[liberationtech] WC3 and DRM

[LilBambi]

These TPMs are being abused. You should be able to install your Linux
on your general purpose computer. Even if Windows and the OEM enable
the TPM, you should be given the ability to disable that. And that is
not the case in many OEM Windows 8 computers. I dual boot all my
computers. I have the right to do that on my own computer.

So although I think it 'could' be a good thing to have TPM enabled. In
my mind, the TPM is being abused by the OS and computer vendors if
they are not enabling you to disable it to install another OS.

AND more important, in many cases, they do not allow you to disable it
to install your alternative OS as a dual boot, and then re-enable TPM
so you have that so-called protection after you install your new OS.

I am the computer owner, not them. I should decide and I should be
able to still be protected on all my OSes that I manually disable the
TPM to install after the installation is completed. I should not have
to leave the TPM disabled just because I installed another OS.

Have it password protected or something so only the computer owner can
enable and disable it. Technical people would know how to do this and
generally only technically oriented people would be doing these types
of dual boot installations.

Just a thought. BTW, I see where Cory has somewhat come around, but
not entirely and only due to computer security.

On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 6:34 PM, Richard Brooks <rrb at acm.org> wrote:
> Also interestingly explored in Vernor Vinge's "Rainbow's End"
>
> On 07/26/2013 06:18 PM, Steve Weis wrote:
>> DRM technologies have a flip side as privacy-preserving technology.
>> It's all a matter of whose data is being protected and who owns the
>> hardware.
>>
>> We generally think of DRM in cases where the data owner is large
>> company and an individual owns the hardware. In this case, DRM stops
>> you from copying data you paid for from your own device.
>>
>> Now flip the roles. You're the data owner and the large company is the
>> hardware owner; say a cloud computing provider you lease machines
>> from. Those same technologies can prevent that service provider from
>> accessing your private data.
>>
>> Cory Doctrow has come around to this view, as he discusses in his talk
>> "The coming civll war over general purpose computing" [1]. He's now
>> advocating the use of Trust Platform Modules (TPMs) as a "nub of
>> stable certainty" which you can use to verify that whatever hardware
>> you are using is faithfully booting your own software. This is a
>> significant departure from viewing TPMs as an anti-consumer
>> technology, which was espoused by groups like Chilling Effects [2].
>>
>> As Doctrow puts it "a victory for the "freedom side" in the war on
>> general purpose computing would result in computers that let their
>> owners know what was running on them". Some of the very same
>> technologies that enable DRM could help us verify that computers are
>> running what they should be.
>>
>> [1] http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html
>> [2] http://chillingeffects.org/anticircumvention/weather.cgi?WeatherID=534
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 2:22 PM, Richard Brooks <rrb at acm.org> wrote:
>>> Obviously, these issues have been very thoroughly discussed
>>> by Corey Doctorow and Larry Lessig. DRM has not proved to be
>>> effective at safeguarding intellectual property. It seems
>>> to be most effective as a tool in maintaining limited
>>> monopolies, since it stops other companies from investing
>>> in creating products compatible with existing products.
>>>
>> --
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>
>
> --
> ===================
> R. R. Brooks
>
> Associate Professor
> Holcombe Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
> Clemson University
>
> 313-C Riggs Hall
> PO Box 340915
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>
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> email: rrb at acm.org
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