Intel to include DRM in new Pentium 4 series processors

[Ken Brown]

Brian Gladman wrote:

[...]

> > Based on this I don't see how anyone can promise that the hardware
> > owner will _always_ be able to load any key he wishes.
> 
> Of course not - in a trivial case the secure store may be full.  But in
> priciple the PC owner has full control over TCPA key management features.
> 
> However, once an owner allows a remote agent to 'rent' a secure box on their
> machine, they won't necessarily know what is goes on inside this box AND
> they won't necessarily know what their machine is doing when it is running
> software designed to run in association with this box.
> 
> This seems to me to be an incredibly stupid thing to allow on a machine that
> any owner wants to continue to trust.  I take the view that as soon as my
> machine runs _any_ software for which I do not know the functionality, I
> have then lost any ability to trust what my machine does from this point on
> (at least on current machines). And for me this means that TCPA DRM features
> may allow a remote agent to place more trust in a machice but they do so at
> the expense of the ability of the owner's trust in it.

But who is to say that the "owner" of a machine, in the TCPA sense, is
the human being who paid money for it in the shop?

What prevents hardware suppliers teaming up with content providers to
sell (or rent) machines that are programmed to only read files supplied
by them and which regard the software supplier as the "owner"?  So a
computer that can only play Disney-approved films or whatever. (Or
Sa'udi approved music, or CIA approved news broadcasts) 

We didn't come all this way to reinvent cable TV.