Sounds like an expensive can of worms.......

Quoted in its entirety, this column appeared in the NYTimes of 7/2/03. The URL is at the bottom.

"A Safer System for Home PC's Feels Like Jail to Some Critics
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> June 30, 2003
> By JOHN MARKOFF
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> SAN FRANCISCO, June 29 - Your next personal computer may
> well come with its own digital chaperon.
>
> As PC makers prepare a new generation of desktop computers
> with built-in hardware controls to protect data and digital
> entertainment from illegal copying, the industry is also
> promising to keep information safe from tampering and help
> users avoid troublemakers in cyberspace.
>
> Silicon Valley - led by Microsoft and Intel - calls the
> concept "trusted computing." The companies, joined by
> I.B.M., Hewlett-Packard, Advanced Micro Devices and others,
> argue that the new systems are necessary to protect
> entertainment content as well as safeguard corporate data
> and personal privacy against identity theft. Without such
> built-in controls, they say, Hollywood and the music
> business will refuse to make their products available
> online.
>
> But by entwining PC software and data in an impenetrable
> layer of encryption, critics argue, the companies may be
> destroying the very openness that has been at the heart of
> computing in the three decades since the PC was introduced.
> There are simpler, less intrusive ways to prevent illicit
> file swapping over the Internet, they say, than girding
> software in so much armor that new types of programs from
> upstart companies may have trouble working with it.
>
> "This will kill innovation," said Ross Anderson, a computer
> security expert at Cambridge University, who is organizing
> opposition to the industry plans. "They're doing this to
> increase customer lock-in. It will mean that fewer software
> businesses succeed and those who do succeed will be large
> companies."
>
> Critics complain that the mainstream computer hardware and
> software designers, under pressure from Hollywood, are
> turning the PC into something that would resemble video
> game players, cable TV and cellphones, with manufacturers
> or service providers in control of which applications run
> on their systems.
>
> In the new encrypted computing world, even the most mundane
> word-processing document or e-mail message would be
> accompanied by a software security guard controlling who
> can view it, where it can be sent and even when it will be
> erased. Also, the secure PC is specifically intended to
> protect digital movies and music from online piracy.
>
> But while beneficial to the entertainment industry and
> corporate operations, the new systems will not necessarily
> be immune to computer viruses or unwanted spam e-mail
> messages, the two most severe irritants to PC users.
>
> "Microsoft's use of the term `trusted computing' is a great
> piece of doublespeak," said Dan Sokol, a computer engineer
> based in San Jose, Calif., who was one of the original
> members of the Homebrew Computing Club, the pioneering PC
> group. "What they're really saying is, `We don't trust you,
> the user of this computer.' "
>
> The advocates of trusted computing argue that the new
> technology is absolutely necessary to protect the privacy
> of users and to prevent the theft of valuable intellectual
> property, a reaction to the fact that making a perfect
> digital copy is almost as easy as clicking a mouse button.
>
> "It's like having a little safe inside your computer,"
> said Bob Meinschein, an Intel security architect. "On the
> corporate side the value is much clearer," he added, "but
> over time the consumer value of this technology will become
> clear as well" as more people shop and do other business
> transactions online.
>
> Industry leaders also contend that none of this will stifle
> innovation. Instead, they say, it will help preserve and
> expand general-purpose computing in the Internet age.
>
> "We think this is a huge innovation story," said Mario
> Juarez, Microsoft's group product manager for the company's
> security business unit. "This is just an extension of the
> way the current version of Windows has provided innovation
> for players up and down the broad landscape of computing."
>
> The initiative is based on a new specification for
> personal computer hardware, first introduced in 2000 and
> backed by a group of companies called the Trusted Computing
> Group. It also revolves around a separate Microsoft plan,
> now called the Next Generation Secure Computing Base, that
> specifies a tamper-proof portion of the Windows operating
> system.
>
> The hardware system is contained in a set of separate
> electronics that are linked to the personal computer's
> microprocessor chip, known as the Trusted Platform Module,
> or T.P.M. The device includes secret digital keys - large
> binary numbers - that cannot easily be altered. The Trusted
> Computing Group is attempting to persuade other industries,
> like the mobile phone industry and the makers of personal
> digital assistants, to standardize on the technology as
> well.
>
> The plans reflect a shift by key elements of the personal
> computer industry, which in the past had resisted going
> along with the entertainment industry and what some said
> they feared would be draconian controls that would greatly
> curtail the power of digital consumer products.
>
> Industry executives now argue that by embedding the digital
> keys directly in the hardware of the PC, tampering will be
> much more difficult. But they acknowledge that no security
> system is perfect.
>
> The hardware standard is actually the second effort by
> Intel to build security directly into the circuitry of the
> PC. The first effort ended in a public relations disaster
> for Intel in 1999 when consumers and civil liberties groups
> revolted against the idea. The groups coined the slogan
> "Big Brother Inside," and charged that the technology could
> be used to violate user privacy.
