http://worldtechtribune.com/worldtechtribune/asparticles/buzz/bz06282002.asp
Banner 10000090 WorldTechTribune/Buzz_______________________________ Microsoft's Palladium transforms Internet from Wild West to suburban neighborhood Special to WorldTechTribune Scott McCollum June 28, 2002 Microsoft's "Palladium" project was announced this week. If you haven't heard, Palladium is a computer security solution that requires software and hardware to work properly much like a common Automated Teller Machine in a mall uses hardware (the reader that scans your personal bank card) and software (the user interface used to enter in your PIN) to secure your transaction. Palladium is in the planning stage right now, but Microsoft has already secured the support of microprocessor giants Intel and AMD to supply the chips needed to harden Palladium's software security. Between now and the time Palladium technology ships (possibly in 2004), Microsoft will announce partnerships with financial services, entertainment enterprises, health care providers and government customers who will utilize Palladium. Unless this is the first time you've ever read World Tech Tribune.com, you probably don't see where this is going Yes, the outcry from so-called cyber libertarians, open source cultists and tax-exempt organizations concerned about the destruction of privacy by huge corporations was immediate and deafening. Well, just the organizations worried about destruction of privacy by Microsoft. Remember, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said: "this privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion" while lobbying Congress for National ID cards using Oracle database technology back in October 2001, leftist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for Democracy and Technology and American Civil Liberties Union gave a half-hearted "we're closely watching the situation" and a missive wave to Ellison's outrageous statement. It was mostly conservative pundits and groups that shoved Ellison back into his Silicon Valley hole. What is the problem these groups have with Palladium technology? According to the story in Newsweek magazine that broke the story on Microsoft's Palladium, this new initiative's goal is make the PC more secure and private. The idea is that Palladium will use software routines and hardware chips in your computer to create a "zone" of privacy that is accessible only to authorized apps and users. In this zone, apps, files and documents will be encrypted to keep thieves from stealing anything off of your PC. However, the main reason why I view Palladium as secure is because it makes your computer a unique and individual entity on the Internet which allows for transparent Internet transactions. In other words, with Palladium you know exactly who you're talking to and dealing with while online. The outcry against Palladium doesn't really stem from a concern about your privacy, but more from a vocal minority who wish to impose their anarchistic schemes onto us under the guise of "freedom" and "liberty." It has often been said that the Internet is similar to the "Wild West" and should be kept that way, because that was a time were people (mostly men with guns) were truly free to roam and explore. Crazy as it sounds many cyber libertarians and open source cultists truly believe that all freedoms on the Internet will be destroyed in the coming transformation of the Internet into some gated suburban neighborhood. Don't think of the Internet as a frighteningly lawless place controlled by the few elites that write programs and communicate via cryptic shell commands - think of it as "freedom" because anyone has the "freedom" to learn Perl or C++, write their own code and share it with other elites on the Internet. It should be pointed out that America's amazing economic boom that increased the incomes and quality of life for every socioeconomic segment of the population did not come from the sharing of wealth by the few elite ultra-rich railroad and cattle barons of the nineteenth century. Actually, the economic booms spearheaded by a broad and relatively well educated group of American middle-class consumers came in the 1950s and 1980s; booms that built the Internet and were a full hundred years after the lawless Wild West era was finished. Regardless of what some leftist self-appointed libertarian Internet watchdogs and privacy advocates will try to say, the citizens living in the nineteenth century are nowhere close to being as "free" as those fortunate enough to be alive now. These hypocrites are right about Microsoft's vision of Palladium, it is a technology that wants to turn the lawless Wild West into an orderly suburban neighborhood. Gated communities much like those hypocritical privacy advocates live in. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]