ExtremeTech features a series of articles regarding Microsoft’s new security chip, codenamed Palladium. It seems that Intel, AMD and even National are part of this plan, while it is not clear if alternative operating systems will be given specs for this technology. Even if these OSes will choose to not use the chip, Microsoft is quite likely to advertise the “feature” as a Good Thing (TM) for the users (which may or may not be true), making the other OSes to sound unsecure.
Microsoft’s Palladium: Security, but for Whom?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Hello. Until now, I must admit, i like a lot some products from Microsoft. I hate win98 (it’s not an operating system in my opinion) but nt/2000 it’s all I want (I also have debian linux on my hard drive, but I don’t spend more than 10% of the time in it).
But this new Palladium thing? Will I be able to accept this? For the moment, I don’t know exactly what it is, all I see is another level of control over MY computer. Hmm. I just hope it will be another Pentium III serial number vaporware, if not, I’ll search for sure for an alternative, after more than 15 years with microsoft…
Because if they begin building DRM into the hardware,
people will start looking for “free” hardware. I’ll
wager $20 that we will see palladium-cracks for xp and non
palladium hardware flowing out of China in no time.
Perhaps Palladium is the mistake Microsoft needs to make so that other operating systems can get a break on the desktop.
I agree with naish. Perhaps this will be the thing that sends just enough computer savvy folks out of Windows, deflating the balloon of MS. Where would I go? Not linux. I’ll go to the closest thing out there to BeOS.
If you read more about it you will find that there are alot of companies supporting Palladium, Intel, AMD, are both working with it to a point.
And i was under the impression that there was going to be a new OS for Palliadium, Longhorn or whatever it is going to be called.
i am not a microsoft fan at all. as i write this on my g4 mac with os x in mozilla 1.0, i have to stop and think for a second before bashing microsoft.
sure, microsoft has been known for practicing some ‘dirty’ business strategies, releasing low-quality and useless applications (microsoft bob), and hiding things on your hard drives. unfortunately, i cannot use their past record to attack them on an issue where solid information has yet to materialize.
in turn, i will wait to bash microsoft. and yes, it is hard to do so.
IMHO, they’re making the mistake believing that because their customers seem to put up with anything they infringe on them, their customers will also *trust* them.
They don’t and that’s where this is going to fail. People will turn the whole feature off (provided that’s possible… heh) at the first pr0n site they have problems accessing.
People will also (perhaps for the first time) get the feeling that MS is “watching” them or trying to do so. Just for once, the vast majority of people who don’t care about security anyway are going to rear their blessed heads and giving MS the same treatment as they’ve been given, which is ignore and disable if easily possible.
And if it ever gets past the draft phase (rather conceivable, because the “(c) protectors” are going to love it) it *will* be attempted to use it against alternative OS’es particularly Linux (I might get lucky for using BSD but it would probably only last for so long anyway). I have no doubt about that. At the very least it would become officially marked “insecure” (read: not certified) in some situations. Bye bye client.
But like I said earlier, I don’t believe they’re going to pull this off, if only because the PC hardware upgrading cycle is becoming longer especially for home users.
There was an interesting, albeit a little extreme, editorial about this on the Register today:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25891.html
or at least, it will fly as far as the integrated ATAPI DRM did. It doesn’t take long for manufacturers to realize that consumers HATE things like this and actually don’t want corporate control of their lives.
Hopefully, yes, this will be the mistake that Microsoft commits to end thier dominance. I don’t like people or even software monitoring everything that I do. Yeah, Palladium might not monitor your usage now. But, everything is leading in that direction. Its just a matter of time. Can’t wait for the day when I install my friends game on my computer and get a knock at the front door telling me I am under arrest for stealing software. Anyways, back to the issue of the mistake. People have to right articles in newspapers, time magazine, and all other publications criticizing microsoft and showing people what really is happening.
How will this effect Macintosh computers? With the new success of OSX, this Palladium could be what Mac needs to become the new dominant player. Software developers will go where the user goes. So if more and more people use Macs or Linux, then they will start producing more software for Mac and Linux and less for Windows.
I was trying to read between the lines on this.
Intel doesn’t want to repeat the mistake of the P3 serial # again, but none of this technology can work with out such a number. I think that MS, Intel & AMD have figured this out that if you throw enough complexity into this widget most people will not see it coming 2nd time around. This time around they will fight to keep the # by presenting it as differently as possible.
The EMBASSY chip is essentially going to protect the user from spies, & hackers who might want to tamper with their KB etc by recording info about the HW into the chip, this also means the HD serial no as well. That means once the Mobo chip has been activated, the board will fight off any attempt to surrepticiously change the system HW by any attacker (or user). In other words, instead of MS logging a few HW changes & getting the flack, it will push the flack down to the Mobo. Users will have an interesting time every time they want to change a harmless component esp if the device could be used to attack the machine.
