[linux-audio-dev] Stop Palladium and TCPA Now!

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Subject: [linux-audio-dev] Stop Palladium and TCPA Now!
From: Seth Johnson (seth.johnson@realmeasures.dyndns.org)
Date: Mon Feb 03 2003 - 06:57:52 EET

Next message: David Olofson: "[linux-audio-dev] PTAF link and comments"

New Yorkers for Fair Use Action Alert:
--------------------------------------

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

Stop Palladium and TCPA Now!

Okay, you folks understand this issue -- AMI and Transmeta
recently announced their intention to build TCPA technology
into their chips. It's time to tell them that building
chips that let others control your computer, is
unacceptable.

1) Please send your comments using the form provided below.
Tell them not to produce their AMIBIOS8 and TM5800 chips,
and that you will boycott any technology that enables TCPA
and Palladium technology on your computer. Read the alert
below for details.

3) Take up a role helping with this and other efforts
related to information freedom in the future. Two roles you
can take up are to become a Press Outreach Campaigner or a
Commentator. Simply reply to this email to show your
interest.

2) Please forward this alert to any other interested parties
that you know of, who would understand and see the
importance of this issue.

New Yorkers for Fair Use Action Alert:
--------------------------------------
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/cgi-bin/nyfu/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