Microsoft Seeks Addition of Security Technology to PCs (72364)

[Matt.Carpenter@alticor.com]

Ok, so let's have it.  I've been hearing a lot of speculation about
Paladium, especially since it is being lead by Microsoft.

1) Would Paladium be capable of inhibiting the use of technologies such as
CD -> MP3 ripping, DVD -> VCD ripping, video-editing, audio-editing, etc??
(as proposed earlier this year as a solution for RIAA and MPAA)?

2) Would these "API's" be made open and available for competing OSes?

Being headed up by Microsoft sure does put an evil slant on the project,
even if it COULD be a good thing.  The biggest problems with an embedded
encryption chip are twofold IMHO:
*)  What happens to older hardware?  MB's without the chip, would they
still be able to use tomorrow's software,a nd if so, how many more
tomorrows would they be good for?

*)  Will it do any good?  If we stick encrpytion technology on a chip and
embed it in the systemboard for speed, obviously there is a "Decryption"
portion to that.  Being that Microsoft has proven it's inability to
securely do ANYTHING, who's to say that we won't create a system that
cracks security FASTER than before?

My view has been that we are in the middle of a quasi-balanced system about
as stable as inflation:  We make things secure, Processor's get faster, we
make things "more secure" (ie, more processing to encrypt, mor processing
to crack), Processors/Memory get faster, more secure, faster, more
secure.... Unfortunately, along with CPU's and other codec processors,
networks need to be faster to handle the larger payload for encrypted
traffic as well as the connection setup, etc...

Computers are probably about as fast as they will get, provided we keep
encrypting our information.  Soon, we'll be encrypting almost ALL of our
information, which will make this phenominon more visible.

I daresay that any chip which will allow us to encrypt/decrypt data faster
will almost certainly be found to allow us to crack encryption more rapidly
as well.  This is yet another ploy by Microsoft to appear to be doing
something about the problem...  unfortunately, they ARE the problem.  They
should be focusing on their own insecure code and protocols instead of
playing the political games like Paladium.  Of more interest is whether
they will attempt to get the governmentally proposed code into these chips
so that we can't play DVD's or rip our CD's anymore.