But I change the HW all the time, boot to different HDs (diff serial nos), change KBs & mice often.
You would think we are sounding paranoid, but it is this initiative that has paranoia written all over it. Did you see the line about encrypting the video signal in case a pc tries to trick the enduser into typying something they otherwise wouldn’t. Encrypying video signals is no mean feat, this has stupidity written all over it.
This is a huge price to pay for the inconvenience of cookies, spyware & spam. I for one will insist on keeping my HW components simple & above board, (just like OSs is open to scrutinize by all). The day I use HW that has Disney/NSA inside, will be when I go to live in Cuba!
PCs are being dumbed down so that only authorised (& payed up) activities can be pursued. Once this is done, web masters will finaly have the tools they need to force microcharging all page views. The day a SW engineer can freely write any app they want may be coming to an end. You need to follow what Sen Hollings is up to as well on this, very scary.
Remember the PC HW-SW industry is > 10x bigger than Hollywood crapware industry, but looks like it is gradually surrendering to special interests which seem to be 100x more influential.
W2K is definitely the end of the line for me.
This is war.
“I agree with naish. Perhaps this will be the thing that sends just enough computer savvy folks out of Windows, deflating the
balloon of MS. Where would I go? Not linux. I’ll go to the closest
thing out there to BeOS.”
That would be AmigaOS.
But the question is whether _any_ alternative OSes will be allowed
under this scheme. The main thrust is clearly to kill off “communist”
Linux, but every other non-MS OS will get caught in the cross-fire.
The plan is that all software will be written in Redmond, all music
composed by RIAA-licensed composers, etc.
A new cpu architecture perhaps? A new os? Hardware built in China where US influence is NULL!!!
I can very well imagine a kick ass 64/128-bit cpu coming out of china in the next 10 years.
Anyway the more you tighten your grip, the more users will slip through your fingers
Naish
I bought an iBook……
>>A new cpu architecture perhaps? A new os? Hardware built in >>China where US influence is NULL!!!
A new cpu won’t work unless you have access to the fabs, something as slow as a 1G athlon is still going to be difficult for anybody else to match for quite a few yrs unless you have deep pockets, but then you would just get in the same boat as Intel/Amd/Disney/MS.
I guess the x86 is finally going to be shown to be the Mickey Mouse cpu that we always knew it was!
A new OS, well that would be OBOS!!!!
Many mobos are already being assembled in PRC, but designed in Taiwan. And China will probably luv this move as much as Disney, stop all those pesky dissidents from getting proxy access to real news into PRC.
Notice how Microsoft bashers are bashing Microsoft and making conspiracy theories based on oh so little information? Sure, this security thingy sounds bad because of one thing: DRM, which means a lot of P2P junkies might end up using Linux…
Good bye MS I knew you well…
Hello Macs…What’s this apple button do???
Don’t get so paranoid. This is just a plan to lock you all in the trunk. They don’t want to read your email, or anything like that, they just want to destroy all competition in the marketplace. Yes that means AmigaOS, BeOS, Linux, whatever…
In a market with competition, prices are lower and customers demand good value. Therefore a key goal of large corporations is to eradicate competition. Once competition is properly eradicated customers will be satisfied with news like “Microsoft announced that this week’s mandatory upgrade will, for the first time, be deducted from earnings at source. Those not earning enough to pay for mandatory upgrades will be automatically loaned the appropriate amount at market rates. Upgrade features include improved RightThink correction technology and a fix for the minor compatability issue which resulted in 26 deaths yesterday”
http://www.ars-technica.com/
They point out a research paper done by Dr. Ross Anderson of the University of Cambridge.
For the people who’s gut-reaction is to stomp on the “paranoid MS bashers,” well … sometimes, just ’cause a person is paranoid doesn’t mean that someone isn’t out to get them :/
There’s also a link to a new York Times article about the whole thing.
Interesting stuff.
I just hope that the public realizes what this really is, despite all the typical Microsoft spin: Digital Rights Management. While I think it is certainly within the rights of content creators to want to protect their work, what the RIAA and MPAA have been doing over the past few years is just insane. They have gotten out of hand, and it seems like we are all powerless to stop them. Unless of course all the sheep out there realize what is going on and finally speak up about it by boycotting CDs, or certain movies, etc., to let these media moguls know that they exist FOR US and BECAUSE OF US, not the other way around.
