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| DownUnder | August 2002 |
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The Dinosaur and The Digital Dungeon In Jurassic Park III, Dr. Alan Grant (played by Sam Neill) make the point that some incredibly bad things have been done with the best intentions. This seems to be the case with Microsoft's new Palladium initiative, which the company is hoping to establish as the industry standard in digital rights management and anti-piracy. A wise lawyer once said that copyright legislation is only tolerated because minor infringements are not pursued. I expect that Microsoft will find this out very quickly, as the pressure is mounting from consumers and consumer groups, the EU and many foreign governments, who all feel that Palladium goes too far. What is Palladium? It is a secure computing platform that protects applications from tampering and allows secure communications between the software vendor and the computer. Pirate software will no longer run, and may even be able to be deleted from the hard drive or disabled remotely. And Palladium-enabled software, music and movie downloads will not be able to be copied or swapped, and may even expire (like your dial-up account) if you don't pay the bill. Predictably enough, Palladium appears to have been motivated by good intentions. Bad software costs the US around US$59.5 billion a year, and as Microsoft Windows controls around 85-87% of the desktop market, it follows that Windows application errors are a huge problem. Unfortunately, when it comes to security, the things people usually want fixed are the basics; like viruses, spam, server software attacks, application scripting vulnerabilities and browser flaws. If you held a referendum on whether people wanted their applications, movie and music files encrypted, the result would undoubtedly be a resounding "no". Naturally enough, both Intel and AMD have jumped on to the Palladium bandwagon, with the first generation hardware systems offering a separate security chip. The second generation systems will have the Palladium chip built into the main processor. There are some signs that there is a power struggle between these key players, as Intel is not keen on Microsoft controlling this security initiative through patents and software. But the chipmakers have fallen upon hard times, and like Microsoft, need to continue growing or face tumbling stock prices. Palladium may not do much about bad software. Software errors and vulnerabilities are not catered for, and although Microsoft has indicated that the product will eventually conquer spam, there is currently no concrete plan for doing so. The company, in fact, has announced a spam-fighting service as part of its MSN 8 plans, but intends to charge $US10 a month for the service. It's clear that the vulnerabilities that people really want removed from Windows software will still have to be addressed separately. Palladium adds another layer of complexity on the operating system, and may actually increases the possibility of more software errors, not reduce them. So what else is wrong with Palladium? It's a digital dungeon that represents a lose-lose proposition for the consumer, who simply wants software to work correctly and reliably. While it may help fight piracy and copyright infringement, it will also allow Microsoft to control the market more completely, appease the Hollywood lobbyists, and charge more to end users. Some people in the open source community also fear that it is an effort by Microsoft to stop open source software running on cheap Intel boxes, perhaps not initially, but once the chips become integrated into the main processor. But more than anything, Palladium is about money. It will help ensure that emerging markets, such as China and India, pay up for their latest Microsoft software. The Chinese will, of course, resist this strongly, and have already announced plans to produce a Windows-compatible OS of their own and build support for the open source model. The European Union also has its own plans involving open source, as does the UK and Peru. Yet there appears to be no stopping the Palladium juggernaut. Microsoft has patented the anti-piracy and digital rights management aspects of Palladium, and no corporation spends money on patents without wanting a return on investment. Bill Gates once stated in a speech to students at the University of Washington that; “Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.” Well, Microsoft is indeed figuring out how to get people to pay up. It's software subscription system for business customers is highly unpopular, with only around 1/3 of corporate customers currently signed up. Many believe that the company will also roll out the idea to consumers, so you may soon be renting your software and operating system too. But software subscriptions are only part of the answer, as people can still pirate other software and "content" files. Now the company has found a way around that too. The Dinosaur has finally figured out how to collect. It's called Palladium. And it's a digital dungeon. Further reading: MS Palladium Frequently Asked Questions - Ross Anderson See you all in the next issue! Ian McPherson |
