This week the world rejoiced. Mac users could run Windows XP or OSX and switch between them with the newly released Boot Camp. Not the best solution (you have to restart the system to switch to the other OS) but better than software emulation and hey, it’s a start.Now the bad news. It looks like Intel has embedded “Trusted Computing” DRM protection in its Infineon chip and forgot to tell people. If you remember the Sony rootkit uproar, you know this is not small news.

The basic idea of Trusted Computing is that security on a computer is obtained via hardware, through a specific chip dedicated exclusively to this task and called Trusted Platform Module (TPM). It’s a very controversial project, as I wrote four years ago. Originally sold as a beneficial security system for users (which is partially true), trusted Computing and Palladium risk to open the doors to inviolable copy-protection systems and to censorship and surveillance issues to unprecedented levels. The analysis by Electronic Frontier Foundation is inexorable and rigorous; although also the IBM refutation is worth reading. Source: Masternewmedia

What is Palladium?

The Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB), formerly known as Palladium, is a software architecture designed by Microsoft which is expected to implement controversial parts of their “Trustworthy Computing” concept on future versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. Microsoft’s stated aim for NGSCB is to increase the security and privacy of computer users[1], but critics assert that the technology will not only fail to solve the majority of contemporary IT security problems, but also result in an increase in vendor lock-in and a resulting reduction in competition in the IT marketplace. Source: Wikipedia