Trustworthy Computing

[Yup]

Microsoft and the many companies allied with it in
it's "Trustworthy
Computing" initiative aim to end the freedom to use your
own computer
the way you want to. What it essentially does is take
control of your
computer away from you and give it to software developers.

It is being sold as "enhanced security", but it is
actually a digital
rights management system built from the ground up,
including hardware.
You will need special hardware to run this digial rights
management
system.

Microsoft plans to incorporate this system, once called
Palladium, now
called NGSCB (Next Generation Secure Computing Base), into
it's
Longhorn product.

In this system, applications will have total control over
themselves
and the data they work with. This is backed up by hardware
encryption,
so the user cannot bypass it. This has many implications:

-File copying/trading can be prevented, stopping the
copy/trade of any
file the producer doesn't want copied/traded.

-Applications can prevent the opening of files by any
program other
than the program used to create them.

-Applications can refuse to communicate with programs/data
on your own
computer that it deems "untrustworthy", by someone else's
definition.

-"Untrustworthy" computers can be prevented from
communicating with
"trustworthy" computers. Your computer will automatically
download the
definition of "trustworthy" from Microsoft periodically.
If you try to
use your computer in a way that Microsoft/it's partners
didn't intend,
your files and your computer can be prevented from
communicating with
others.

-Your computer will not obey you, it will obey Microsoft
and the
creators of it's software. Attempting to tamper with your
computer,
aka trying to make it obey you instead of software
developers, may
result in your computer being labeled as "untrustworthy",
and it's
contents quarantied from "trustworthy" computers.


This is not the future, this is not science fiction, it is
happening
now. This is not 1984, though it may soon be.

At this time, Longhorn is scheduled to debut in mid 2006.
You have
that much time to protect the freedom to use your own
computer.

End it now, and let anyone who may be developing for
Longhorn know
that they are not just writing software for a new
platform, they are
helping to end the freedom we have to use our computers as
we wish,
and computing as we know it.

- Anonymous

 

[Malke]

Microsoft and the many companies allied with it in
it's "Trustworthy
Computing"

(snip OT rant)

Did you have a technical question? Your post is off-topic for this
newsgroup. It would be more appropriate in one of the many advocacy
newsgroups.

If you don't like Windows, there are many other choices for operating
systems, but this is not the place to discuss them.

Malke

 

[kurttrail]

(snip OT rant)

Did you have a technical question? Your post is off-topic for this
newsgroup. It would be more appropriate in one of the many advocacy
newsgroups.

If you don't like Windows, there are many other choices for operating
systems, but this is not the place to discuss them.

Malke

Says you. The "Trustworthy Computing" NGSCB BS is gonna affect how
everyone uses their computer. And it's a hell of a lot more interesting
topic than all the "I'm too effin' lazy and stupid to help myself, so
can someone tell me how?" topics.

DRM is already a part of peoples' lives in XP, so it's offspring should
be an acceptable topic of disscussion. Digital Rights Management is all
about the rights of the copyright owner, and is only meant to limit the
rights of consumers to the copies of copyrighted material that they
spent their hard-earned money on. It's like the religious nuts want to
limit the rights of woman to their wombs, except now it's big business
trying to limit all our rights to retail products we buy. Trying to
limit the rights of HUMAN BEINGS is no business of any business. Wake
up! Technology's promise has been perverted by the technology
companies, and consumers are the victim of this perversion. Do you
really trust any business that tells you what you can & cannot do in
your home with your legally purchased retail products?

If you want hide your head in the sand, that's cool for you, but many
people want all this copy-protection/DRM BS to stop because corporate
entities should not be managing the rights of HUMAN BEINGS, that's why
we have governments!

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei!"

 

[David Williams]

These newsgroups are to help people with Windows XP. Not to debate your big
brother theories. If you don't want DRM, you have a choice. Don't buy
anything with DRM in it. This style of protest harms companies and makes
them rethink strategies, but by posting here all you do is make it harder
with for people to fix problems with their computers and/or Windows XP. None
of the companies that use DRM from Apple to Microsoft will look here to see
if you are complaining about it.

