Privacy.security

Jon Udell takes a look at Palladium and explains, succinctly, how we create a real Trusted Computing environment -- using technologies that are mostly available today plus a little personal accountability. Jon's scenario is where we should all be headed, and quickly, lest this whole digi-Nazi/Palladium thing gets out of hand.

O'Reilly Network: by Jon Udell - Control Your Identity or Microsoft and Intel Will.
I've been mulling over the list of features touted for the Microsoft/Intel/AMD security scheme called Palladium.
[ ... ] We can choose accountability, or we can let the unholy alliance of Hollywood, Microsoft, Intel, and the government choose for us. The alliance, cleverly, pretends to solve problems that really annoy us, like spam and email worms. But these violations of trust won't yield simply to trusted motherboards and operating systems. People have to assert (and prove) their claims of trustworthiness, and other people have to make judgments about those assertions. [...]

[Privacy Digest]

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Barr on Right Side of Privacy Issue

10:23:33 AM

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Georgia Congressman Bob Barr can be infuriating -- he often comes out on the opposite side of issues from where I stand. Even so, he is one of the few people in Congress who ever (and I mean ever) calls the federal bureacracy to task for infringing the basic civil liberties of American citizens.
This is not the first time Barr has come down on the side of privacy advocates. Having served with both the US Attorney's office and the CIA, Barr knows something of the damage that such government entities can cause. And when he speaks about privacy issues, politicos have no choice but to take him seriously.
I disagree with Barr on many issues, but on this issue he deserves our full support. Those who oppose Barr across-the-board because of particular personal agenda items are doing themselves a disservice in the battle to maintain some level of privacy against our War-On-Terror-crazed government.

New York Times - free registration required Privacy Officer Is Possibility at Security Department.
Under Congressional pressure, the Bush administration said today that it was open to the idea of installing a chief privacy officer in a new Department of Homeland Security to make sure it weighed issues of confidentiality and the secure handling of personal information.
"If you bring us a proposal, I think we'd look at it very carefully," Mark W. Everson, controller of the Office of Management and Budget told Representative Bob Barr, Republican of Georgia, who heads the House Judiciary subcommittee on commercial and administrative law. "Privacy is a very important function."
Mr. Barr opened a subcommittee hearing by asking Mr. Everson what steps would be taken "to ensure the privacy of personally identifiable information as the new agency establishes necessary databases that coordinate with other agencies of the government."
[Privacy Digest]

See also: Blunt Force Trauma | Blunt Force Trauma | Blunt Force Trauma | Web Street Studios Stuff - issue 1, e-letter | OnlineAthens: News: Barr showing softer side in campaign 07/07/ | OnlineAthens: Opinions: Shipp: Barr vs. Linder: Great Republican | The Right Links | Document: Address by Rep. Barr re privacy rights, 4/6/99. | Congressman Bob Barr - Georgia's 7th District | TAP: Vol 12, Iss. 19. In Bed with Bob Barr :. Nicholas Confessore

A Publisher's Spin on Palladium

2:25:08 AM

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In the current Seybold Bulletin (e-mail subscription so no link) Bill Rosenblatt uses his editorial to take the publisher's view on how Palladium is good for all of us. Many of his points are reasonable and, to be fair, he also notes the risks to users and to Microsoft in the Palladium strategy.
Where Rosenblatt errs is in his underlying assumption that what publisher's want is what the rest of us need. We have ample proof that, left to their own devices, most publishers (regardless of media and like most entrenched businesses) view customers as little more than tokens from which revenue can be extracted and would choose all manner of user-hostile control and revenue generation schemes -- while doing little to improve their business models or increase the value they provide.
A robust, ubiquitous control mechanism that enables this sort of dreary, burdensome business practice hardly deserves support. There is no question the protection of copyright and intellectual property must be preserved, but Palladium-like architectures shift the balance of power totally to entrenched businesses, and do so in a way that is far more invasive and damaging to creators, innovators, and users than is called for.

[...] In the end, Palladium seems like publishers' best hope for DRM functionality that is as transparent, robust and ubiquitous as they would like it to be. Microsoft seems to have realized that it's very difficult to make money from DRM functionality per se, yet such functionality is necessary to support the various software and services from which Microsoft (and other vendors) could make money; therefore, it's necessary to build DRM technology and give it away as a way of moving things along. If publishers want DRM, they should take an open-minded attitude toward Palladium and find ways of working with Microsoft to ensure that it meets their needs.
Bill Rosenblatt is lead consultant at GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies.
[Seybold Bulletin]

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