Nexus: An Operating System for Trustworthy Computing
cs.cornell.edu
cs.cornell.edu
These academics, like many others, have sold their souls. Books on "trusted computing", "remote attestation", and similar freedom-destroying garbage have become disconcertingly plentiful at my university library.
We must fight it to the last bullet. Because once we lose the general-purpose computer, we aren't ever getting it back:
"The "you don't own your computer" paradigm is not merely wrong. It is violently, disastrously wrong, and the consequences of this error are likely to be felt for generations to come, unless steps are taken to prevent it."
Ethics for Programmers: Primum non Nocere (http://glyf.livejournal.com/46589.html)
"Who should your computer take its orders from? Most people think their computers should obey them, not obey someone else. With a plan they call “trusted computing”, large media corporations (including the movie companies and record companies), together with computer companies such as Microsoft and Intel, are planning to make your computer obey them instead of you."
Can You Trust Your Computer? (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html)
Buy, maintain, and cherish true general-purpose computers, my friends, for I fear that within a decade, they will be contraband items.
There are no startup opportunities for "trustworthy" computing, because there simply aren't any customers for "you do it the way we tell you, or else" products.
The direct answer to your question is, because some antivirus systems want to work with a central server (or, in Oliver Friedrich's Immunet case, with a P2P network of collaborators). But that's besides the point.
The thing to get upset about --- if you think this is worth getting upset about --- are "evil programs" running on the trusted platform. An evil program forbids you to copy data from media inserted into the computer.
The very essence of remote attestation is that a digital policeman (a presumably tamper-resistant piece of hardware which cannot be seperated from your computer) pronounces that certain streams of bits which come out of your machine are "blessed," while others are not. All kinds of people (content oligopolies, politicians, etc.) are unhappy that your modem is currently incapable of ratting out your misbehavior. Remote attestation is nothing else than an attempt to correct this "problem."
The very word "trusted" in the phrase "trusted computing" is a bold-faced lie. I would like to think that you have been duped into actually believing it, rather than spreading it knowingly.
The implication is that I, as a user, ought to trust a "trusted" computer more than the one I presently own. The reality is quite different. The only thing a "trusted" computer is trusted (by its makers) to do is to betray me - to disobey my orders to display or flip certain bits, in the interest of serving a hostile third party.
If this were about genuine security, there would be no talk of hardware. The hardware component is there to "secure" the system against me, the owner. It may have other advertised purposes, but that is its only essential one. The only one, in fact, which could not be achieved simply by writing properly secure software (start with eschewing Microsoft and anything it has ever touched.)
Any technology which seeks to enter my home encased in tamper-resistant epoxy does not have my best interests in mind. No exceptions.
I also think you're a troll, but I'm waiting for IE7 to install on a VM, so I don't mind batting you around a bit.
You think wrongly.
The user is permitted to control some, but not all of a TPM's contents.
I have read the publicly available specs of a number of TPM modules. Each contains a portion designed to resist readback and/or modification by the owner. Almost every spec touts the chip's cutting edge tamper-resistance properties. I challenge you to show me a counter-example.
The comical part of this argument is that in the TPM-free world, we have basically no privacy, because our computers are all controlled by people with enough time and energy to find secret flaws in the software we run. But hey, everyone's gotta have something to get all crazy about. God bless you. With me, it's how crappy xkcd and BSG are.
They're tamper proof in that they are designed to physically resist decapping and electron microscopy.
Don't dance around this issue, it is a key one. The phrase "tamper-resistant" has a rather specific meaning among chip vendors.
I have read a substantial body of Treacherous Computing-related literature (I don't keep up with the field very diligently, I admit - my stomach is only so strong.) There is unending talk of encrypted electrical buses and display links. Would you like to tell me with a straight face that these ingenious measures are meant to protect against virii or intrusion by script kiddies?
> in the TPM-free world, we have basically no privacy
Speak for yourself. I suffer no intrusions into my privacy which a TPM would prevent.
> our computers are all controlled by people with enough time and energy to find secret flaws in the software we run
Even if this were true, it is much preferable to a world where computers are controlled by those with access (legitimate or otherwise) to a TPM master key. (Rest assured there shall always be a master key, regardless of what the spec sheets say.)