 

[Guest]

-----Original Message-----


Says you. The "Trustworthy Computing" NGSCB BS is gonna affect how
everyone uses their computer. And it's a hell of a lot more interesting
topic than all the "I'm too effin' lazy and stupid to help myself, so
can someone tell me how?" topics.

DRM is already a part of peoples' lives in XP, so it's offspring should
be an acceptable topic of disscussion. Digital Rights Management is all
about the rights of the copyright owner, and is only meant to limit the
rights of consumers to the copies of copyrighted material that they
spent their hard-earned money on. It's like the religious nuts want to
limit the rights of woman to their wombs, except now it's big business
trying to limit all our rights to retail products we buy. Trying to
limit the rights of HUMAN BEINGS is no business of any business. Wake
up! Technology's promise has been perverted by the technology
companies, and consumers are the victim of this perversion. Do you
really trust any business that tells you what you can & cannot do in
your home with your legally purchased retail products?

If you want hide your head in the sand, that's cool for you, but many
people want all this copy-protection/DRM BS to stop because corporate
entities should not be managing the rights of HUMAN BEINGS, that's why
we have governments!

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei!"

Yikes! Interesting to know. I guess if I don't want to
be stuck in such controlling products as Longhorn will be,
I better start checking out Linux now! I wonder how much
of this limiting DRM crap code is going to make it into
future updates of WinXP?

 

[kurttrail]

These newsgroups are to help people with Windows XP. Not to debate
your big brother theories. If you don't want DRM, you have a choice.
Don't buy anything with DRM in it. This style of protest harms
companies and makes them rethink strategies, but by posting here all
you do is make it harder with for people to fix problems with their
computers and/or Windows XP. None of the companies that use DRM from
Apple to Microsoft will look here to see if you are complaining about
it.

However, most people don't even know what DRM really is. And if all the
corporate copyright owners start using DRM, and people buy it, we'll end up
with the choice of buying DRMed copyright products, or not being able to buy
any copyrighted products at all. And since MS is a leader in DRM
technology, and this is MS's biggest newsgroup, this is the logical place to
counter the DRM claims of MS.

I doubt anyone is foolish enough to think of changing MS's point of view on
any subject, but the people that post and read here might just want to know
the other side of the DRM story from their fellow consumers, other than
hearing only hearing from the corporate copyright owners point of view.

Having technologies to control human actions should give any human being,
that cherishes their freedom, a chill running up their back. Conformists
would naturally try to defend their masters.

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei!"

 

[Steve Nielsen]

Read the title of this newsgroup. It is

microsoft.public.windowsxp.general

it's not microsoft.public.windowsxp.helpdesk

I didn't get the idea from the OP that it was expected for MS to read
the post, it was for our information and discussion. If you don't like
the topic then I suggest you stay out of the thread.

Steve

 

[kurttrail]

Yikes! Interesting to know. I guess if I don't want to
be stuck in such controlling products as Longhorn will be,
I better start checking out Linux now! I wonder how much
of this limiting DRM crap code is going to make it into
future updates of WinXP?

It's already in XP. That's one reason that I a Win98SE partition on my
computer that only runs Windows Media Player 6.4. Since since WMP7 MS has
been updating their DRM technology.

And DRM is only in its pre-natal stages, when it grows up, your computer
will tell you what you can do with the copyrighted material you've bought,
and MS will be the one that certify who's computer is "trustworthy" or not.
And that's coming with Longhorn. What will DRM technology be in a decades
time? During your grand children's lifetime?

It's time to abort this DRM fetus before it is fully unleashed on us all,
and corporations through their technology start managing HUMAN RIGHTS for us
HUMANS!

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei!"

 

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

On Fri, 2 Apr 2004 18:26:21 -0500, "kurttrail"

These are community news groups, and helping the community isn't just
about answering "how do I?" posts. It's also about highlighting
defects both in existing and planend products, discussing where we
feel the platform should be going, and so on.

