On the eve of Microsoft's unveiling of a "secure operating mode for Windows PCs" - or whatever - a number of renowned Cryptographers have dubbed Microsoft's approach dubious.
They are talking, of course, about Palladium, a security platform that Microsoft introduced in 2002, and is expected to be implemented starting with a new version of Windows in 2004, requiring a special chip to be included on PC motherboards to provide advanced security and anti-piracy features.
We were talking about Palladium just recently, here. Overall it didn't seem to be too popular, as you find more out about Palladium, you will realize why. Read up on this thread for some information if Palladium is news to you.
"Whitfield Diffie, a distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems Laboratories, said an integrated security scheme for computers is inevitable, but the Microsoft approach is flawed because it fails to give users control over their security keys. Ronald Rivest, an MIT professor and founder of RSA Security, called for a broad public debate about the Microsoft move."
Proof as always that computer scientists and computer salesmen (i.e. Bill Gates), are cut from different cloth. Oh, and by the way, we are to call Palladium by a new name now - NGSCB, pronounced "enscub", stands for "next-generation secure computing base". Oh, well...
You can also read more here.