Lest this degenerate into another anti-Microsoft panegyric, here's the MSNBC
gushy bit on Palladium, Microsoft's new hardware certification and
encryption device:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/770511.asp?cp1=1
Here's the Gurus (Register USA) article that got me thinking:
http://www.theregus.com/content/4/25378.html
My question is this. It looks like, even by the bright soft sweetness in
the MSNBC article, that everything that comes in and out, as well as gets
executed and touched by, a Palladium-based system needs to be certified.
If that's so, since many classic servers or systems may not have the oomph or
capability to exchange data with a Palladium because they can't build the
certificate, or if a licensing fee were needed from MS, what would this mean
to us running old servers or OSes that won't speak in Microsoft's blessed
credentials? Even E-mail or web pages served up might have to be signed.
I'm not upgrading stockholm or my Solbourne just to speak in certificates.
(The other issues, such as everything you run on a Palladium system having
to be signed, even freeware at a potential cost to the author for a license
key, as well as the death of open source, are probably OT but definitely
scary.)
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser_at_stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- A different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections. -- G. Eliot
Received on Thu Jun 27 2002 - 08:04:18 BST