Windows Palladium, the end of privacy as we know it.

[xzxzzx]

Originally posted by Kazuko
actually, it's not MS who is the culprit on the server end... DMR (the coding that will be included IN THE PROCESSOR) is what kills the net. Of course, you can turn it off, however, DMR keeps "unauthorized" programs from running on a PC. Chances are the servers will have this activated. Windows merely acts as a GUI for the DMR settings.
As long as servers have AMD and Intel processors, they will have DMR in the system (starting soon) and therefore, be tainted.

You are partially correct, my friend. The DMR *must* interface with the OS - there is no way the driver for every piece of hardware necessary to do the functions of "Palladium" will be encoded in a CPU. Also, Intel and AMD have NOT said "we will produce ONLY DMR chips" - they said "we will produce them" - NOT necessarily to the exclusion of non-compliant chips. Again, what makes you think AMD or Intel have dominant positions in the server world? RISC, or other, processors are much more common.

If you're running Linux (which will include DMR support, eventually), then don't worry, a patch will be included with Linux (well, not officially) (or will be able to be downloaded - the DMCA doesn't reach that far) to do a 'software bypass' - totally reasonable, the encryption key will be the only real roadblock. And I'm sure a few sysadmins running large processor clusters won't mind using some spare cycles


Correct me if I'm wrong (it's been a while since I read all about this - perhaps I'm mistaken).

[BDA7DD]

Originally posted by xzxzzx
Linux (which will include DMR support, eventually)

Oh, I doubt that. The Linux community will never, EVER stand for this shit. Not one fucking chance. It'll be a very cold day in Hell when the open-source community sides with their archrivals, the opressive monopolistic corporations. This just ain't happening, man. I'd bet my balls on that.

[Tac-Man]

well dammitall, this sucks. I should get a lab so I can manufacture my own chips and stuff. I'm not talkin top of the line stuff, but its not too hard to make something like a pentium class processor. that or I am gonna start buying up cyrix and VIA cpus. long live competition .

[xzxzzx]

Originally posted by BDA7DD


Oh, I doubt that. The Linux community will never, EVER stand for this shit. Not one fucking chance. It'll be a very cold day in Hell when the open-source community sides with their archrivals, the opressive monopolistic corporations. This just ain't happening, man. I'd bet my balls on that.

Let me clarify. DRM? No. TCPA? Yes. Same thing? Kind of. A TCPA-enabled computer would be capable of DRM, in theory. TCPA will definately be supported by Linux, if it gains any kind of momentum. But that won't be bad.

[BDA7DD]

You know what? You're an idiot. It's a fucking piece of hardware. And how do we get hardware to work, kiddies? That's right, we use software to interface with it!

Palladium will be able to interface with the DRM and encryption features of these proposed TCPA-compliant processors and motherboard chips because the SOFTWARE includes the features to interface with the HARDWARE. Linux will only be able to interface with these features IF a new Linux kernel is compiled to do so, and even if that happens, people will just be stripping that module from the kernel at the first chance they get and posting it on the tinfoil hat wearer's Internet haven known as Slashdot.

If you don't use the TCPA features of the processor, that won't cripple your system or make it unusable. The TCPA features will be independant from the rest of the processor, just like every other feature of processors today are independant from one another. For example, to take advantage of the 3DNow! features in the latest AMD processors, usually you need to install the drivers for it.

If you run Linux on a TCPA-complaint processor, as long as there aren't any TCPA-enabling modules compiled into the kernel, your system won't even know those features exist on your processor or anywhere else on your system for that matter. Linux will treat them as if they're not even there.

Again, the hardware has no way in telling whether or not it's even active, let alone what operating system you're running. The hardware is dependant on the software. A piece of hardware can't do anything without its accompanying software. Unless some software specifically detects the TCPA features on the processor and specifically requests the processor's TCPA features to do what they are designed to do, the TCPA features will just lay dormant doing absolutely nothing while the rest of the processor keeps chugging along and crunching numbers like it always has been.

