[linux-audio-user] Stop Palladium and TCPA Now

Seth Johnson seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org
Sun Feb 16 16:04:01 EST 2003


Hello folks, think you all probably will find this of considerable
interest.  AMI and Transmeta are planning to make chip that put content
control on your computer at the hardware level, in a way that lets
others turn things on and off on your computer, in a protected space
entirely outside your control.  Many details below:

Seth Johnson


Stop Palladium and TCPA now! 

Tell American Megatrends and Transmeta not to make chips that let others
control your computer! 

Please use the following form to tell American Megatrends and Transmeta
not to produce their AMIBIOS8 and TM5800 chips, and that you will
boycott any technology that enables TCPA and Palladium technology on
your computer: http://www.nyfairuse.org/action/palladium/ 

What's Going On: 

Last week, Intel, Microsoft, the RIAA and the MPAA announced their
intention to force Palladium and TCPA into every personal computer on
the planet. Palladium and TCPA are a different kind of DRM, worse than
even the most invasive of previously proposed "content control" systems. 

Palladium and TCPA would hardwire your home computer so that these four
entities and their partners would be able to run processes on your
computer, entirely outside your control, indeed, without your knowledge. 

Below we answer some questions about DRM, Palladium, TCPA, and the
boycott. 

New Yorkers for Fair Use 

What is DRM? 

DRM is the political, legal, contractual, economic, hardware, and
software infrastructure designed and intended by a loose alliance of
cartels and monopolies to take away your right to own and privately use
a computer. No full DRM exists in the world today, though pieces of DRM
have been successfully enacted into law and tiny bits of DRM hardware
and software have been placed in some home movie playing and recording
devices. Every single piece of DRM is meant to help attain the objective
of the anti-ownership alliance: to get control of every personal
computer in the world. 

Intel and Microsoft and RIAA and MPAA, by their own admission, have, to
date, spent billions of dollars to force universal DRM on the entire
world. Last week these four reiterated their intention to force DRM into
every personal computer on the planet: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/15/business/15PIRA.html 
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-980671.html 

For more on DRM see: 

http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/10/21/1449250.shtml?tid=19 
http://www.panix.com/~jays/what.is.drm.3 

What is Palladium? 

"Palladium" is Microsoft's name for its proposed DRM system. No
implementation of Palladium exists today, indeed no complete
specification of Palladium exists today, but certain hardware which a
Palladiated operating system requires is about to be placed in all
personal computers, unless we stop Microsoft and its hardware and vendor
partners, such as Intel, American Megatrends, Transmeta, Dell, and
CompUSA. 

What will Palladium do? 

Palladium will enable a few large corporations and governments to run
source secret, indeed, well-encrypted, code on home users' machines in
such a way that the home user cannot see, modify, or control the running
code. A Palladiated system is under the complete control of Microsoft at
all times. Microsoft might allow some of its partners to run code on
your machine, but no code will run on a Palladiated system without
Microsoft's consent. The mechanics are as follows: only code that has
been signed with a special Microsoft provided key will run. Microsoft
will retain at all times the power to revoke any other entity's keys. In
particular, no operating system will be able to boot without a key from
Microsoft. So if Palladium is forced into every home computer, there
will be no more free software. 

Microsoft will be able to spy on each and every keystroke, and mouse
movement, and send encrypted messages from your machine to Microsoft
headquarters. Microsoft will also be able to examine every file on your
system. Your encryption programs will not work against Microsoft, or any
other entities which have full power keys from Microsoft. 

But surely wily crackers and freedom-loving hackers around the world
will be able to defeat Palladium by breaking it? 

No. Whether or not a few hackers are able to get around some versions of
Palladium, most people will not be able to. There are two reasons most
people will not be able to escape the All Seeing Eye and Invisible Hand
of Palladium. First, Palladium is not like the absurdly weak systems
called "DRM" today. Palladium is both hardware and software, and the
software is locked to the hardware in a manner completely different from
today's weak DRM systems. The design of Palladium allows for defense in
depth, and even one layer of Palladium is harder to crack than any DRM
ever seen before. Second, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of
the United States of America, it is illegal to try to see what Palladium
is doing. It is also illegal to modify the hardware of a Palladiated
system. And it is a felony to sell advice on how to disable Palladium or
its supporting hardware. It is hard enough today to get vendors to sell
computers with a free operating system already installed. Once Microsoft
and Intel have forced Palladiated hardware into every personal computer,
it will be impossible to run a free OS. The very act of booting a free
OS will be outlawed by application of the DMCA to a Palladiated
computer. 

But there are no Palladium systems available today. So how can you
boycott Palladium? 

We are boycotting the hardware that Palladium needs. Before Palladium is
rolled out, Palladium-enabling hardware must be placed in most of the
world's personal computers. Right now such hardware is being placed in
computers meant for home and business use without the buyer being told.
Our boycott is aimed at stopping Palladium-enabling hardware from being
secretly forced into every personal computer in world. We intend to stop
Palladium before we cease to own the computers in our own houses and
offices. 

The main Palladium-enabling hardware is called a "TPM" for Trusted
Platform Module. The TPM hardware will support, in addition to
Palladium, many different systems which take control of the computer
away from the user and give control to large corporations and government
entities. The TCPA, the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance, is the
standards organization for the TPM. The founding Alliance members are
Compaq, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft. Since 1999, the year TCPA was
founded, about one hundred more companies have joined the TCPA. The
Alliance has published a formal specification of the TPM. The TCPA's FAQ 

http://www.trustedcomputing.org/docs/Website_TCPA%20FAQ_0703021.pdf 

seeks to allay the natural suspicions of computer buyers about what the
TPM does. Unfortunately the FAQ is inaccurate on the most important
issues. For example, the claim is made that a computer with a working
TPM will remain under the final, ultimate, and complete control of the
user. But, as explained above, this is simply untrue. 

So what exactly are you doing? 

We refuse to buy any computer with a TPM inside and we ask you to refuse
to buy any computer with a TPM inside. We use the term "TPM" to include
TPM-like devices, whether in a separate chip, in the BIOS chip, or even
in the cpu. This means that we ask buyers of personal computers to find
out whether the computer has a TPM or a TPM-like device inside. We will
shortly provide buyers of home computers with methods for telling
whether or not a computer has a TPM inside. 

Is it possible to be more specific today? 

Yes. We call for a boycott of the just announced American Megatrends
AMIBIOS8: 

http://www.ami.com/ami/showpress.cfm?PrID=118 

http://www.ami.com/products/product.cfm?ProdID=127&CatID=6&SubID=14 

http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/09/166251&tid=99 

http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/17/1430214&mode=thread&tid=137 

and the just announced Transmeta TM5800 cpu: 

http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.php/1569201 

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/14/1719220&mode=thread&tid=161 

Where can I find out more about Palladium, TCPA, and DMCA? 

For Palladium see: 

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/%7Erja14/tcpa-faq.html 

http://wintermute.homelinux.org/miscelanea/TCPA%20Security.txt 

http://discuss.microsoft.com/SCRIPTS/WA-MSD.EXE?A2=ind0301b&L=wmtalk&T=0&O=A&P=12347 
http://www.theregus.com/content/4/25378.html 
http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0208.html#1 

http://www.ofb.biz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=152 

For TCPA and the TPM see: 

http://www.trustedcomputing.org 

For the DMCA see: 

http://www.nyfairuse.org/analysis/dmca.must.be.repealed.xhtml 
http://anti-dmca.org 
http://www.nyfairuse.org/dmca.xhtml 





More information about the Linux-audio-user mailing list