infobong.com

My old boss Scott Bekker has a story up on ENT about the Microsoft implementation of Trusted Computing, formerly known as "Palladium." (I used to write for ENT, as well.) In " Palladium: Don't Fear the Nexus," Scott details how the platform will use a combination of hardware and software to protect end-user systems from yucky stuff like viruses and the like. It will also require revamped processors, chipsets, video cards, and input devices to operate.

ENT is a magazine for professional Windows adminstrators, rather than enthusiasts or end users, but the story does not address a few of the larger concerns observers have about Palladium. For example, Digital Rights Management is mentioned in many stories about Palladium: will end users be prevented from using open multimedia formats like mp3 on these systems? Will other operating systems like Linux run on hardware designed for this scheme? Or will it be treated as malware or simply inoperable? This could be another closed platform like the XBox, where legitimate experimentation on the hardware is highly discouraged. Microsoft has a track-record of using hardball tactics with OEMs, so I wonder if open systems not designed for this scheme will be widely available, tying more users into Windows.