Steven Levy buys Microsoft's bullshit hook, line, and sinker

[Lucky Green]

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.

[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].

>From Levy's article:
"Palladium [Microsoft's TCPA-based technology - LG] is being offered to
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


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