There may well be a very clear divide coming between how Windows PCs and Apple Macs treat their users reports John Markoff for The Ledger.
Your next personal computer may well come with its own digital chaperon (if it’s a Windows machine, not an Apple Macintosh, that is).
As PC makers prepare a new generation of desktop computers with built-in hardware controls to protect data and digital entertainment from illegal copying, the industry is also promising to keep information safe from tampering and help users avoid troublemakers in cyberspace.
Silicon Valley led by Microsoft and Intel calls the concept “trusted computing.” The companies, joined by I.B.M., Hewlett-Packard, Advanced Micro Devices and others, argue that the new systems are necessary to protect entertainment content as well as safeguard corporate data and personal privacy against identity theft. Without such built-in controls, they say, Hollywood and the music business will refuse to make their products available online.
But by entwining PC software and data in an impenetrable layer of encryption, critics argue, the companies may be destroying the very openness that has been at the heart of computing in the three decades since the PC was introduced. There are simpler, less intrusive ways to prevent illicit file swapping over the Internet, they say, than girding software in so much armor that new types of programs from upstart companies may have trouble working with it.
“This will kill innovation,” said Ross Anderson, a computer security expert at Cambridge University, who is organizing opposition to the industry plans. “They’re doing this to increase customer lock-in. It will mean that fewer software businesses succeed and those who do succeed will be large companies.”
Critics complain that the mainstream computer hardware and software designers, under pressure from Hollywood, are turning the PC into something that would resemble video game players, cable TV and cellphones, with manufacturers or service providers in control of which applications run on their systems.
In the new encrypted computing world, even the most mundane word-processing document or e-mail message would be accompanied by a software security guard controlling who can view it, where it can be sent and even when it will be erased. Also, the secure PC is specifically intended to protect digital movies and music from online piracy.
But while beneficial to the entertainment industry and corporate operations, the new systems will not necessarily be immune to computer viruses or unwanted spam e-mail messages, the two most severe irritants to [Windows] PC users.
“Microsoft’s use of the term `trusted computing’ is a great piece of doublespeak,” said Dan Sokol, a computer engineer based in San Jose, Calif., who was one of the original members of the Homebrew Computing Club, the pioneering PC group. “What they’re really saying is, `We don’t trust you, the user of this computer.'”
The first computers based on the hardware design have just begun to appear from I.B.M. and Hewlett-Packard for corporate customers. Consumer-oriented computer makers like Dell Computer and Gateway are being urged to go along but have not yet endorsed the new approach.
How consumers will react to the new technology is a thorny question for PC makers because the new industry design stands in striking contrast to the approach being taken by Apple Computer.
Apple has developed the popular iTunes digital music store relying exclusively on software to restrict the sharing of digital songs over the Internet. Apple’s system, which has drawn the support of the recording industry, permits consumers to share songs freely among up to three Macintoshes and an iPod portable music player.
Apple only has a tiny share of the personal computer market. But it continues to tweak the industry leaders with its innovations; last week, Apple’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, demonstrated a feature of the company’s newest version of its OS X operating system called FileVault, designed to protect a user’s documents without the need for modifying computer hardware.
Mr. Jobs argued that elaborate hardware-software schemes like the one being pursued by the Trusted Computing Group will not achieve their purpose.
“It’s a falsehood,” he said. “You can prove to yourself that that hardware doesn’t make it more secure.”
Full article here.
this further proves that bill gates is indeed the antichrist
“this further proves that bill gates is indeed the antichrist”
Don’t forget Michael Dell, Steve Ballmer, Carly Fiorina, and the guy runs Gateway (who can ever remember that guy’s name).
I keep telling PC geeks that they’ll no longer be able to download and store MP3s and illegal bootleg videos once microsuck releases their next major OS, but the idiots just don’t want to believe me.
Oh well, to each there own.
In their attempt to copy everything cool from Apple, Microsoft is having a very difficult time trying to duplicate Mac OS’s innate high level of security.
If you want a highly secure system, you don’t have to wait for “Longhorn” in 2005 that will probably require all new hardware… just buy a Mac today.
Need proof? Go to any Mac with OS X 10.2 (or greater) and open the “Disk Copy” ap (in Applications / Utilities /) and make a New Blank Image. Easily configure it as you wish and select Encryption “AES-128”. A 5 year old can do this in about 1 minute! This will create a virtual disk image to hold all of your files and folders and encrypt them with 128-bit encryption ON THE FLY! So, if you drop something in there and the power goes out, it is automatically encrypted.
