On Thu, 2007-05-10 at 14:33 +0100, Alex Hudson wrote:
Simo - just to be clear, if we're talking specifically about the TC in Thinkpads, it might be theoretically possible to use them in such a scenario, but the way they come out of the factory it would be very difficult. There is no root certificate or chain of trust that you could turn no, nor no private key that Microsoft (or whoever) could use to sign a kernel that would be the only one allowed to boot. They basically come as empty containers.
Of course, you could maybe ship a custom bios that uses the TPM chip in the Thinkpad to store keys that do check the boot software, but if you're doing that you don't actually need the TPM chip - you can do basically the same thing in the BIOS (witness the problems using non-IBM wifi cards in Thinkpads).
And you're right, the proposed Palladium system is not what is in Thinkpads - different chip, different idea, and I don't for one second support that kind of scenario.
I think people should be less concerned about supposed problems with TPM chips and more concerned with stuff like UEFI which actually does threaten users' control over their machines, e.g.:
http://fosdem.org/2007/interview/ronald+g+minnich
Unlike Palladium, you can actually buy hardware with this stuff in (for example, Macs).
I agree with you on every single word, Simo.