While the Microsoft excuse/promise of increased security through Palladium is interesting, what is more interesting is that in reality all the security and virus problems that Windows users have is because of poorly written Microsoft code and of course the lack of diversity that a monopoly creates. If there was a nice distribution of operating systems (maybe 50% Windows, 20% MacOS, 15% Linux, 10% BeOS, etc.), I can bet that viruses would be much less troublesome. I know I just laugh when I get some Outlook virus email when I’m in BeOS or Linux. Just look at what happens in nature when there is no diversity…the Irish potato famine is one example.
So basically Microsoft is acting like they are solving a problem that they themselves created, but in reality they are just trying to sneak in DRM to satisfy all the completely insane media sharks. It is quite brilliant really.
The question is whether the public will fall for this trick…
This Trustworthy Computing issue is not even new,
In the old Communist Bloc countries every Photocopier, every Fax, every Typewriter, every Tape recorder & the Telephone was trusted by the gov to be used only by trustworthy comrades.
The Photocopier & Fax, items hads locks & a log book.
The Typewriter had it’s signature taken before delivery.
Tape recorders only played, few actually recorded.
Telephones were routinely monitored & bugged.
The more I read on this, the more concerned I get. And it all happens when corporate terrorists destroy many of the biggest companies from within & now MS, Intel, AMD, & Hollings want to reduce PCs to entertainment devices.
Funny thing is I don’t have a problem with DRM for tv/video devices, I just don’t want that shit to polute my computers!
On the AMD article, it suggest they will be labeling us all as copyright infringers, hackers & virus writers if we oppose this, they need to know how wrong they are on this.
when free OSes won’t be able to run on PCs anymore because they will add something into the standard PC that requires licensing fees (because of IP rights). I hope I am wrong.
Some (US) politicians are tring to make it a “safety device” that every computer must have.
I gess that this kind of thing may be illegal here at Brazil. We got the most compreensive law on Consumer Rights in the World and I think that this kind of thing hurts some topics in our legislation.
More, our laws can’t be bypassed by any kind of EULA or contract… So they’ll have some kind of way to turn this protection off, both in hardware and software…
Where are you living, really?!! China is one of the top-repressive and top-spying-on-their-citizens countries. If they ever get to build their own CPUs, MS and the RIAA can learn something from them….
In the old Communist Bloc countries every Photocopier, every Fax, every Typewriter, every Tape recorder & the Telephone was trusted by the gov to be used only by trustworthy comrades.
yes but this was not beacuse of DRM – this was so you can’t make and spread anti-communist propaganda
The point of no return has been long past. Our consumer complaints are no longer relevant.
Microsoft has won in its sociological experiment in herd animal behaviour. “controlling the herd through its *needs* is more important then providing comfort”
Microsoft will yank our ears and slap our cheeks and get us all “nauty sheep” right in the fence. The shepherd needs to do some more “milking” with his new and improved milk-o-tronic 2000.
Behe-behehe-behe
Yeah JJ has it all figured out and I agree with him. The EMBASSY and Palladium setups are nothing more then beefed up PIII s/n’s that use some goofy biometric/carding system to do the identification. Just a better mouse trap.
Personally I’m upset. If they get away with this what really stops them from going the rest of the way? I don’t know how many people realize it, but American companies such as Cisco are the ones developing and implementing the totaltarian networking systems being used in China. They have the technology to spy on everything we do and its in mass production. Wouldn’t take much to adapt them for a North American market….
>>yes but this was not beacuse of DRM – this was so you can’t >>make and spread anti-communist propaganda
Yea but did you notice the comments BG was making about security of docs & emails. Now he/users will be able to track & control who knows what & who can forward emails & docs & criminal evidence that could be used against MS. BG wants all those emails the DOJ has to dissapear, too late now, but in the future, this technology can make old docs self terminate. You can assume the erasing will be secure.
This aspect alone is disturbing, it is not just DRM, locks & keys will be showing up everywhere, non win systems could, & will be forbidden from file exchanges since they are not trustworthy.
The Soviet Union analogy is worth repeating because the Russians moved to freedom and we are rapidly moving the opposite way.
And the SU did have ARM, (Analog RM) you could only buy records by approved trusted artists.
Those who are willing to sacrifice a little freedom
for a little safety deserve neither freedom or safety
Very true.
Life is full of insecurities, we should get over that and not have governments/corporations use draconian laws to be able to “solve” that and (in the end) opress us with our own fuled fascist laws. Legisation is just as big a problem as is corperate power over our lives. In fact they go hand in hand; the Hitler regime and many of the South American dictatorships, and I daresay, US laws and its many equivalents in Western Europe, all show that.
Hey, guess what, we *are* the people! And we may feel we reprensent other people rightfully.