"Trusted" Computing
,----[ Quote ]
| Do you imagine that any US Linux distributor would say no to the
| US government if they were requested (politely, of course) to add
| a back-door to the binary Linux images shipped as part of their
| products ? Who amongst us actually uses the source code so helpfully
| given to us on the extra CDs to compile our own version ? With
| Windows of course there are already so many back-doors known and
| unknown that the US government might not have even bothered to
| ask Microsoft, they may have just found their own, ready to
| exploit at will. What about Intel or AMD and the microcode on
| the processor itself ?
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http://tuxdeluxe.org/node/164
Related:
James Allchin
'---[ Quote ]
| In relation to the issue of sharing technical API and protocol
| information used throughout Microsoft products, which the
| states were seeking, Allchin alleged that releasing this
| information would increase the security risk to consumers.
|
| "It is no exaggeration to say that the national security is
| also implicated by the efforts of hackers to break into
| computing networks. Computers, including many running Windows
| operating systems, are used throughout the United States
| Department of Defense and by the armed forces of the United
| States in Afghanistan and elsewhere."
|
| In May 2004, Judge J. Frederick Motz ordered Microsoft to
| investigate Burst.com's claim that, in 2000, Allchin ordered
| Microsoft employees to destroy email after 30 days and not to
| archive their email, suggesting that this deletion policy
| might be an effort to eliminate material that would later be
| damaging in court. This case was settled out of court in March
| 2005, with Microsoft agreeing to pay Burst.com $60 million
| for nonexclusive rights to Burst.com's media player software.
`----
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Allchin
Who do You Trust with Your Computing?
,----[ Quote ]
| Helios was speaking out against trusted computing (TC) and Digital
| Rights Management (DRM) that is humming softly at the hardware and
| software level inside YOUR computer right now. That's right! Chances
| are, it's already made it on a chip on your and my motherboards...but
| it's there. Soon, if what can happen does happen...we'll all be so
| very unhappy at being told how we can and can't operate our PCs.
|
| Some of you may be asking, "what the heck are you talking about?
| They can't tell me how I can use my computer inside my own home".
| Unfortunately, that statement is false. DRM chips are already on a
| majority of motherboards and even built into some processors (viiv
| anyone?). All it takes is a flip of the switch and you'll do what
| Microsoft or any other company that wants to manage your rights
| for you tells you to do whether you like it or not. That is, ofc
| ourse, unless you use Linux :) Linux has always been about
| choice...we choose to compute in ways WE want to...not ways
| that are defined for us.
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http://linux-blog.org/index.php?/archives/176-Who-do-You-Trust-with-Your-Computing.html
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