Microsoft's Palladium and the "Fritz Chip"

Kicka$$gear-News (computer enthusiast site) ^ | June 28, 2002 | Dr. John

[RicocheT]

Palladium and the "Fritz Chip"

You all should know about Senator Fritz Hollings, and his tireless attempts to make PCs incapable of copying music files or running "unauthorized content". The Trusted Computing Platform Alliance" or TCPA, is a hardware and software based system for preventing computers from doing many of the things they are now capable of. Microsoft, AMD, Intel and many other companies say they are now working very hard to integrate TCPA features into hardware and software, including future versions of Windows.

At the heart of TCPA is a new chip added to motherboards, which have been affectionately dubbed "Fritz chips" after the good Senator. But there is a double meaning here, since you can expect computers based on TCPA technology to go on the fritz far more often than their non-TCPA counterparts. Eventually, Intel and AMD say they will incorporate TCPA into future processors. Lucky us.

Palladium is the software end of the business, and will be built-into future versions of Windows. The basic idea is that the Fritz chip will constantly check the machine state, and the "authorizations" for the OS and each application on the machine. The OS will only boot if nothing is "amiss", that means no "unauthorized components or content". The spin they are putting on this draconian move is that "PCs won't necessarily get faster, just more secure".

Is that what computer owners want? Slower computers that can't copy MP3 files without paid authorization? I don't think so, and I doubt that talk about "secure computing" will change many minds. So the question is, will folks run out to buy a "Fritz chip" computer, or will they shop around for Fritz-less options? My guess is the later. However, most computer users are far from techno-savvy, so if they get bombarded with propaganda about TCPA making their computers secure from hackers, maybe the IT industry will be able to bamboozle large numbers of casual computer users. But the relatively smaller community of power users will certainly not go quietly into this good fight. So the next question is, will there be "Fritz-less" computer manufacturers that specifically sell only systems that have no TCPA components or operating systems? What will become of Linux as Microsoft moves completely to "Palladium", especially if the internet becomes TCPA-ified?

The bottom line is this. Computer and software makers are desperate to lock down the ability of modern computers until they are nothing more than paid content providing systems. This is not what computers were made for, they were made to be multifunctional, programmable devices with almost unlimited capabilities. Capabilities that the MPAA (motion picture assoc. of America) and RIAA (recording industry assoc. of America) want eliminated ASAP.

Finally, will TCPA create a black market for Fritz-less motherboards, or will it just make the last, fastest, Fritz-less computers the most popular on earth? I can imagine a big run on the last round on non-TCPA hardware as soon as it becomes known that all motherboards after a certain date must have the Fritz chip installed.

Dr. John

See this article for the technical explanation: "MS Palladium protects IT vendors, not you" http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25940.html

[RicocheT]

Who will own your computer, the MPAA (motion picture assoc. of America) and RIAA (recording industry assoc. of America)or YOU ??

[Aquinasfan]

The "Fritz Chip" sounds like a good idea to me. If people were ripping off my intellectual property I'd be pretty ticked.

[B Knotts]

Guilty until proven innocent.

[Salgak]

So you LIKE being considered guilty up front ? What MPAA and RIAA have done to the Intellectual Property laws is a crime in and of itself: it USED to be that you had protection for your IP for a limited period of time, after which it moved to the public domain. If the RIAA and MPAA get their way, there will BE no public domain.

Your Fritz-chip computer crashes, but somehow you lost the data key. Sorry, now all your DVDs, CDs, software, etc, are useless, because Fritz tied them to the key. . .

[Dimensio]

Concern for your intellectual property does not grant you the right to lock down my computer for fear that I might infringe on your copyright.

[Sender]

A good idea? Think again. Bill Gates already has one finger in my wallet by requiring that I re-subscribe to Office XP whenever he feels like I should pay him again for the software I already bought. He can deactivate my Windows XP if I change too much of my own hardware that I already bought. He can refuse to give me updates and service packs if I don't have the original CD which I already bought.

Would you want a PC that refused to boot because it detects some JPG picture you snagged from a copyrighted website? Or your kids rip a CD or download a song and then you're busted, locked out of your own PC? When it gets that bad, I'll go to a homebuilt PC and Linux, screw all of them that want to control my PC that I paid over a thousand dollars for! You can bet that all those hungry Taiwanese motherboard builders will be happy to offer chip-free versions, and non-restriced processor knockoffs as well.

[Jack Black]

Well, actually it does. The Congress has been passing laws like this for a long time. Buy a DAT cassette and you are paying something like $1.00 to a consortium of recording artists because you obviously are going to use that tape to copy other 'artists' music. Guilty until proven innocent.

[HiTech RedNeck]

I think the idea is that new applications and their media will need the Fritz to work. It is basically a glorified dongle. Your old applications and media will continue to work, and you can disable the Fritz but at the cost of not being able to use the new stuff.

After all this song and dance, it will STILL be possible for a pirate to rip audio and video content, even if not perfectly, because they have to be turned into analog signals before you can hear and watch them.

[Publius6961]

Is that what computer owners want? Slower computers that can't copy MP3 files without paid authorization?

Wonderful.
Foreign Muslim Mass Murder terrorists have made travel a living hell for everybody, and now losers who feel they have a "right" to use copyrighted material are about to make computing a living hell for everybody else.

Talk about mixed feelings here.
I can't generate a whole lot of sympathy or outrage here...

[Timesink]

Eventually, Intel and AMD say they will incorporate TCPA into future processors. Lucky us.

Guess I'll be using Motorola G4 processors, then.