I'll take traditional malware chaos over media cartel totalitarianism any day of the week.
To be sure, your OS can make it harder for DVD players to do that. Linux can take advantage of a TPM, but won't provide a protected video path. But that's an argument for Linux over OS X, not an argument against the TPM.
The antivirus vendors, champions of "Enumerating Badness", (http://tinyurl.com/8a2uk) would like us to think so.
Yet it is pure nonsense. It is much the same as saying that if a house is safe against burglars, it must also be "safe" against the owner engaging in officially forbidden sex acts in the master bedroom.
Since you didn't make an argument that refered to any technical detail of the antivirus/antimalware problem on general purpose operating systems, I'm content simply to point out that your sources are both comical and non authoritative. Also: let me strongly encourage you to run your views on computer security past Ranum, and report back his response. Warn me first so I can get a get a cold glass of milk to blast out my nose when you do.
Please make an actual argument, as opposed to trumpeting my supposed ignorance of everything in general terms.
Does your front door lock work by checking a video feed against a database of known burglar mug shots and clicking shut in the event of a match, or by staying locked sans a key?
Security through enumerated badness (as opposed to actual robustness, as in the above example) is Bad. The phrase has a meaning. If you believe that it means something other than what I believe it to mean, please say so.
So far, all of your arguments have been thinly veiled appeals to authority. Please take a moment to think of one which is not. I would like to believe that you have genuine thoughts, and would like to hear them.
If we ever want to escape from the current computer security morass, we're probably going to need something like trusted computing, if not necessarily exactly what TCG is proposing.
Limiting malware to an officially approved subset is a curious definition of "escape." And any program which causes my computer to deliberately act against my orders is malware, whether it was created by a script kiddie or a multi-billion-dollar media cartel.
You are quite correct in implying that a TPM would prevent a repetition of the Sony scandal. It would do this simply by preventing discovery.
Of course, it is also possible that Sony in particular would not be given access to the magic key. They may have to pay a steep tribute to, say, Microsoft, to slip the payload through.
Whether currently sold TPM chipsets are capable of such feats is immaterial. The camel's nose is in the tent.
Know thy enemy.
There is nothing about even the hardware-enforced security on premium Intel chipsets that forces you to use them.
There is a limit to how secure you can make a modern PC without hardware support for security, and any hardware support that protects your machine can also be opted in to protect the interests of someone else.
Frankly, I'd rather have my computer attesting to Apple than to some teenager's botnet.
Try running a company which sells modded game consoles and see how long you last. That's exactly what Treacherous Computing advocates have in mind for PCs.
> There is a limit to how secure you can make a modern PC without hardware support for security
You have bought into the Big Lie of treacherous computing. None of it has anything to do with protecting you against what most people would recognize as malware. That would require writing robust and non-porous operating systems - an option which simply isn't on the table. The "malware" you will be protected against is, for instance: DVD rippers; P2P clients; TOR clients; and, eventually, compilers (for with an unrestricted compiler one might create any of the above.)
> any hardware support that protects your machine can also be opted in to protect the interests of someone else
Can I lock you in your house using the lock presently installed in your front door? How about the one in your car?
Every security technology has a clearly delineated "outside" and "inside." The "outside" is where the keyed side of the lock faces. Another "outside" of this kind is the inside of a cage. Treacherous computing leaves users on the outside, no doubt about it. And the "keys" are in the hands of people who would like to dictate which bits in the machines you bought and paid for you are allowed to view or flip.
I ought to point out that I believe that evil will triumph. We shall almost certainly lose general-purpose computing - in the none-too-distant future - in no small part thanks to people like yourself.
We are finally seeing commercial PC/laptop vendors selling preloaded Linux and OpenSolaris. One has the freedom to remove the preloaded OS or even the BIOS, and install the programs of one's choice.
So, how do you see this trend being reversed through "trusted computing" to the point that we will all be forced to run Windows and Apple (effectively without the right to use root powers) and proprietary media players from Sony?
I thought chrome was just a browser and then now chrome is also a OS.
d'oh.