__/ [ Jerry McBride ] on Friday 08 December 2006 00:52 \__
> nessuno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>> Quote:
>> --------------
>> Microsoft has an industrial-strength answer to the problem of figuring
>> out whether a remote client is authorized to request keys. Trusted
>> Computing. For years now, most PC manufacturers have been shipping
>> machines with an inactive "Trusted Computing Module" on the
>> motherboard. These modules can be used to sign the BIOS, bootloader,
>> operating system, and application, producing an "attestation" about the
>> precise configuration of a PC. If your PC doesn't pass muster --
>> because you're running a third-party document reader, or a modified OS,
>> or an OS inside a virtual machine -- then you don't get any keys.
>>
>> What this means is that Apple can make Pages, Google can make its
>> Doc-converter, and OpenOffice.org can make its interoperable products,
>> but none of these will be able to get the keys necessary to read
>> "protected" documents unless they're on the white-list of "trusted"
>> clients.
>>
>> What's more, adding crypto to the mix takes us into another realm: the
>> realm of copyright law. The same copyright law that prohibits competing
>> head on with Apple also prohibits competing head-on with IRM. EDI and
>> other middleware companies built their fortunes on writing software
>> that unlocks your data from Vendor A's format so you can use it with
>> Vendor B's product. But once Vendor A's data-store is encrypted, you
>> run afoul of the law merely by figuring out how to read it without
>> permission.
>>
>> Vista is the first operating system to begin to use the features of the
>> Trusted Computing Module, though for now, Microsoft is eschewing the
>> use of "Remote Attestation" where software is verified over a network
>> (they've made no promise about doing this forever, of course). No
>> company has spent more time and money on preventing its competitors
>> from reading its documents: remember the fight at the Massachusetts
>> state-house over the proposal to require that government documents be
>> kept in open file-formats?
>>
>> The deck is stacked against open file formats. Risk-averse enterprises
>> love the idea of revocable documents -- HIPPA compliance, for example,
>> is made infinitely simpler if any health record that leaks out of the
>> hospital can simply have its "read privileges" revoked. This won't keep
>> patients safer. As Don Marti says, "Bill Gates pitch[ed] DRM using the
>> example of an HIV test result, which is literally one bit of
>> information. If you hired someone untrustworthy enough to leak that but
>> unable to remember it, you don't need DRM, you need to fix your hiring
>> process." But it will go a long way towards satisfying picky compliance
>> officers. Look for mail-server advertising that implies that unless you
>> buy some fancy product that auto-converts plain Office documents to
>> "revocable" ones, you're being negligent.
>> ----------------
>> end quote
>>
>>
>
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196602058&pgno=2
>
> No big deal here... Once it get released into/onto the market place, it'll
> be cracked like everything else that microsoft sells...
Not only has this been declared illegal (can get you jailed), but BillG went
to foreign countries and lobbied to illegalise it there too (e.g. France and
Australia). They are building walls around their fortress. Same with IP.
When a company is above the law, then it can write the law.
Best wishes,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Prevalence does not imply ideali$M
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