far, Trusted Computing has mostly been used as secure storage for encryption keys.
When they do, I'm switching to Linux and hacking into the matrix, where I will patch in my pirate signal to the evil, alternate interwebs.
Trusted computing may be a corporate wet dream, but if it works, wouldn't it make most machines much more secure? I'd happily WORK on a Trusted Computer when I was doing my job, but when I come home and turn on my own PC, I'd just run untrusted computers. If the networks go down and all of the routers and servers refuse to let me use an untrusted computer, that might be bad. I can't really blame a company for not wanting me to steal things or develop viruses. If they want to copy my work or something, that's bad. But I don't see that as being any of the results of this.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that "Trusted Computing" technologies have very real, legitimate applications; specifically, computers which house or manipulate sensitive data such that it is very important that the computer has not been compromised. As such, demonizing the concept with "omfg big brother RAEG AGAINST THE MACHINE"-esque remarks is rather a bit narrow-minded.
I seriously doubt that there will be (at least within our lifetimes; feel free to masturbate furiously to your favorite far-flung cyberpunk fantasy world) a world in which nothing works without 'Trusted Computing'; there will always be markets for hardware which is free from such restrictions, and as such there will be vendors to supply that hardware.
Granted, there may be a time when a lot of major software vendors may write their programs to be incompatible with these unrestricted platforms; but then, there's nothing which says that a developer is obligated to make his software as widely compatible or available to the public as possible. Besides, by the time this dark dystopian man-eat-dog superhardcore cyberpunk world arises, surely there'd be open-source alternatives to nearly any commercial piece of software. And even if Trusted Computing were implemented to an extreme the very next morning, there'd still be a big stock of used "untrusted" hardware in the market to buy from for some time.
Even at the most extreme (and least likely), Trusted Computing threatens to be merely a big pain in the ass, and little more. Certainly not worth getting excited over.
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Uraniun235 wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that "Trusted Computing" technologies have very real, legitimate applications; specifically, computers which house or manipulate sensitive data such that it is very important that the computer has not been compromised. As such, demonizing the concept with "omfg big brother RAEG AGAINST THE MACHINE"-esque remarks is rather a bit narrow-minded.
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Even at the most extreme (and least likely), Trusted Computing threatens to be merely a big pain in the ass, and little more. Certainly not worth getting excited over.
Some of those legitimate applications include banking, corporate records keeping, protecting proprietary data and protecting national security data. Which covers several hundred thousand machines (at least), when it's all said and done.
This is not about the The Man fucking you over and telling you how to use your computer. This is about keeping highly sensitive data that your government, the companies who's services and products you depend on, and your own financial and other records safe (if you think your financial records exist only on your computer, too you're fucking naive to be allowed out your house).
I heard about this from a friend. He IM'd me with the link I provided here, then when on and on about how it was the end of the world, 1984, etc.
I kept saying even worst-case-senario there will still be a free/open hardware-sofware movement (much along the lines Covenant mentioned), but he kept saying there was no way out and vendor lock-in and such.
And now that it has been mentioned, I can completely see that there are many legitimate uses for Trusted Computing. It still makes me wonder, though, how easy it would be to lock in the end-user, and on the flip side how easy it would be to counter.
Uraniun235 wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that "Trusted Computing" technologies have very real, legitimate applications; specifically, computers which house or manipulate sensitive data such that it is very important that the computer has not been compromised. As such, demonizing the concept with "omfg big brother RAEG AGAINST THE MACHINE"-esque remarks is rather a bit narrow-minded.
You are confusing end-user trusted computing (such as VPN and SSH) with software distributor trusted computing, ie- DRM.
Competent sysadmins can best handle their own system security, and DRM schemes don't do a goddamned thing to help in that respect. All they do is interfere with connectivity. There is ZERO benefit to the user; 100% of the benefit is to media companies who are afraid of their software being copied.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Admiral Valdemar wrote:People should take some responsibility in their lives and consider that if they screw up their security, they lose whatever they have to lose..
We're finally paying for the inept masses of people who can't do anything but e-mail from Outlook and surf via IE and fall for Nigeria phishing scams.
And you're expecting a software and hardware combination to finally solve a social engineering problem that has existed for as long as humanity has existed?
The biggest flaw with DRM schemes is that they turn the basic precepts of cryptography on their ears. In the DRM encryption scheme, the intended recipient of the information and the attacker are the same.
Damien Sorresso
"Ever see what them computa bitchez do to numbas? It ain't natural. Numbas ain't supposed to be code, they supposed to quantify shit."
- The Onion