[Kazuko]

No. They are talking about the on-board routines of the processor. Say a processor is DMR-active. It leaves a watermark on every bit of data that it transmits. Not done by windows, but as a function of the processor itself. This watermark is said to be computer specific and unduplicable. Now, when you send your watermaked data over the net, the receiving computer has SOFTWARE that recognizes the watermark, and it is the software that deems the data as worthy or unworthy (for lack of better terms) to run on their system. Example:
You're surfing the web.
You don't have a DMR processor.
You come across a link to a "really kick-ass" site.
You click the link.
Your CPU sends a request packet to the server for the site.
If the server is running Palladium (or the like), it practically ignores the request, because it is not watermarked.
THAT is the problem.

[fwgx]

Originally posted by Kazuko
If the server is running Palladium (or the like)

MS and intel have a tiny share of the server market. It's the companies that make 1u servers for webservers and dns that have control here. If MS and Intel go ahead with this, the people who make the decisions on what hardware and s/w to run, the people who know what they're doing and what's best for them, will never go for the wintel option. They'll bung Unix or linux on a blade or 1u server and keep the net as it was intended to be.

[whiteflip]

mmm kernels are yummy

if pladium is realized will some one tell me how to strip that module off of the kernel. ive never hacked the linux kernel before and have no clue how to do it...

[xzxzzx]

Originally posted by BDA7DD
You know what? You're an idiot. It's a fucking piece of hardware. And how do we get hardware to work, kiddies? That's right, we use software to interface with it!

I'm going to have to hurt you for your stupidity hurting my brain. Yes, I know there are no nerve endings in the brain. But trust me, it's possible.

Yes, in order to get hardware to work, you have to have software to use it. However, this cannot be any random string of 1s and 0s. It has to be in a specific format. Saying that you can just *ignore* a piece of hardware like this to avoid it is total stupidity. It's like saying you can get into a network via ignoring the firewall. Or that you can get into a building by ignoring the door.

WRONG.

Sure, you can ignore the door. But your head is gonna be hurting in a sec, and you won't get in the building. A current processor is like a door. You have to have certain specifications, but as long as those are met, you can get through. A TCPA enabled computer would be like a door with a lock. Not only do you have to fit through the door, but you also have to have the key.

But this is all somewhat moot - there simply arn't going to be enough servers with TCPA compliant hardware.

As for your 3DNow! analogy, 3DNow! is an EXENTION, not a CHANGE. It was intended to not work differently if you didn't use the new intstructions.

[fredowl87]

look everyone-

we all hate palladium. we have to assume the worst, too. i think what we need to do now is simply tell people how terrible this os is, and get people to use linux.

one thing that i find encouraging is that walmart now sells pcs that are preloaded with lindows!!!! and they are a lot less expensive cause windows aint on it.

[whiteflip]

Originally posted by fredowl87
one thing that i find encouraging is that walmart now sells pcs that are preloaded with lindows!!!! and they are a lot less expensive cause windows aint on it.

yeah just download/crack windows and install it over lindows

[Kazuko]

10 bucks says BillG files lawsuit.I mean, why wouldn't he, he's a sanctimonious bastard, AND he's a gold digger.

[virulent]

Originally posted by whiteflip

yeah just download/crack windows and install it over lindows

I'd have to agree with you there. I'd rather people that have never used linux before reformat and install something they know on it. All Lindows is is someone taking KDE and making it look like WinXP. All thats going to do is lead to confusion and the idea that "Linux sucks" because they can't make it work like Windows, even though they look almost identical.

Its just a really *bad* idea. If you want to learn linux, you need to realise that you're learning an entirely new way of doing things. You're going to learn about hardware and how your computer really works, rather than being walked through everything. Some like that, some don't.. but *tricking* someone into buying a computer that *looks* like something they understand is a bad idea.

[fwgx]

I read this today:

If you're going to start using Linux, your best bet it to buy a boxed verion with as much paper as you can get.

Then you have a chance of getting it to work rather than making false assumptions based on experience of a completly different OS and philosophy.

[jscriptstuff]

Linux for dummies?

I've never used linux before. Somebody please steer me in the right direction for dumping winblows forever. I would do it myself, but I'm a lazy SOB.