Re: Retracting the term ownership (was: Re: Separate trusted computing designs)

[Christian Stüble]

Am Freitag, 1. September 2006 00:36 schrieb Marcus Brinkmann:
> At Thu, 31 Aug 2006 14:38:34 -0400,
>
> "Jonathan S. Shapiro" <address@hidden> wrote:
> > I do not believe that the same is true for TPM. The problem with TPM is
> > that the one widely publicized application is DRM. In discussions on
> > this list, we have identified a number of scenarios where TPM protects
> > the interests of the *customer*. TPM per se is merely a mechanism for
> > mechanically embedding certain contract terms. Some of those contracts
> > are socially bad, some are socially neutral, and some are socially
> > positive.
>
> That's the real question, isn't it?  The TPM supporters are
> cherry-picking the use cases and evaluating the scenarios mostly under
> the aspects of protection, and a narrow set of other interests.  So
> are doing some of the critics, I should add.  That's why I am
> targeting at a level of analysis that transcends the individual use
> cases.  A complete evaluation of the expected net effect on society is
> desperately lacking, but the threats are numerous and have been
> expressed by many parties.  To downplay this to the DRM example is an
> understatement of the criticism that exists.
The interesting question for me is whether the negative scenarios coming
with this technologie are caused by a bad design of the technology, or whether 
these bad examples are a logical consequence of a design that
allows the "good" ones (independent of the fact that we have different 
understandings what the "good" and "bad" examples are). 

>
> > There does not appear to be any technical means for differentiating
> > among these.
>
> There doesn't need to be.  We can do it in the old-fashioned, human
> way.
>
> > But arguing against TPM because of the single example of DRM does not
> > strike me as a sound approach. In principle, it is a good thing that
> > parties to a contract should be able to verify compliance.
>
> This is one of the claims that I would like to see analyzed further.
> I have given several specific, real world examples where this does not
> seem to be the case, but where breaking the terms of a contract is not
> only legitimate, but sometimes even a responsibility.  The most recent
> examples where the Pentagon papers, emergency action to avert danger,
> lieing in a job interview, and shrink-wrap licenses.
>
> > DRM is an unfortunate perversion of this technical capability.
>
> My current opinion is that the analysis indicates that it is not a
> perversion of the technology, but that the perversion is inherent in
> the technology, because of the inherent nature of information as
> non-proprietarizable.
>
> Interestingly enough, the same argument shows that the technology
> fundamentally doesn't work in the long run.  However, even if it
> doesn't work in principle, its attempted implementation can
> potentially do a lot of harm in the meantime.
>
> Thanks,
> Marcus