Apple’s decryption is so fast, you can watch a full screen QuickTime video directly from an encrypted folder without any pauses or distortion. It does NOT need to be decrypted into an unsecured folder/file first. (It will be decades before Microsoft can do this so smoothly and effortlessly!!!)
EVERYTHING, all data, not just file formats, in this folder will be fully encrypted including images, text, movies…ANYTHING you can place into a computer folder can be easily encrypted this way.
You can send this encrypted file to anyone anywhere, and only if they posses the password can it be viewed. It cannot be cracked, decoded, or the data ripped from within. Personally, for a password I prefer using quotes describing a complex function of a rare animal in its original Cyrillic, Hebrew, or Arabic alphabet… or other such obscure text. (Yes, my Mac handles the right-to-left passwords of Hebrew and Arabic just fine!)
This level of encryption is higher than most banks use. It is HERE and It is NOW in ALL MACS!!!
You don’t need ANY special hardware (other than your Mac) and you surely don’t have to wait until 2005 for an unknown, unresolved, buggy, unstable system that has “Big Brother” stamped all over it.
Why people will wait 2 years for an already severely outdated system is beyond my comprehension.
Donnie:
I’m not being rude (I hope), but surely the thrust of the article isn’t that Apple is great because it lets its users do illegal stuff (you know, like stealing…), but rather that, in treating us as honest adults, it opens the platform up to be used as a resource by developers etc.? (hence the “who will trust their users more” tagline, rather than “hey, whose going to keep handing out jemmy’s and big bags with ‘swag’ written on them”?). Arguing that Apple is better because it lets you get away with stealing other people’s creative material kind of plays into the hands of those big businesses that want to shut down freedom of access etc. (and, as a consequence, freedom of development).
Just a thought.
Brother Mugga
excellent post Ary, excellent post
Aryugaetu
The features for encryption/decryption you’ve described have existed in Windows since NT Advanced Server (and I’m talking since my DEC Alpha– so I’ve got Apple beat on both 64bit hardware and 64bitOS since I’m talking 1994; please don’t launch into the semantics argument either because my Alpha cost as much as a G5.) As for security, my laptop of choice goes one better and has all its encryption keys stored on a separate hardware subsystem making long-distance attacks extremely hard (whereas just encrypting makes it merely harder.)
BTW, I do have Macs (2 G4 dualies) and will be receiving a free G5 dualie from Cupertino later this week (sometimes it’s “good to know the king”), but they are all used/will be used only as software test systems until they prove themselves as development-grade platforms.
You deleted my comment?? That’s wrong. But I see you gave credit where credit is due,’bout time. But damn you guys still post alot of the original article.
Go to site http://www.jmusheneaux.com/
http://www.jmusheneaux.com/
TO SUM IT UP-How the DOS/WINDOWS became the standard we have today–
1975–Gates always knew the Operating System was the key. And those masses, that was where the money was at. (See 1982,1983 &1993;)
1980–He leased the DOS OS (which he bought for a few bucks) to giant IBM to get a standard started.
1982–The clone makers, cloned the IBM (by using reverse engineering) giving us a cheap machine, insuring the standard.
1982–Gates leased the DOS OS to the Clone Makers and became wealthy.
1982–The Clone Makers sold the Cheap Clones to primarily business, who did not use the OS. (they mostly only used one program) 1982-Business drives the whole thing. You used an IBM clone at work with Microsoft Windows and you buy a clone for the home with Microsoft Windows. The cycle continues. Mac? Mac who?
1982–IBM did not know was happening. Just 500,000 IBM’s by IBM were sold in its lifetime. But 500,000 IBM Clones were sold in three months.
1983–And the worker keep buying the Cheap Clone for the home, they also did not use the OS. (they still use don’t the Windows OS today)
1983–APPLE who came up with the first GUI (1983 Lisa $10,000) and later the Mac ($2495). Apple did not know what was happening either.
1985–Gates eventually put Windows on top of DOS (it is still debatable if Windows is a true GUI, even today with Windows XP)
1980’s & 1990’s– Lawsuit after Lawsuit followed. XEROX sued Apple, Apple sued Microsoft and on and on it went. Microsoft is still be sued today.
1985–Apple lays off 1200 people. Loss $40 million.
1987–IBM comes out with an OS (much better than Windows) Nice try, but it was too late.
1993–The internet (and Netscape browser) was the final blow to Apple (all those millions of computer illiterate’s buying those cheap clones. Why not? That is all they needed, for their business and the home. The Bill Gates (masses) finally got invovled with computing.
it tells me i don’t have http://download-graphics.b0x.com/