>
> "We don't like to make the connection," said Mr.
> Meinschein. "But we did learn from it."
>
> He said the new T.P.M. design requires the computer owner
> to switch on the new technology voluntarily and that it
> contains elaborate safeguards for protecting individual
> identity.
>
> The first computers based on the hardware design have just
> begun to appear from I.B.M. and Hewlett-Packard for
> corporate customers. Consumer-oriented computer makers like
> Dell Computer and Gateway are being urged to go along but
> have not yet endorsed the new approach.
>
> How consumers will react to the new technology is a thorny
> question for PC makers because the new industry design
> stands in striking contrast to the approach being taken by
> Apple Computer.
>
> Apple has developed the popular iTunes digital music store
> relying exclusively on software to restrict the sharing of
> digital songs over the Internet. Apple's system, which has
> drawn the support of the recording industry, permits
> consumers to share songs freely among up to three
> Macintoshes and an iPod portable music player.
>
> Apple only has a tiny share of the personal computer
> market. But it continues to tweak the industry leaders with
> its innovations; last week, Apple's chief executive, Steven
> P. Jobs, demonstrated a feature of the company's newest
> version of its OS X operating system called FileVault,
> designed to protect a user's documents without the need for
> modifying computer hardware.
>
> Mr. Jobs argued that elaborate hardware-software schemes
> like the one being pursued by the Trusted Computing Group
> will not achieve their purpose.
>
> "It's a falsehood," he said. "You can prove to yourself
> that that hardware doesn't make it more secure."
>
> That is not Microsoft's view. The company has begun showing
> a test copy of a variation of its Windows operating system
> that was originally named Palladium. The name was changed
> last year after a trademark dispute.
>
> In an effort to retain the original open PC environment,
> the Microsoft plan offers the computer user two separate
> computing partitions in a future version of Windows. Beyond
> changing the appearance and control of Windows, the system
> will also require a new generation of computer hardware,
> not only replacing the computer logic board but also
> peripherals like mice, keyboards and video cards.
>
> Executives at Microsoft say they tentatively plan to
> include the technology in the next version of Windows -
> code-named Longhorn - now due in 2005.
>
> The company is dealing with both technical and marketing
> challenges presented by the new software security system.
> For example, Mr. Juarez, the Microsoft executive, said that
> if the company created a more secure side to its operating
> system software, customers might draw the conclusion that
> its current software is not as safe to use.
>
> Software developers and computer security experts, however,
> said they were not confident that Microsoft would retain
> its commitment to the open half of what is planned to be a
> two-sided operating system.
>
> "My hackles went up when I read Microsoft describing the
> trusted part of the operating system as an option," said
> Mitchell D. Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development
> Corporation, and a longtime Microsoft competitor. "I don't
> think that's a trustworthy statement."
>
> One possibility, Mr. Kapor argued, is that Microsoft could
> release versions of applications like its Office suite of
> programs that would only run on the secure part of the
> operating system, forcing users to do their work in the
> more restricted environment.
>
> Microsoft denies that it is hatching an elaborate scheme to
> deploy an ultra-secret hardware system simply to protect
> its software and Hollywood's digital content. The company
> also says the new system can help counter global cybercrime
> without creating the repressive <object.title class="Movie"
> idsrc="nyt_ttl" value="149324">"Big Brother"</object.title>
> society imagined by George Orwell in <object.title
> class="Movie" idsrc="nyt_ttl"
> value="91;104070">"1984."</object.title>
>
> Microsoft is committed to "working with the government and
> the entire industry to build a more secure computing
> infrastructure here and around the world," Bill Gates,
> Microsoft's chairman, told a technology conference in
> Washington on Wednesday. "This technology can make our
> country more secure and prevent the nightmare vision of
> George Orwell at the same time."
>
> The critics are worried, however, that the rush to create
> more secure PC's may have unintended consequences.
> Paradoxically, they say, the efforts to lock up data safely
> against piracy could serve to make it easier for pirates to
> operate covertly.
>
> Indeed, the effectiveness of the effort to protect
> intellectual property like music and movies has been
> challenged in two independent research papers. One was
> distributed last year by a group of Microsoft computer
> security researchers; a second paper was released last
> month by Harvard researchers.
>
> The research papers state that computer users who share
> files might use the new hardware-based security systems to
> create a "Darknet," a secure, but illegal network for
> sharing digital movies and music or other illicit
> information that could be exceptionally hard for security
> experts to crack.
>
> "This is a Pandora's box and I don't think there has been
> much thought about what can go wrong," said Stuart
> Schechter, a Harvard researcher who is an author of one of
> the papers. "This is one of those rare times we can prevent
> something that will do more harm than good."
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/30/technology/30SECU.html?ex=1058145982&ei=1&en=1c2b90c39e043caf"
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