“The Trusted Computing Group is an industry consortium that’s trying to build more secure computers. It has a lot of members, although the board of directors consists of Microsoft, Sony, Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and two smaller companies that are voted in on a rotating basis,” Bruce Schneier writes for CNET. “The basic idea is that you build a computer from the ground up securely, with a core hardware “root of trust” called a Trusted Platform Module, or TPM. Applications can run securely on the computer, communicate with other applications and their owners securely, and be sure that no untrusted applications have access to their data or code.”
“In May, the Trusted Computing Group published a best practices document: Design, Implementation, and Usage Principles for TPM-Based Platforms . Written for users and implementers of TCG technology, the document tries to draw a line between good uses and bad uses of this technology,” Schneier writes. “it’s a good document and we should all hope that companies follow it. Compliance is totally voluntary, but it’s the kind of document that governments and large corporations can point to and demand that vendors follow. But there’s something fishy going on. Microsoft is doing its best to stall the document, and to ensure that it doesn’t apply to Vista, Microsoft’s next-generation operating system.”
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple could use Trusted Platform Module chip to keep Mac OS X off non-Macs – June 14, 2005
Could it be that they know they cannot comply?
MS seem to have difficulty building anything, not least from the ground up.
John
MW = Systems!
“MS seem to have difficulty building anything, not least from the ground up.”
Oh, come on! The steaming pile that is Windows was dumped one layer at a time for years, from the ground up.
…Bruce Schneier writes for CNET. “The basic idea is that you build a computer from the ground up securely, with a core hardware “root of trust” … Applications can run securely on the computer, communicate with other applications and their owners securely, and be sure that no untrusted applications have access to their data or code.”
So, basically, the TCG is trying to get all the Windoze box builders (w/MS) to make something that is as secure as a Mac? Another attempt to make their stuff ‘just as good as a Mac’. Lame.
Schneier [continues], “it’s a good document and we should all hope that companies follow it. Compliance is totally voluntary … but there’s something fishy going on. Microsoft is doing its best to stall the document, and to ensure that it doesn’t apply to Vista, Microsoft’s next-generation operating system.”
Another example of Microsoft wanting the ‘rules’ to apply to everyone but them. Windows Piss-ta®: Bringing calamity to your world.
They’ll have to wait for Apple to come up with something so they stea…ah, copy it. Wait, Apple already has something secure.
Does Apple comply with the guidelines of the document?
MW=”dead” which is how you might find me in the morning for questioning Apple on this board!
…not very subtle… but this is what we expect…isn’t it?
Typical
MS SHOULD BE ‘GROUND UP’—–INTO SMALL PIECES.
I think what is missing in this discussion is that TPM is DRM for everything. Want to edit the pictures you took on you digital camera in Photoshop? Sorry, it won’t let you. The camera’s manufacturer has decided that it owns your pictures. It is inherently evil. Nobody should be implementing it.
Magic Word is “bad” as in this is bad technology.
this gives MS a scapegoat: if MS is hacked in any form, it can blame the TCG, TPM, manufacturers, widow washers for not building computers from the round up securely
Microsoft leads the way with:
Trusted Platform Module
Plays For Sure
It appears that with the TCG’s efforts, all the people and compnies involved are attempting to turn typical consumer computer usage into the same sort of thing that the music industry is doing with music.
You won’t really own your computer, because for all practical intent and purpose, you will require someone’s permission to do just about anything.
This whole TPM business is just a way to get people to use computers the way “they” want to us to, and if we won’t do it their way, we won’t be able to use “our” computers at all.
“MS seem to have difficulty building anything, not least from the ground up.”
So true! Remember, they bought the original MS-DOS – they didn’t create it themselves.
My take is that this may endanger Vista adoption with some heretofore staunch M$ IT managers. More and more, security is the name of the game. If Senior Management is leaning on IT to deliver security, they will be running scared, and away from Vista. Not only corporate users, but also goverment.
MW = tell, as in “do tell me Micro$oft knows the meaning os security”
Trusted Shmusted says: “I think what is missing in this discussion is that TPM is DRM for everything. Want to edit the pictures you took on you digital camera in Photoshop? Sorry, it won’t let you. The camera’s manufacturer has decided that it owns your pictures. It is inherently evil. Nobody should be implementing it. Magic Word is “bad” as in this is bad technology.”
Exactly right. What’s been covered in other threads is that Intel’s TPM is reported to be integral to Apple’s new Macintels. Some have been saying it’s simply to prevent use of the OS on generic x86 machines. However, Apple has nothing to lose by making OSX available ‘in the wild’, and potentially a lot to gain in more exposure of the OS. So why use TPM?
