On Tue, 6 Aug 2002, Seth David Schoen wrote: < ... />
This is not to say that trusted computing systems don't have interesting advantages (and disadvantages) for privacy.
-- Seth David Schoen <schoen@loyalty.org> | Reading is a right, not a feature!
I think that giving root of your machine to an entity you do not trust is not reasonable, even if it is claimed that the control so given is a partial and compartmentalized control. It is even more unreasonable in case the entity has repeatedly declared 1. their deep and abiding distrust of you 2. their minimal demand to have root on all the world's general purpose computers forever 3. their intent to obtain 2 by government mandate. If we wish to improve security and privacy, then let us improve ssh and GNUPG so that they can actually be installed and used by more people. It is better to think about and to work on our own systems than to waste time and money and effort on discovering the endless "flaws" and "inadequacies" and "dangers" and the endless amusing Panglossian "advantages" of TCPA/Palladium. TCPA/Palladium has several faces, but one of the most important faces is "deception, division, and diversion". It is not a good idea to work on improving the designs of our openly declared enemies. Nor is it good to spend much time examining tiny irrelevant details of TCPA/Palladium. Every such discussion I have seen starts by making the crudest errors in formal logic. Here is one important such error: "See this tiny part of the system does not, in and of itself in isolation, 'give root' to the Englobulators, hence TCPA/Palladium is partway OK.". oo--JS.