TPM & disk crypto

[Adam Back]

So the part about being able to detect viruses, trojans and attest
them between client-server apps that the client and server have a
mutual interest to secure is fine and good.

The bad part is that the user is not given control to modify the hash
and attest as if it were the original so that he can insert his own
code, debug, modify etc.

(All that is needed is a debug option in the BIOS to do this that only
the user can change, via BIOS setup.)

Adam

On Mon, Oct 09, 2006 at 08:03:40PM +1000, James A. Donald wrote:
> Erik Tews wrote:
> >What you do is, you trust your TPM and your BIOS that they never lie to
> >you, because they are certified by the manufature of the system and the
> >tpm. (This is why it is called trusted computing)
> >
> >So if you don't trust your hardware and your manufactor, trusted
> >computing is absolutely worthless for you. But if you trust a
> >manufactor, the manufactor trusts the tpms he has build and embedded in
> >some systems, and you don't trust a user that he did not boot a modified
> >version of your operating system, you can use these components to find
> >out if the user is lieing.
> 
> Well obviously I trust myself, and do not trust anyone else all that 
> much, so if I am the user, what good is trusted computing?
> 
> One use is that I can know that my operating system has not changed 
> behind the scenes, perhaps by a rootkit, know that not only have I not 
> changed the operating system, but no one else has changed the operating 
> system.
> 
> Further, I can know that a known program on a known operating system has 
> not been changed by a trojan.
> 
> So if I have a login and banking client program, which communicates to 
> me over a trusted path, I can know that the client is the unchanged 
> client running on the unchanged operating system, and has not been 
> modified or intercepted by some trojan.
> 
> Further, the bank can know this, and can just not let me login if there 
> is something funny about client program or the OS.

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