On Fri, 2 Aug 2002, Albion Zeglin wrote:
Quoting Jay Sulzberger <jays@panix.com>:
b. Why must TCPA/Palladium be a dongle on the whole computer? Why not a separate dongle? Because, of course, the Englobulators proceed here on principle. The principle being that only the Englobulators have a right to own printing presses/music studios/movie and animation studios.
A separate dongle can't verify the integrity of the processor. The important part is that the processor's state (including initial RAM load) is verifiable.
But if you just want to show movies "securely" you need not use my general purpose and today untrammeled computer. You can either show movies in movie houses, or use some slightly trammeled version of a "cable ready TV", or the variant product mentioned earlier, the "donglified monitor/speaker". There is no need for the MPAA to "verify the integrity of the processor" if all the MPAA wants to do is sell me tickets to movies.
Without this the OS could be virtualized and modified after the integrity check.
What does the enforcement of the laws against copyright infringement have to do with my general purpose and today untrammeled computer? There is no relation of the sort you, and all the mass media, implicitly assume here. Indeed no OS at all should be involved in the "secure showing of movies". It is like using the standard C libraries to write "secure code"!
Just imagine running Windows Media Player on a virtual machine, trapping the calls to the audio card and thus being able to copy content perfectly. A dongle can't prevent this.
My donglified monitor/speakers combination, of course, offers greater assurance. Here is part of my argument: the explanation of my proposed protocols can actually be understood.
Eventually for TCPA to be effective against hardware hacks such as memory probes, not only will the harddrive storage be sealed, but RAM must be sealed as well. Once TCPA moves onprocessor, I expect encrypted RAM will be next.
Albion.
The dilemma "Either give over all the computers in the world to the Englobulators, or never get to see another big budget Hollywood movie." is a false dichotomy. oo--JS.