Bram wrote:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/770511.asp?cp1=1
Of course, the TCPA has nothing to do with security or privacy, since those are OS-level things. All it can really do is ensure you're running a particular OS.
It's amazing the TCPA isn't raising all kinds of red flags at the justice department already - it's the most flagrant attempt to stifle competition I've ever seen.
From Levy's article: "Palladium [Microsoft's TCPA-based technology - LG] is being offered to
[Bram is correct, stifling competition is one of the many features TCPA will enable. In more ways than one. And for more players than just Microsoft]. Coincidentally, Steven Levy's article that Bram is citing also helps answer Mr. Anonymous's question with which he challenged Ross and myself earlier today. First, however, I must apologize to the reader for my earlier, now incorrect, statement that TCPA member companies would deny that DRM is an objective of the TCPA. I had been unaware that, as evidenced by the publication of the Newsweek article, the public phase of the TCPA effort had already begun. What a bizarre coincidence for this phase, after all those years the TCPA effort and its predecessors have been underway, (the design, and in fact the entire architecture, has morphed substantially over the years) to be kicked off the very day of my post. [Tim: do you recall when we had the discussion about the upcoming "encrypted op code chips" at a Cypherpunks meeting in a Stanford lecture hall? Was that 1995 or 1996? It cannot have been later; I know that I was still working for DigiCash at the time because I remember giving a talk on compact endorsement signatures at the same meeting]. the studios and record labels as a way to distribute music and film with "digital rights management" (DRM). This could allow users to exercise "fair use" (like making personal copies of a CD) and publishers could at least start releasing works that cut a compromise between free and locked-down. But a more interesting possibility is that Palladium could help introduce DRM to business and just plain people. "It's a funny thing," says Bill Gates. "We came at this thinking about music, but then we realized that e-mail and documents were far more interesting domains."' Another paragraph of the Newsweek article has this to say: "In 1997, Peter Biddle, a Microsoft manager who used to run a paintball arena, was the company's liason to the DVD-drive world. Naturally, he began to think of ways to address Hollywood's fear of digital copying. He hooked up with [...] researchers Paul England and John Manferdelli, and they set up a skunkworks operation, stealing time from their regular jobs to pursue a preposterously ambitious idea-creating virtual vaults in Windows to protect information. They quickly understood that the problems of intellectual property were linked to problems of security and privacy. They also realized that if they wanted to foil hackers and intruders, at least part of the system had to be embedded in silicon, not software." Well, now that Bill Gates himself is being quoted stating that DRM was a driver behind the technology the TCPA is enabling (Microsoft is one of the companies that founded the TCPA and should be in a position to know), does Mr. Anonymous consider this sufficient "evidence that the TCPA is being designed for the support of digital rights management (DRM) applications"? Or does Anonymous continue to believe Ross and Lucky are making this stuff up out of whole cloth? To answer Anonymous's question as to whether the "the TCPA [is] really, as [Ross and Lucky] claim, a secretive effort to get DRM hardware into consumer PCs?", I am not sure I would exactly call this fact a secret at this point. (Though by no means are all cards already on the table). DRM is a significant objective of some of the TCPA's member companies, which includes Microsoft. There are of course other objectives. Some of which Ross published, some which I mentioned, some which Steven Levy has published (though he largely fell for the designated bait and missed the numerous hooks), some which Bram has realized, and some which have yet to be talked about. Some desirable, some questionable, and a lot of them downright scary. Sincerely, --Lucky Green --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo@wasabisystems.com