Because of VIDEO. Apple wants to recreate what they did with iPod/iTMS in video, and they can’t unless they go along with these same companies demands that all computers be locked down tight. That’s the real reason for abandoning PPC. Even though IBM is a part of this TPM consortium, Intel’s got the technology in the pipeline, and has the backing of these companies as the preferred way of doing it. If Apple wanted video content, they were probably told in no uncertain terms to get on board, or forget it.
leodavinci says: “It appears that … all the people and compnies involved are attempting to turn typical consumer computer usage into the same sort of thing that the music industry is doing with music. You won’t really own your computer, because for all practical … purpose, you will require someone’s permission to do just about anything. This whole TPM business is just a way to get people to use computers the way “they” want to us to, and if we won’t do it their way, we won’t be able to use “our” computers at all.”
You better believe it. And this is why many people are waking up and becoming more concerned about the Macintel transition.
Apple has the reputation as champion of consumer rights because of iTMS, but there’s two reasons why this may not last. First, Apple snuck in under the radar in negotiating the present DRM scheme (as well as pricing) with these media companies. And as the current reporting of how these companies are now rebelling strongly on pricing indicates, they are not above pushing outrageous conditions in a misguided attempt at squeezing the Golden Goose to death. Apple has leverage against them in audio (massive success), but no such thing exists yet in video, and these companies aren’t going to be caught napping a second time. They’ll insist on doing things more ‘their’ way, not Apple’s.
Second, if Jobs was convinced – easily or not – to give up a perfectly good computing platform, one that the entire company had been built on, AND has a lot more inherent future-proof technology regarding multimedia performance, as well as overall computing horsepower, than anything Intel’s been working on (meaning the PPC based Power5, Cell, Xenon, etc …), then exactly how much pull can Apple actually have anymore? Throwing over to Intel when even a better x86 alternative is available (AMD) makes it – again – obvious that the real reason for doing so was TPM. And you don’t throw over better CPU alternatives for TPM unless you plan on making it an INTEGRAL part of your consumer strategy in the future.
That means, in short, a less private, lower performing (compared to the possible alternatives), and higher priced (for multimedia of all kinds) computing future. For ALL of us.
Microsoft not going with this version of a TPM agreement for Vista probably means noting more than they are once again going to leverage their market power to introduce their own version of the same technology – no big surprise there. But the real worry in my mind is that Apple won’t really be a ‘freedom lover’s’ alternative to the MS monopoly anymore. It will be just as prostrate to the interests of conglomerates, only with currently ‘approved’ technology.
Ironically, I just came across this article on CNet … it reports Microsofts announced efforts on TPM, and boy is it a doozy
Hollywood, Microsoft align on new Windows
http://news.com.com/Hollywood,+Microsoft+align+on+new+Windows/2100-1025_3-5844393.html?tag=nefd.top
Pertinent quotes:
“As Microsoft readies the next version of … Windows … called Vista, the software giant is building in unprecedented levels of safeguards against video piracy. For the first time, the … operating system will wall off some audio and video processes almost completely from users and outside programmers, in hopes of making them harder for hackers to reach. The company is establishing digital security checks that could even shut off a computer’s connections to some monitors or televisions if antipiracy procedures … aren’t in place. In short, the company is bending over backward … to make sure Hollywood studios are happy with the next version of Windows … Microsoft believes it has to make nice with the entertainment industry if the PC is going to form the center of new digital home networks, which could allow such new features as streaming high-definition movies around the home.”
Isn’t that last statement exactly what we all expect that Apple wants to do? And if a behemoth like M$ can feel threatened enough, to the point of cow-towing to these sorts of measures just to grab onto the ‘Next Big Thing’, can anyone really doubt now that Apple can hold – or is holding any longer – on to some sort of moral high ground?
Dropping PPC was the first clue … Apple’s going to bend over and grab their heels at least as deeply as M$. Macintel is a sell-out for that very purpose. Read the rest of this article closely and you can see it clearly; Unless some sort of massive popular backlash or divine intervention occurs, we are on the brink of a very different, consumer unfriendly, computing world come 2006-07.
“”
The only reason I can think of for all this Machiavellian maneuvering is that the TCG board of directors is making sure that the document doesn’t apply to Vista. If the document isn’t published until after Vista is released, then obviously it doesn’t apply.
Sounds to me like it’s still going to be full of “vulnerabilities.” Build in all them software controls that decide what you “can” and “cannot” do, and you’re building a lot of controls that’ll delight virus writers.