LInk
Hmm.....
Hmm.....
Bit by bit, digital freedom disappears
By Nathan Cochrane
September 17 2002
Another stage in Microsoft's five-year plan to control our PCs and the Internet will kick off early next year with the launch of Advanced Micro Devices' latest chip, Opteron, aimed at business uses.
The new microprocessor, which will run both existing 32-bit applications and specially recompiled 64-bit programs, will support "Palladium", a set of security and privacy features Microsoft is building into its products. Both AMD and Microsoft are members of the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA), a cabal of 170 product makers developing a uniform approach to security and copyright protection. AMD has been working on the "trusted client" approach with Wave Systems Corp for two years.
AMD's chips will increase the security of those accessing programs and the Internet, says company marketer Patrick Moorhead. But it will also refuse to play certain content if it is not digitally signed by Microsoft or an authorised party.
For the end-to-end security features to work as envisioned by the TCPA, all parties along the network chain must build in complementary security features. Chips from the likes of AMD and Intel will only decode information, such as audio and video, if it comes with an unlocking key. Hard-drive makers will make drives that won't record certain types of information, and so on.
It is envisaged that once the TCPA system is fully functioning, our PCs would quietly report to authorities any unauthorised content on our machines. PCs and other devices would also refuse to play content, such as a music CD, tied to another device, and may be instructed by a remote server to delete information from the owner's hard drive.
Moorhead, AMD's vice-president of consumer advocacy, dismisses consumer complaints that the ever-tightening noose designed to stop online piracy, known as Digital Rights Management (DRM), will erode existing rights.
But he says AMD believes that these technologies should be "opt-in" - that the user should control it - not government mandates.
Hollywood and the music industry are lobbying hard to make DRM mandatory in all new devices, and existing laws here and in the US make it a crime to switch it off.
Moorhead says the end user has been "unfairly branded" as a thief, and he believes most people would buy content online if it was available but it is being held back by a skittish film and recording industry.
But Dan Bricklin, computing pioneer and co-developer of the world's first popular spreadsheet, VisiCalc, says attempts to copy-protect works are a "simple fix" to preserve out-dated business models.
Further, he wrote, using legislation to bolster technological methods would be "bad for society", hobbling technology.
"Copy protection, like poor environment and chemical instability before it for books and works of art, looks to be a major impediment to preserving our cultural heritage."
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