As the joke goes, on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog. But although anonymity has been part of Internet culture since the first browser, it’s also a major obstacle to making the Web a safe place to conduct business: Internet fraud and identity theft cost consumers and merchants several billion dollars last year. And many of the other more troubling aspects of the Internet, from spam emails to sexual predators, also have their roots in the ease of masking one’s identity in the online world.
Change, however, is on the way. Already over 20 million PCs worldwide are equipped with a tiny security chip called the Trusted Platform Module, although it is as yet rarely activated. But once merchants and other online services begin to use it, the TPM will do something never before seen on the Internet: provide virtually fool-proof verification that you are who you say you are.
Some critics say that the chip will change the free-wheeling Web into a police state, while others argue that it’s needed to create a safe public space. But the train has already left the station: by the end of this decade, a TPM will almost certainly be part of your desktop, laptop and even cell phone.
The TPM chip was created by a coalition of over one hundred hardware and software companies, led by AMD, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft and Sun. The chip permanently assigns a unique and permanent identifier to every computer before it leaves the factory and that identifier can’t subsequently be changed. It also checks the software running on the computer to make sure it hasn’t been altered to act malevolently when it connects to other machines: that it can, in short, be trusted. For now, TPM-equipped computers are primarily sold to big corporations for securing their networks, but starting next year TPMs will be installed in many consumer models as well.
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woooo
big brother ??
glad ive just bought my machine
free of any such tat
.
I heard about trusted computing a while back on /.
That is such a load of crap! I hope the linux open bios folks come through with an answer to this problem....otherwise I will be sticking to my older boxen.
I just saw this video that helps explain trusted computing...
http://www.lafkon.net/tc/
I found it pretty interesting.
oh no get out the tinfoil hats.
LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Originally Posted by black_magiic
ill hang on to my old machine until they figure out how to remove the chip then ill just buy a chipped one and pluck it out (or however to disable it)
boycotting isnt a huge option unless a paralell market w/o the chips opens up, then ill take that avenue.
i refuse to let any corporate scum stick it any deeper.
either that or we will all end up on linux lol
but dumb bastards who buy "off the shelf" pcs from super markets and dell etc will get all this shit bundled
.
good for them... its their decision as the consumer -- get screwed or dont.
i just refuse to get screwed and im pissed that its so hard not to these days.
the only problem is those ppl are the target audience and dont know any better
pcs are made with the average person in mind
we are a minority (those who care what goes into their pc)
.
thats why i was talking about a paralell market...
i mean, they arent going to TPM the boards for sun or itanium or other brands of chips... so we could buy those instead, and perhaps the community would develop a decent linux distro for them.
It's really implausible that there would be a law mandating TPM chips ... that's just not sane, but if the big market boys collaborrate, we will have to seek an alternative.
Some company will offer tpm-less boards... and if that means you can't do your banking online then let's bank like it's 1989!
that was a pretty good rhyme lol
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