> I'd like the Palladium/TCPA critics to offer an alternative proposal > for achieving the following technical goal: > Allow computers separated on the internet to cooperate and share data > and computations such that no one can get access to the data outside > the limitations and rules imposed by the applications. > [...] > You could even have each participant compile the program himself, > but still each app can recognize the others on the network and > cooperate with them.
Unless the application author can predict the exact output of the compilers, he can't issue a signature on the object code. The compilers then have to be inside the trusted base, checking a signature on the source code and reflecting it somehow through a signature they create for the object code.