-- On 2 Aug 2002 at 14:36, Trei, Peter wrote:
OK, It's 2004, I'm an IT Admin, and I've converted my corporation over to TCPA/Palladium machines. My Head of Marketing has his TCPA/Palladium desktop's hard drive jam-packed with corporate confidential documents he's been actively working on - sales projections, product plans, pricing schemes. They're all sealed files.
His machine crashes - the MB burns out. He wants to recover the data.
HoM: I want to recover my data. Me: OK: We'll pull the HD, and get the data off it. HoM: Good - mount it as a secondary HD in my new system. Me: That isn't going to work now we have TCPA and Palladium. HoM: Well, what do you have to do? Me: Oh, it's simple. We encrypt the data under Intel's TPME key, and send it off to Intel. Since Intel has all the keys, they can unseal all your data to plaintext, copy it, and then re-seal it for your new system. It only costs $1/Mb. HoM: Let me get this straight - the only way to recover this data is to let Intel have a copy, AND pay them for it? Me: Um... Yes. I think MS might be involved as well, if your were using Word. HoM: You are *so* dead.
Obviously it is insane to use keys that you do not yourself control to keep secrets. That, however, is not the purpose of TCPA/Palladium as envisaged by Microsoft. The intent is that Peter can sell Paul software or content that will only run on ONE computer for ONE time period.. When the motherboard emits blue smoke, or the time runs out, whichever happens first, Paul has to buy new software. If prices are lowered accordingly, this might be acceptable. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 4Mqj1ia6DD0EYpdLMEd7al35eTYefnvhcFesBlMz 25n9obdfhvRVxEkY4YtWw7BuFxrOKgTtfI1Dp8uAA
The principal philosophical issue here is that the ownership of the "computer" terminates. So far most people owned their computers in the sense that they could make transistors inside do anything they liked, provided they had some easily-obtainable knowledge. Content/software vendors had their stuff executed on enemy's territory with all imaginable consequences. TCPA-ed computer is actually a single-seat movie theatre teleported to your house. It's operated and owned by one or more corporations - what you pay when "buying" the computer are up-front installation costs of the franchise. Remember that theatres are enclosed spaces with entertainment with doors that you need a ticket to go through. Sheeple will get more entertainment. The only problem seems to be that small independent producers will not get their stuff played there. Tough shit. If small producers want to fuck with all world's theatres, they need to get better. Parasiting is over. There is no natural right to program other's machines. When I go to the theatre I don't want unwashed activists flashing their stuff on the screen. At least not dumb ones. Ah, the computers. Well, those that want computers will have them. They may not be as cheap as today and there will not be as many of them, but I think that all people *I* deal with will have them, so I don't really care. ===== end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com
On Sat, 3 Aug 2002, Morlock Elloi wrote:
Ah, the computers. Well, those that want computers will have them. They may not be as cheap as today and there will not be as many of them, but I think that all people *I* deal with will have them, so I don't really care.
Sure, people will have computers. However, if we merrily slide down the slippery slope the authentication might move into the network layer eventually. You will be on the network, yet you will be not on the network. One might be able to fab computers at small scale (FPGA, organic transistors via inkjet, whatever), but it will be tough to create global networks using just overlapping patches of wireless. Especially, if rogue wireless will be rather illegal.
participants (3)
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Eugen Leitl -
James A. Donald -
Morlock Elloi