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Sat, 22 Feb 2003
TCPA: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid (if you use a PC)
Here's yet another reason to be glad we don't use a Microsoft OS. The Trusted Computing Platform Alliance, headed by Microsoft & Intel, provides both hardware and software standards that will allow only licensed operating systems to run on a machine. This means unlicensed operating systems such as Linx can no longer even be installed on a TCPA-compliant system.
In a not so distant future (2004)
the TCPA hardware will take charge, when you turn on your PC. This onboard chipset checks the integrity
of your boot ROM, executes it and measures the state of the machine. After that, it checks the
booting process of your operating system. If the chipset detects a TCPA-compliant OS it will
load and execute it. Furthermore, the chipset maintains a list of your hardware (means: soundcard, videocard etc.)
and checks them for TCPA-compliance, too. So, let's assume, Fritz (remember? the name of the chipset) detects,
that all the stuff in your PC is on the TCPA-approved list, it will be finally happy and boot your system to the
login screen. Be careful: If there are significant hardware changes, you will have to go online and re-certify
your machine (like XP does).
After the booting process, Fritz hands over the control to the
software part of TCPA: Palladium.
This piece of Operating-System-Integrated software is going to determine what you are allowed to do with "your" PC.
Let's say: What you are not allowed to do with. Before you can start an application or open a document,
it checks wether it thinks you are allowed to or not. No, that's no joke. It really does. Via the Internet, Palladium
keeps an up-to-date list of software (the blacklist), you can't start. One can imagine what's on that list.
e.g: every kind of cracking / hacking software, illegal copies and so on. Sounds like Microsoft installed a DRM
via the backdoor? And that's not even all it is. Every PC with a Fritz chip has an unique ID. Only
the software you bought for THIS ID (means: your PC) would be able to run. There's not even the chance
to sell software you don't use anymore. Palladium / Fritz won't allow it to run on ANY other machine.
There's also a blacklist for documents. Imagine: You're not able to play one of your thousand MP3's anymore,
because they don't have a valid certificate, even though the original CD sits in your rack. Not one of your Movies.
You also gave Microsoft the permission to delete all the files, once it has found them. You don't believe me?
Read the last EULA of your Media Player.
For more information, visit http://www.notcpa.org/.
Downtime
I apologize for the downtime earlier today. I was having some trouble with my web hosting provider, which I was able to resolve quickly. It seems that they somehow had the wrong billing & contact information for me (even though I'm paid in advance until at least May).