On Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:36:05 -0500, jayjwa wrote:

> TPM is bad all the way around. I can secure my own system, thank you.
> Some people will be fooled into thinking their computer is being
> protected FOR them, but in reality, it is FROM them. TPM is against
> privacy, against anonymity, and against democracy, a way of making users
> put on their own handcuffs to which someone else keeps the key.

It all depends on who controls the TPM. If you are the TPM's
owner (meaning that it's you the one who has the owner's authorization
data) then you are in control.

On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:01:22 -0800, Joseph Ashwood wrote:

> "Gordon Burditt" <gordonb.duhn7@burditt.org> wrote in message
> news:ApydnROtPc-1k7_UnZ2dnUVZ_rLinZ2d@posted.internetamerica...
>
>> What does the owner's authorization get you?
>>
>> Assume for the moment that the TPM is being used by an application
>> to store the keys for some copyrighted content. The application
>> wants to enforce a limited number of plays, and an expiration date.
>> It also wants to make sure that the OS hasn't been patched to log
>> traffic to the sound and video hardware. As I understand it, this
>> is one of the things the TPM is supposed to be able to do (hide
>> data from the owner against his interests in favor of the interests
>> of the copyright holder).
>
> In that case the owner of the computer is not the owner of the TPM. This has
> been the core of the debate around the devices like TPM. Without rehashing
> the entire debate, there are valid points on both sides. At the core TPM is
> just a tool, very much like a hammer, a hammer it can either build a house,
> or take a life, I'll leave the rest to the reader, but we don't ban hammers,
> but we also actually own them.
> Joe

Damn good explanation, Joe.
--
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJVydzNJrno

gordonb.to50c@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) wrote in
news:GbqdnePe5IJJ6r_UnZ2dnUVZ_obinZ2d@posted.inter netamerica:

> You can usually use someone else's hammer without too much worry that
> it will only hit nails belonging to the owner of the hammer.

That one's a keeper - I shall quote it frequently (without attribution, of
course :-)

Ross Anderson, Professor of Security Engineering at Cambridge University’s
Computer Laboratory, has been quite vocal on the real implications of TPM
(under whichever of many names that have been used to disguise its
malevolence). Essentially, he says, "[TPM] transfers the ultimate control
of your PC from you to whoever wrote the software it happens to be
running."

While somewhat dated, Anderson's Trusted Computing [TPM] FAQ still
addresses many of the key points.

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

Regards,

rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) writes:
> Gordon Burditt <gordonb.b9fjc@burditt.org> wrote:
> +---------------
> | >> You can usually use someone else's hammer without too much worry that
> | >> it will only hit nails belonging to the owner of the hammer.
> | >
> | >That one's a keeper - I shall quote it frequently (without attribution, of
> | >course :-)
> |
> | Note that it's not entirely a joke. There's a real issue that
> | missiles may refuse to target friends of the manufacturer's country,
> | even if the buyer of said missiles doesn't know that.
> +---------------
>
> Indeed. This was depicted fictionally in the (excellent, IMHO!) movie
> "The Fifth Element", when one of the Mangalore warriors attempts to
> cheat Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg (an arms manufacturer) by shooting
> him with one of his own "smart" guns... which does nothing.

IIRC, it's the Fourth Directive from Robocop(1987), which predates
that Besson abomination by a decade.

Phil
--
I tried the Vista speech recognition by running the tutorial. I was
amazed, it was awesome, recognised every word I said. Then I said the
wrong word ... and it typed the right one. It was actually just
detecting a sound and printing the expected word! -- pbhj on /.