Cryptographers Say Palladium Sucks!

[Phantasm66]

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.

 

[Phantasm66]

I am reading this here, and I must say I find the whole thing pretty frightening.

Palladium tech will be built into almost every part of the PC, right into its core. CPUs have dedicated registers for it. And new instructions for it. Your motherboard's components perform security audited communications with the Palladium chip on your motherboard. Its built right into the kernel in Windows. Its part of everything. Its an unbreakable matrix that runs through everything, binding it together in such a fashion that if you try to defeat Palladium, the PC itself simply cannot logically function.

Computers being the nature that they are, there WILL be a crack. And it should appear every quickly too, I would imagine.

But rest assured, we are facing the end of an era. Its soon going to become A LOT harder to trade in pirated media, especially software at any rate. And the potential exists for a form of "information policing", controlled directly by Microsoft.

Do I hear the DOJ stirring right now.....!!? The means of ALL PC DATA COMMUNICATION at the mercy of Microsoft's new Franken-tech.... You think it will be allowed to be legal?

 

[running]

There’s hope because:

1) There are countries (read: not in the West) where we will find cracked computers. Maybe even government-financed, which could jump-start their stalling economy.

2) There are lots and lots of very capable computers already, also in other countries (read: not in the West), and these computers would become more valuable overnight.

Either way, there will always be countries that will not subject themselves to totalitarian control, even if they temporarily do so (read: right here in the West).

 

[Phantasm66]

Some of the reading that I have been doing suggests that this is primarily a move on microsoft's part to get more revenue from software from china.

maybe as a result, china will develop a competing computer platform, similar to a palladium-less PC or a Mac.

 

[Unregistered]

Actually Microsoft is burying themselves now.

 

[Rick]

We should all boycott Palladium-laced computers and stick with what we've got! hehe. But we all know that isn't going to happen...

 

[Phantasm66]

That's all fine to say, Rick, but try saying that when you need a Palladium enabled PC to play Quake XI or something.....!

 

[Unregistered]

Originally posted by Phantasm66
That's all fine to say, Rick, but try saying that when you need a Palladium enabled PC to play Quake XI or something.....!

There are always alternatives. and btw, gamers are not up to 10% of computer users.