News Phoenix Trusted BIOS Ships in LG, Samsung, Fujitsu PCs

From Extreme Tech:

Phoenix Technologies had begun shipping its trusted BIOS in PCs built by LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics and Fujitsu Ltd., the company said.

Phoenix launched its Core Managed Environment (cME) last November, and said it would begin shipping is software to notebook makers early in 2004. Tomorrow, LG will begin shipping CME inside of its own notebooks.

On Monday, Samsung said it installed the cME FirstBIOS software into all of its desktops and notebooks, while Fujitsu has also installed a version of the software, called cME FirstWare Vault, inside certain notebooks designed specifically for the Japanese market.

The overt purpose of the Phoenix cME BIOS is to provide an interface between the forthcoming elements of the "trusted PC": a trusted computing module, or secure chip mounted on the motherboard; and the "nexus", a secure software module that can be designed into the operating system. All three elements form part of Microsoft's Next-Generation Secure Computing Base, formerly code-named Palladium.

Phoenix, meanwhile, uses the term "cME" to describe its trusted environment as a whole, encompassing the BIOS as well as the trusted applications it itself has designed. The BIOS portion itself is known as cME FirstBIOS.

Rest of story is here...


[shakes head in disgust]

 

How the hell are people letting them get away with this?

 

i hate that idea too

 

Sooo what the hell happens if you use NON trusted software?? IE: Beta stuff, linux stuff..??

 

It wont run, same with any old and/or homebrew hardware like LCD displays.

 

?!?! W-T-F

 

thats kinda like the whole idea of this BIOS thing.
-M$/whoever say no more MP3 support?
*click*
Ooh look, no more MP3. No work arounds, no nothing.

If they play this wrong it could be the demise of M$, etc.

 

i see this taking off in the oem market, but only there, there are enough enthusiasts to sustain the market for "open" stuff.

 

Dad's sig has the link your after for more horrifying information: www.againsttcpa.com

The thing your missing Xeno, is that this is a world wide movement, and the list of supporting companies is huge, and encompasses pretty much every company involved in the IT industry. It's a movement that is sliding in under everyone's nose, they take bit by bit, and you don't notice until the whole thing is up your ass and you start to bleed. Unfortunately the general populous is ignorant to care, and there really is not much that can be done to stop it. The real fight will be against it once the TCPA goes live.

The GNU license is currently being assaulted ot be changed so that open source no longer exists legally, no system would be able to connect to teh trusted internet without such a machine and give up all freedoms to join, there is planning in the forums in the above site for actually plotting out and creating a second internet.

Run for your lives, Linux users. You are terrorists.

 

I still think that we all should just get wireless cards / routers with outdoor antennas and make our own p2p Internet.

 

The more i read, the more i feel physically sick.

 

ok just read the whole faq now on that link. I agree with the antipiracy/childporn angle, but not the power bestowed under that name.

"in 2010 President Clinton may have two red buttons on her desk - one that sends the missiles to China, and another that turns off all the PCs in China"

that scares the **** out of me, espacially as its mainly in US hands, nobody should have that kind of power, thats like having goldeneye on steroids.

 

Did that send chills down anyone elses back?

 

many, not just the clinton or her bits, but the hint that one button could do it. knowing the US it wouldnt surprise me, not saying we are any better mind.

 

That still raises the problem of connectivity, your investing in some seriously insane wireless technology (the stellite issue has come up) also organizing such a huge P2P network would be a nightmare. Having central servers would be infinitely easier to manage and allow for anyone to be online offline without having to be their own server for EVERYTHING.

The part that scares me is not the fact it's under US control at the moment (which it actually isn't) it's the fact that it's nightmarish claws reach around the entire globe.

Also building our own P2P system, or any system for that matter would be limited to pretty much the current technology we have now, which would soon become outdated, and teh only real way for technological advancement is to go with SPARC, which is damned powerful but damned expensive. Assuming of course they don't get sucked into the TCPA too.

*packing bags for China* Thus far the only sacred land from it all right now. Actually what does the country list look like? Any others on it yet? I should check that out.

 

anybody want to start a lift sharing system? failing that, all in favour of moving to anglesey say "aye".

 

same here, this is just disgusting

/me makes a note never to trust microsoft

like I ever did

 

No more so than seeing Bush get re-elected. But then, i cant vote even though these things affect me.

/OT

 

Dude, you just don't understand... I'd much rather have Bush than Hillary anyday. She is a Senator from my friggin state and has screwed with things I care about WAY too much.

Why? I mean why would it have to be organized? Way back when the Internet was the Arpanet, the main mode of communication between "nodes" was packet radio. What's the difference here?

 

Oh okay, With how your thinking yeah it would work fine. Sorry, I'm getting abit ahead of myself, with the thread on the other forum talk was going around about creating a second internet, one that is very much like the current one, perhaps a little older model of it, only governed by freedom and choice, and with something that huge it would require huge amounts of power.

Node hopping and true P2P networking could work fine though, yeah. Although intercontinental hopping wold be difficult, which is where satellites come in, and while not terribly expensive (considering what's involved ad what they do) the sabotage threat from the TCPA would be terrible. You launch a satellite, they **** with it and it crash lands in the middle of LA, now your faced with the reckless killing of millions.

Anything is possible. It's a matter of resources and obstacles.