Pretty good summary in NTK <http://www.ntk.net>

Lot of talk this week about Microsoft's new bluesky project: In the softest of previews in Newsweek, Steven Levy banged on about PALLADIUM, alluding to the sacred (but as it turns out, a bit horse-blind) guardian of Troy. British readers will know the term better as the fancy West End theatre that spawned Beatlemania and now shows overpriced performances of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". Figures: either way, you're not getting in, and we're not sure you'd want to. In a (cryptographically hardened) nutshell: Microsoft's Palladium will be an area of your future PC, fenced off and unreadable except for trusted software. "Untrusted" apps won't have have access. And how does code gain Palladium's trust? By having you, the PC owner, sanction its entry? Oh no. *You're* untrustworthy - you might sign in your dodgy CD and DVD ripping programs. No, this area will only be for software sanctioned by Microsoft and their paying friends - Hollywood-approved media players, for instance. No backstage pass for you at this Palladium, even though you own the damn theatre. As Ross Anderson points out in his FAQ, "Palladium" is just Microsoft's fancy name for the old "Trusted PC" initiative. And the only reason why they need to trust the PC is: they don't trust its owner. Remember that when the hard sell begins: the only person Palladium protects your computer from - is you. http://www.msnbc.com/news/770511.asp - Levy ensuring that RMS *stays* "the Last Hacker" http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/tcpa-faq.html - Ross Anderson, Cassandra to this tale http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,274309,00.asp - hold on: this project is headed by someone called Juarez? http://www.alt2600.com/faqs/ - is that some kind of joke?

-- -- Marshall Marshall Clow Idio Software <mailto:marshall@idio.com> My name is Boba Fett. You killed my father, prepare to die!