Control Issues: MS's Palladium. (Effect on Mac)?

[Pablo]

http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i24/24a02701.htm

The goal, Microsoft officials say, is to make servers and desktop PC's that people can trust. But critics say the technology, which Microsoft recently renamed "the next-generation secure computing base," could stifle the free flow of information that has come to characterize the Internet, and could give Microsoft too much control over colleges' own computerized information.

One of the major reasons I'm dumping Microsoft is because of the things (like this) they do. However, even though MS is leading the charge, this does not mean that the 'Palladium'-type restrictions (both hardware and software tools) would be limited to Wintel...correct?

 

[Eniregnat]

Correct, but one has to gage the speed, necessity, and need of such new protocols. I wouldn’t worry. I don’t think that it will really revolutionize or stifle information flow, and if it does, people will find a way around it. Peer–to-peer, “secret” networks, and covert information exchange will never be dead. Like the gopher game, smash one down, 2 pop up, and in the end, can you ever really win.

I do believe that Universities will cave in to the push, but not completely. Some servers will run the “Palladium” protocol, and others will run the legacy, and what ever the new protocols are. And if you believe that the rest of the world will adopt it, you’re a true dreamer. If you believe that people are not already working on countermeasures and bypasses to the technology, your also a dreamer.

There are other networks out there, other than the WWW, and technology pushes like this one will defiantly create new challenges (opportunities) for software, hardware, and information technology engineers and lay people.

I think that M$ may eventually put its self out of business if it keeps this kind of though up. Super security measures and annuities to use products- what a waste of time, money and energy. The wave of the future ?- just for some. Monopolies go on as long as people are generally happy, and then boom, the government gets involved, and people change to competitors products, or the company gets a clue and changes its products to fit what people want to own and use.

 

[e-coli]

Originally posted by Eniregnat
Like the gopher game...

I think it's called whack-a-mole.



the problems that could arise are from servers "authenticating" informnation exchanges. MS could lock other platforms out of their authentification scheme, making certain sites inefficient or inaccessable.

 

[nuckinfutz]

It's not just Microsoft

Palladium is Microsofts name for their OS that support the "Trusted Computer Platform Alliance" or commonly called

TCPA

This is going to be interwoven into almost all communications chips. Intel, AMD and IBM will place support in their microprocessors. Apple may not initially support TCPA but should it take off they will pretty much have to. TCPA may be a requirement someday and Apple cannot afford to be "left out in the cold"

Unfortunately TCPA does extend too much power to the Manufacturers but since no one is shipping compliant Hardware or Software the full ramifications are unknown.

 

[Eniregnat]

To make anything truly virus immune, it would have to be hardwire. Anytime you introduce soft or firm upgrades; a foreign or unwanted program or set of data could be uploaded causing “undesirable” or unforeseeable operation. This means one of two things. The nexus is a physical body that can be removed and upgraded, or it has a soft of firm memory that can be upgraded. In the first case, think about the pain of upgrading, and the cost. They could extort high sums of money and force upgrades to newer processors and motherboards. In the second case, the friendlier, it leaves it open for possible infiltration. It wouldn’t be long before somebody figures out how to bypass the security in ether case. Also, this isn’t going to stop people from translating the information to another format, with out security, and decimating it.

The article speaks of the Fair Use doctrine. I know that the local universities and colleges have a very definite protocol for this. Anything in a reader, one of those cumbersome photocopied books, is paid for and the teacher has permission to decimate it. Sometimes the school gets permission to distribute it for free, sometimes it pays per copy (estimated), and sometimes it pays a flat fee to the publishers. In any case, it is the teachers’ job to make sure that they have permission, and they can loose their jobs if they fail to get copyright permissions.


Wack-a-mole, shovel-a-gopher, spatula-a-tofu- what ever.

Side note: e-coli, I don't find you that disagreeable. The Press really has it out for you. Few people realize how necessary you are in the ww-bio-web. Electronic bacteria educating others- I like the idea. May knowledge of spread though the web like contaminated meat though a fast food chain.

 

[Jaykay]

I think this whole situation is like a double edged sword for microsoft, they could on the one hand, make a lot of money from this (as im sure is their goal rather than protecting peoples interests) they could make it a standard as they have done before weather its a good thing or not.

On the other hand they could be shooting themselves in the foot if popular opinion goes against them. I have read in several magazines (mostly pc magazines) that this is big mistake from microsoft and it could hand large chunks of their server market to unix based machines or other competitors and the home market to companies like apple (come on marklar).

Eh?

 

[Eniregnat]

This reminds me a lot of the Clipper Chip idea.

This particular thread is important. Think of the ramifications. M$ protocol would have to become public, at least part of it. Partially because of government regulations of encryption, and partially because they have competition. They don’t have to say how it works, just what the standards are. Other companies would come up with competing systems, and on every major web server there could be nexi (plural) instead of a single Nexus, or a nexus of nexi containing M$ Nexus. A whole new industry has just been formed to help protect intellectual rites in real time.

In the meantime, as M$ battles companies about anti-competitive behavior, and battles the government concerning monopolies and encryption routines, non-profit based consortiums come into being to deliver their own protocols, that may become standard. Compaq did it with computer system bios, some video and CD standards, even USB standards came through a commercial or non/not-for-profit rout similar to the one I just proposed.

 

[Eniregnat]

Not to dominate this thread, which already exceets the article in length but-

has anybody wondered if M$ will receive a per-use-provided fee.
If M$ is generating income for companies that were seemingly loosing it, would they as for a % or at least a nominal fee for each provable instance.
They could make money providing software, upgrades, hardware, and they could charge for each instance of pirating they prevent as well as each instance of “proper” information exchange.
This technology could be another financial boon. Heck, I hope my retirement fund purchase M$ stock before they move on this.

There is also a secondary Big Brother aspect, just like credit card companies keeping track of every purchase or use, this technology would better connect information viewing to individuals. IP address can be backtracked and caches read, but if this becomes machine specific it has the potential to become individual specific and at worst individual implied.
If congress can ask the FBI if a prospective Supreme Court judge has ever rented porn, imagine what this would do for those who question the purpose of information that you may or may not of requested.
In a McCarthyistic world, viewing communist papers, copyrighted and paid for, would be as damnable as tattooing a red hammer and sickle on your rear.
We are in a neo-McCarthistic era. Certain information my connect you to political movements that you really have no connection to.
View certain kinds of information, in certain quantities, and you could become a person of interest. Criminals, terrorists, and people of ill intent are everywhere. We had better watch out.