[Fwd: Re: sad treacherous computing day]

Patrick Ohnewein patrick.ohnewein at lugbz.org
Thu May 10 23:37:11 UTC 2007


Am Freitag, 11. Mai 2007 00:54 schrieb Ben Finney:
> On 10-May-2007, Patrick Ohnewein wrote:
> > > I don't see why we can't gain similar exposure of the threats of
> > > treacherous computing -- but *only* if we make our actions match
> > > our words, and reject it as clearly and consistently as we reject
> > > DRM.
> >
> > Do you think that preventing the diffusion of TPM chips can be
> > gained by convincing all members of the Free Software community not
> > to buy new hardware and ignore all new devices?
>
> That's nothing like "reject it as clearly and consistently as we
> reject DRM". You're talking about silence. I'm talking about making
> the problems clearly and widely known, while making our actions
> observably mesh with our words, as we've done with DRM.

No, I am not talking about silence, because if we are able to convince all 
Free Software users to not buy devices containing TPM chips, it will already 
be a big thing in my eyes.

But let's say we are able to convince them all, it will not be enough. Because 
most decision takers, deciding about the acquisition of big volumes of 
hardware, are not people inside the Free Software community.

I don't say that your arguments are wrong or that we have to accept TPM chips. 
I would only like to find a strategy to solve the problem, a strategy which 
allows us to make a constructive proposal to politicians and decision makers 
of the public administrations. If the PAs by law define that they can buy 
only systems, which garantee full control over all hardware and data, changes 
like the introduction of "Owner Override" into the TPM chips will be 
enforced.

I would be interested to get the information from someone more expert in this 
topic, if the "Owner Override" is enough for the user to gain control back or 
not.

And if yes, I would like to know, if there is someone planning to do some 
lobbying for this extension.

Happy hacking!
Patrick




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