Cryptogram: Palladium Only for DRM

[Lucky Green]

AARG! Wrote:
> In addition, I have argued that trusted computing in general 
> will work very well with open source software.  It may even 
> be possible to allow the user to build the executable himself 
> using a standard compilation environment.

What AARG! is failing to mention is that Microsoft holds that Palladium,
and in particular Trusted Operating Root ("nub") implementations, are
subject to Microsoft's DRM-OS patent. Absent a patent license from
Microsoft, any individual developer, open source software development
effort, and indeed any potential competitor of Microsoft that wishes to
create a Palladium-like TOR would do so in violation of Microsoft's
patent. U.S. Patent law takes a dim view of such illegal infringers:
willful infringers, in particular infringers that generate a profit from
their creation of a non-Microsoft version of a TOR face the risk of a
court ordering such infringers to pay treble damages.

Palladium team representatives have indicated that Microsoft, or at
least the Palladium team, believes that Microsoft may license their
patented technology to competing efforts at some undecided time in the
future under terms that have yet to be contemplated, have so far not
been discussed with Microsoft's legal staff, and may or may not involve
remuneration.

As of this moment, Microsoft has not provided the open source community
with a world-wide, royalty-free, irrevocable patent license to the
totality of Microsoft's patents utilized in Palladium's TOR. Since open
source efforts therefore remain legally prohibited from creating
non-Microsoft TORs, AARG!'s lauding of synergies between Palladium and
open source software development appears premature.

> [1] A message from Microsoft's Peter Biddle on 5 Aug 2002; 
> unfortunately the cryptography archive is missing this day's 
> messages.  "The memory isn't encrypted, nor are the apps nor 
> the TOR when they are on the hard drive. Encrypting the apps 
> wouldn't make them more secure, so they aren't encrypted."  
> See also 
> http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@wasabisystems.com/msg
> 02554.html,
> Lucky Green's description of Microsoft's lack of plans to use Pd for
copy protection.

In the interest of clarity, it probably should be mentioned that any
claims Microsoft may make stating that Microsoft will not encrypt their
software or software components when used with Palladium of course only
applies to Microsoft and not to the countless other software vendors
creating applications for the Windows platform.

Lastly, since I have seen this error in a number of articles, it seems
worth mentioning that Microsoft stated explicitly that increasing the
security of DRM schemes protecting digital entertainment content, but
not executable code, formed the impetus to the Palladium effort.

--Lucky Green


---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at wasabisystems.com