[dwollmann]

Computers are general purpose machines whose purpose is to create, manipulate, duplicate and transfer long strings of ones and zeroes with perfect accuracy and at a low cost. If you're worried about your "intellectual property" then don't store it in the form of a long string of ones and zeroes on a machine-readable medium. This isn't a moral argument, it's simply a statement of fact: users now understand how easily and inexpensively they can acquire music and other digital content. Making the acquisition and use of this content more difficult and expensive by introducing yet another layer of bloated, broken software and hardware isn't going to be an easy sale, hence Microsoft's "we're here to protect you" spin.

Microsoft wants to give the blood-sucking lawyers "hooks" into your computer. They want to sell bits of control over your system to the highest bidders. Is that what you want? What's the difference between a nameless, faceless lawyer controlling your system through DRM hardware and certificates, and some cracker controlling your system with Back Orifice? Do you think the lawyer has any more respect for you or your property than the cracker? Do you really think the lawyer is less likely to cause trouble for you than the cracker? The lawyer makes you sign away your rights (don't think you won't have to "accept" a contract signing away all your rights and freeing Intel, Microsoft, et al from all liability if their scheme destroys your data in order to use one of these systems) and has people with guns and jails to back up the agreement.

Too late, Microsoft, we're onto you.

[Publius6961]

Concern for your intellectual property does not grant you the right to lock down my computer for fear that I might infringe on your copyright.

Agreed.
But the government is hijacked by all manner of special interest in response to wrongdoing by a few s***heads.
I reserve my anger for them, since the odds of my controlling "rent-seeking" of government by special interest /"controllers" is nil. e.g. environmentalists, anti-smokers, etc.

The thieves who choose to operate on line created the problem.

[StockAyatollah]

Can someone tell me why South Carolina rat Senator Fritz Hollings is so interested in this issue? I don't think that the MPAA and RIAA have a huge presence in his state.

[Sundog]

This goes beyond "Who will own your computer", this is an extraordinary effort to exterminate competition, i.e. linux.

Linux depends on a "General Public License", called a GPL.

As reported in the Register, (same source as cited above) this takes aim at linux by rendering it impracticle to continue with the GPL. Excerpts follow...

MS to eradicate GPL, hence Linux
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 25/06/2002 at 22:30 GMT

Yesterday, as we all know, Microsoft fed an 'exclusive' story about its new 'Palladium' DRM/PKI Trust Machine to Newsweek hack Steven Levy (a guy who writes without irony of "high-level encryption"), presumably because they trusted him not to grasp the technology well enough to question it seriously. His un-critical announcement immediately sparked a flurry of articles considering what this means to the Windows user base.

But here's the diabolical bit. Linux distributors are going to lose big time if they remain faithful to the GPL. Palladium will either break the GPL, or if not, break Linux.

It's the very fact that this appears insoluble to me that helps me realize that MS has put tremendous, careful thought into it. To make the [internet] Linux-hostile, MS is taking dramatic steps to make it GPL-hostile. Very clever and admirably diabolical.

(The GPL or The GNU General Public License, created by Richard Stallman, serves as the de facto constitution for the Free Software movement. It covers the majority of Free Software/Open Source software and has become the legal and philosophical cornerstone of the Free Software community. From the GNU open source website)

MS to eradicate GPL, hence Linux

Cheers...

[RJL]

I predict that the "Fritz" chip will prove to be as needed, loved and used as Clinton's "V" chip in TV's.

[steve-b]

Who knew that Sarah Brady lurks on FR?

[steve-b]

now losers who feel they have a "right" to steal the fair use rights of the public are about to make computing a living hell for everybody else

Just a correction.

[steve-b]

However, most computer users are far from techno-savvy, so if they get bombarded with propaganda about TCPA making their computers secure from hackers, maybe the IT industry will be able to bamboozle large numbers of casual computer users. But the relatively smaller community of power users will certainly not go quietly into this good fight.

This creates a strong incentive for the power users to undercut the propaganda by releasing some nasty expolit that breaks this "security" (ideally, one to which only the new systems are vunlerable). Triggering the fritz-chip lockdown and popping up bogus warning messages which tell the user that all his files are "illegally pirated" would be just the thing to turn this crap radioactive -- and, since the creator's incentives are to err on the side of declaring any suspect file to be "pirated", it will probably be quite easy.

[discostu]

here's first, I'm going to agree with Aquinasfan. You're arguement is beyond rediculous. You're basically saying "if you don't want your property stolen don't own anything worth steeling".

In this modern age it's physically impossible to NOT store intellectual property (no quotes it's a real thing no matter how little you respect it) in 1's and 0's. And what few storage mediums there are that aren't 1's and 0's are still machine readable (video capture, input jacks on sound cards, scanners and OCR software).

The RIAA has done some bizaare stuff, no arguement there. But the simple fact is that making and dsitributing copies of copyrighted material is theft. Back in the days of cassette players the individual bootlegger wasn't a problem, they had very limited level and rate of distribution. Now with MP3s and the internet the distribution rate is limitless.

Remember making and distributing music (and movies and books and software) isn't cheap. Every CD you see in a store represents hundreds of man hours of labor on thousands of dollars worth of equipment. If MP3 junkies do manage to accomplish their dream of breaking the RIAA's back you're not going to wind up in a world with free music, you're going to wind up in a world without music (at least printed, you'll still have plenty of bar bands). Without the RIAA or some group like it being a musician doesn't pay the bills. If you can't sell the product, if you can't advertise it, if you can't use these channels to advertise the tour (which is where the real money has always been) there's no way to make music self sustaining. You need companies willing to front the costs, and they need copyright protection.