Ross's TCPA paper

[Lucky Green]

David wrote:
> It's not clear that enabling anti-competitive behavior is 
> good for society.  After all, there's a reason we have 
> anti-trust law. Ross Anderson's point -- and it seems to me 
> it's one worth considering
> -- is that, if there are potentially harmful effects that 
> come with the beneficial effects, maybe we should think about 
> them in advance.

I fully agree that the TCPA's efforts offer potentially beneficial
effects. Assuming the TPM has not been compromised, the TPM should
enable to detect if interested parties have replaced you NIC with the
rarer, but not unheard of, variant that ships out the contents of your
operating RAM via DMA and IP padding outside the abilities of your OS to
detect.

However, enabling platform security, as much as might be stressed
otherwise by the stakeholders, has never been the motive behind the
TCPA. The motive has been DRM. Does this mean that one should ignore the
benefits that TCPA might bring? Of course not. But it does mean that one
should carefully weigh the benefits against the risks.

--Lucky Green


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