The problem with news group volume isn't so much the presence of
threads one is not interested in, it's the sprawl from a single thread
in one newsgroup to the same post sent again and again every few hours
to multiple newsgroups, each time as a new thread.

That is entirely accurate. The natural advantages of digital
information are being crippled by adding an artificial scarcity.

No. Let's look at business' track record to date, given the
opportunities already afforded by the OS:
- stealth-installed software via BHOs and other designed features
- exploitation of non-designed software defects
- various forms of revenue re-direction (theft)
- vandors; trash your interests if they think thiers are infringed
- no price drop when moving from records to cheaper CDs
- failure to preserve cultural legacy

Note that the above don't go about what traditional malware does
(though we know business do leverage traditional malware in various
ways, e.g. spammers sending through wild malware's SMTP).

These are "we'll sue you if you call us malware" commercial
enterprises that stealth into systems, change their code to break
detection by clean-up utilities, sue said clean-up utilities for
infringing their rights to do business, redirect revenue from value
providers (e.g. pasting their own ads over those of a site, adding
their own paid-for hypertext links, extending the Internet to include
"domains" they have sold) and so on. These commercial malware are not
above exploiting software defects to intrude, just like "real" malware

The last two refer to one of the main industries who will leverage
DRM, and that is the music industry. As publishers and copyright
holders of music culture, they have a responsability to make this
material available to the world even after they have lost interest in
the commercial exploitation thereof (or at least, get out of the way
so others can do this).

Instead, you get the absurd situation where:
- they own the rights to material
- they "delete" this material from thier catalogs
- nevertheless, they forbid anyone else to make this available
- even the original artist is prohibited from doing so

Material has cultural value in and of itself, and is not
interchangeable in value. A brand new copy of Michael Jackson's new
album is not a substitute for the first Amon Dull album, and so on.

Pimps that lose interest in commercially exploiting the material
should be cut out of the equation. What we see here is the "land
mine" effect, because the commercial rights of the pimp are unbounded
and allowed to exceed those of the value creator. You lay mines as
part of a campaign to win a war that ends after a year or so, but the
mines are still there afterwards - and now no-one remembers where they
were laid or how to get rid of them.

Here's where Kurt and I disagree. I recognise that as a value
creator, you may wish to limit what a consumer does with your
material. To some extent, your wishes are overridden by the rights of
society, i.e. free speech means your work can indeed be partially
quoted, parodied and so on.

Nevertheless, I do believe that value providers have the right to make
availability of their material subject to contractual limitations - be
they NDA, limits on further distribution, limits on reverse
engineering or whatever. As long as these points lie within the
constitutional norms of society and are stated upfront, OK.

The problem is, we have been inclined to rubber-stamp such contracts
on the basis that we have no intention of honoring them, and that the
contracts don't matter because they are not enfoceable. This has
allowed more and more onerous End User License "Agreements" to become
the new standard, and now when content providers have the technology
to enforce these rights, we wake up and cry foul.

yes

er...

I see the technical issue slightly differently, and that is: The
system owner should have final and absolute control over every file on
the system. Anything that "protects" a file beyond the keyboard
user's ability to manage it is a bomb just waiting to go off.

We know how bloody-minded and malicious bona fide businesses can be,
but we also know that traditional malware black hats gain backdoor
access to the same power. We've seen MS source code leaked, MS
Certificate of Authority stolen, large-scale conterfeiting of products
and countless examples of industrial espionage.

We know how MS tends to blur the boundry between data (what is safe to
view) and programs (which should not be run unless a far higher level
of trust has been esstablished). Even aside from by-design
opportunities such as auto-running scripts in Office documents, HTML,
and even media files, there are the unintentended opportunities
afforded by unchecked buffers in anything that accepts input.

So consider this scenario:
- the "keys' to some corp's DRM protection get nicked
- a malware uses the corp's DRM mask to protect itself
- the corp doesn't have the keys to that particular item
- the item cannot be controlled as a result

Landmines, brother. Best idea; don't invent 'em in the first place.

------------------ ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

The rights you save may be your own