[FYI] Of TCPA, Palladium and Werner von Braun

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28016.html

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Of TCPA, Palladium and Werner von Braun  

By John Lettice  

Posted: 08/11/2002 at 17:14 GMT  

[...]  

Black helicopters Bringing up the rear, Ross Anderson seemed deeply 
pessimistic, at least about the medium term. Trusted computing will 
happen, and it will not happen initially in a way that will be to the 
advantage of the user. The backlash (Zaba's "political level") will 
however tend to correct this. Anderson insists that TCPA has an 
underlying agenda of "fixing the software theft problem, dealing with 
free software and satisfying the NSA-FBI," and while the extent to 
which this has been overtly documented is maybe debatable, there is a 
relentless logic to it.  

If vendors have the ability to use trusted computing to lock users 
into their formats and reject rival formats as 'insecure,' then at 
least some of them will. If trusted computing tends to isolate or 
lock out open source, well, some vendors might think that a handy 
side-effect. And if the security services come knocking, point out 
that there is good service your system can do in the name of national 
security, then are you going to turn them away?  

Further into helicopterland, Anderson sees TCPA as potentially 
undermining the Gutenberg inheritance. His argument goes that the 
invention of moveable type allowed the widespread dissemination of 
information, and stopped it being suppressed easily (e.g. Tyndale got 
50,000 translated New Testaments out before they caught him and 
strung him up). But if the ability to destroy all copies exists, then 
by virtue of a court order the controlling entity could be forced to 
destroy them. The Church of Scientology, for example, could compel 
the deletion of all copies of the Fishman Affidavit, which it regards 
as highly damaging, but which it has already had removed from some 
sites on the basis that it owns the copyright.  

And what if the US, in the name of national security, could pull the 
plugs on every copy of Microsoft Office in China? Or what if the 
Chinese merely thought the US had this ability? It's really, as Cox 
pointed out, down to who owns the keys, and if it's not clear that 
nobody owns the keys (which would presumably be the open source 
solution) then it doesn't really work. Who do you trust? Nobody? 
Good, let's put Nobody in charge then... ®  

[...]

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