Security improvements promised by trusted computing Alliance may
come at a price. Bill Goodwin reports
Trusted computing is perhaps one of the most radical developments
in desktop computing since IBM launched its first PC back in the
1980s.
The technology is championed by a consortium of the world's leading
IT players which includes Microsoft and Intel. It will have
far-reaching consequences for the way organisations use and deploy
information technology.
Suppliers that back the trusted computing concept promise better
desktop security; better protection from viruses and spam,
genuinely secure e-commerce and the ability for businesses to
guarantee the confidentiality of data and documents.
Yet many observers are wondering whether the real beneficiaries of
the proposed Windows/Intel trusted computing platform will be not
the end-users but the suppliers themselves.
Critics fear that rather than giving users more choice, the
technology could lock them ever more deeply into the Wintel market
dominance.
Judging from the poor turnout at last week's Trusted Computing
Masterclass, the first major conference to be held on the subject
in the UK, the implications of the technology have yet to appear on
the radar screens of the UK's overworked IT professionals.
"The British computer industry is sleepwalking into a potential
disaster," said masterclass organiser, Eddie Bleasdale, head of
Netproject. "There is such a big change coming that if people are
not careful, they will find themselves locked into propriety
technology."
The ideas behind trusted computing have been around for some years,
but the concept came to prominence about three years ago when
Compaq, HP, Intel and Microsoft created the Trusted Computing
Platform Alliance to develop a secure PC architecture.
The alliance, which numbers about 190 firms, has proposed a Trusted
Computing Module (TCM) which will add low-cost encryption and
authentication technology to the desktop design.
Microsoft is also developing an operating system technology -
Palladium - to run on the TCM architecture. It is designed to help
businesses to guard their corporate secrets from the prying eyes of
competitors and the destructive activities of hackers and computer
virus writers.
Stefek Zaba, a computer scientist at HP labs in Bristol, one of the
founding members of the alliance, described the advantages.
"Trusted Computing Platform Alliance will give you a better place
to store your encryption keys, to put your sensitive documents. The
hardware of the PC will give you more help with sensitive
information, which you have liabilities to protect. It will help
you to comply with data protection and financial services
regulations."
Businesses will be able to use the technology to lock down the
security of their desktop PCs, Zaba said. In non-secure mode, PCs
will function as normal, giving users access to word processing and
the Internet. In secure mode, the desktops will only run the
software and Internet services that businesses actually want.
The most controversial aspect of the technology is the potential it
gives to software developers to create a new generation of
applications that will allow business to have unprecedented control
over the data they generate.
For example, they will be able to specify who has access to their
data, when they can look at it, and what they can do with it. This
capability, known as digital rights management, offers some
enormous potential benefits for end users.
A pharmaceutical company, for example, could ensure that documents
which contain details of clinical trails could only be read by
certain employees.
A managing director could also send market-sensitive information to
fellow directors in an email that, Mission Impossible-style, would
self-destruct after 30 days.
Record and film companies could rent out electronic albums and
videos, confident that they will only be played once by the person
who paid for them. The same technology could ensure that films are
only viewed on approved viewers - a powerful weapon against the
piracy that is plaguing the industry.
But the technology presents huge potential dangers. As Alan Cox,
Linux developer at Red Hat, and one of the speakers at the Trusted
Computing Masterclass said, it is the IT equivalent of atomic
power: it can be used constructively, but it also has the potential
for great harm.
Trusted computing and Palladium could sweep away all the current
safeguards that protect end-users when they are involved in a
licensing dispute with their supplier.
"At the moment, I cannot walk into your building, remove my copy of
your software and walk out. With digital rights management I can do
that," he said.
"Imagine that the people selling you accounting software arrange it
so you can't access your data unless your licence is current," said
Cox. "If you change your accounting software you might find you
can't access your data from five years ago without buying another
licence to the old software."
"It is the equivalent of driving along in your car and having your
car slam on the brakes, stop and refuse to move because you haven't
paid your MoT," he said.
In Microsoft's defence, John Manferdelli, general manager for the
Palladium programme, said that digital rights management is not an
inherent part of Palladuim. The new operating system will make
digital rights easier to enforce, but it is up to suppliers to
develop the software to take advantage of it.
"We are not out to screw anyone, but of course someone could," he
said. "The answer is the same as with any operating system. You
sell someone the operating system and you let them build
applications. You can't really control what they do with it. If
people start using bad policy, customers will simply say, 'I am not
using your stuff, forget it'."
Competition from other suppliers will act as a deterrent to this
sort of abuse, said Zeba.
There are already strong remedies for when software monopolies
exploit their positions. "Does this technology make it more easy
for monopolies to be exploited? I have yet to be convinced that it
does," he asked.
Ross Anderson, head of the Computer Laboratory at Cambridge
University, is one of the most vocal critics of Palladium. He said
that, in practice, users will have little real power if their
suppliers abuse the capabilities for digital rights
management.
"There is only an illusion of choice here. If Palladium becomes the
norm, you will have the choice to use it in the same way that you
have the choice whether [or not] to use Windows," he said.
Anderson urged IT directors to think about the consequences of
Trusted Com- puting and Palladium now, before it begins to roll
out.
"You are going to have to think a lot more carefully and
strategically. You have to start thinking, when you commit to new
application suppliers, about what sort of terms you keep in the
contracts. Is it going to be necessary to put in explicit clauses
which compel them to make the data available in an exportable
format?"
Why choose Trusted Computing?
- It allows remote secure systems administration of PCs
- Administrators can be sure that the PC follows company security
policy
- It allows authentication of users connecting remotely
- A remote PC can check whether the PC it is connecting to may
have been compromised
- It improves security of e-commerce by confirming the identity
of the connecting PC and that it is a trusted secure
platform
Source: Infineon
The case against Palladium
Technologies such
as Palladium raise important questions about censorship and the
control of information, says Ross Anderson, head of the computer
laboratory at Cambridge University. The platform gives software
suppliers tha ability to develop applications which, for the first
time, could prevent the public viewing documents and files deemed
to be either unacceptable, illegal or in breach of copyright.
By offering the potential to make all electronic copies of a
document unreadable, Palladuim and similar technologies could
undermine the centuries-old right to disseminate information. It
also means that governments may be able to censor the publication
of official documents that they regard as politically
embarrassing.
Microsoft could, argues Anderson, create applications for Palladium
that would selectively disable pirated copies of its software. The
same technology could be used to selectively disable all copies of
Microsoft Office in China, for example, if political tensions grew.
"People should be thinking very seriously about whether they should
campaign with their MPs and MEPs about this," Anderson said.