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+ 32. Can You Trust Your Computer? +

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

+ Who should your computer take its orders from? Most people think +their computers should obey them, not obey someone else. With a plan +they call “trusted computing,” large media corporations +(including the movie companies and record companies), together with +computer companies such as Microsoft and Intel, are planning to make +your computer obey them instead of you. (Microsoft’s version of this +scheme is called Palladium.) Proprietary programs have +included malicious features before, but this plan would make it +universal. +

+

+ Proprietary software means, fundamentally, that you don’t control what +it does; you can’t study the source code, or change it. It’s not +surprising that clever businessmen find ways to use their control to +put you at a disadvantage. Microsoft has done this several times: one +version of Windows was designed to report to Microsoft all the +software on your hard disk; a recent “security” upgrade in + + + Windows Media Player required users to agree to new restrictions. But +Microsoft is not alone: the + + + KaZaA music-sharing software is designed +so that KaZaA’s business partner can rent out the use of your computer +to its clients. These malicious features are often secret, but even +once you know about them it is hard to remove them, since you don’t +have the source code. +

+

+ In the past, these were isolated incidents. “Trusted +computing” would make the practice pervasive. “Treacherous +computing” is a more appropriate name, because the plan is +designed to make sure your computer will systematically disobey you. +In fact, it is designed to stop your computer from functioning as a +general-purpose computer. Every operation may require explicit +permission. +

+

+ The technical idea underlying treacherous computing is that the +computer includes a digital encryption and signature device, and the +keys are kept secret from you. Proprietary programs will use this +device to control which other programs you can run, which documents or +data you can access, and what programs you can pass them to. These +programs will continually download new authorization rules through the +Internet, and impose those rules automatically on your work. If you +don’t allow your computer to obtain the new rules periodically from +the Internet, some capabilities will automatically cease to function. +

+ + + + +

+ Of course, Hollywood and the record companies plan to use treacherous +computing for Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), so +that downloaded videos and music can be played only on one specified +computer. Sharing will be entirely impossible, at least using the +authorized files that you would get from those companies. You, the +public, ought to have both the freedom and the ability to share these +things. (I expect that someone will find a way to produce unencrypted +versions, and to upload and share them, so DRM will not entirely +succeed, but that is no excuse for the system.) +

+

+ Making sharing impossible is bad enough, but it gets worse. There are +plans to use the same facility for email and documents—resulting +in email that disappears in two weeks, or documents that can only be +read on the computers in one company. +

+

+ Imagine if you get an email from your boss telling you to do something +that you think is risky; a month later, when it backfires, you can’t +use the email to show that the decision was not yours. “Getting +it in writing” doesn’t protect you when the order is written in +disappearing ink. +

+

+ Imagine if you get an email from your boss stating a policy that is +illegal or morally outrageous, such as to shred your company’s audit +documents, or to allow a dangerous threat to your country to move +forward unchecked. Today you can send this to a reporter and expose +the activity. With treacherous computing, the reporter won’t be able +to read the document; her computer will refuse to obey her. +Treacherous computing becomes a paradise for corruption. +

+

+ Word processors such as + + + Microsoft Word could use treacherous computing +when they save your documents, to make sure no competing word +processors can read them. Today we must figure out the secrets of +Word format by laborious experiments in order to make free word +processors read Word documents. If Word encrypts documents using +treacherous computing when saving them, the free software community +won’t have a chance of developing software to read them—and if +we could, such programs might even be forbidden by the + + + Digital +Millennium Copyright Act. +

+

+ Programs that use treacherous computing will continually download new +authorization rules through the Internet, and impose those rules +automatically on your work. If Microsoft, or the US government, does +not like what you said in a document you wrote, they could post new +instructions telling all computers to refuse to let anyone read that +document. Each computer would obey when it downloads the new +instructions. Your writing would be subject to 1984-style retroactive +erasure. You might be unable to read it yourself. +

+

+ You might think you can find out what nasty things a treacherous-computing +application does, study how painful they are, and decide +whether to accept them. Even if you can find this out, it would +be foolish to accept the deal, but you can’t even expect the deal +to stand still. Once you come to depend on using the program, you are +hooked and they know it; then they can change the deal. Some +applications will automatically download upgrades that will do +something different—and they won’t give you a choice about +whether to upgrade. +

+

+ Today you can avoid being restricted by proprietary software by not +using it. If you run GNU/Linux or another free operating system, and +if you avoid installing proprietary applications on it, then you are +in charge of what your computer does. If a free program has a +malicious feature, other developers in the community will take it out, +and you can use the corrected version. You can also run free +application programs and tools on nonfree operating systems; this +falls short of fully giving you freedom, but many users do it. +

+

+ Treacherous computing puts the existence of free operating systems and +free applications at risk, because you may not be able to run them at +all. Some versions of treacherous computing would require the +operating system to be specifically authorized by a particular +company. Free operating systems could not be installed. Some +versions of treacherous computing would require every program to be +specifically authorized by the operating system developer. You could +not run free applications on such a system. If you did figure out +how, and told someone, that could be a crime. +

+

+ There are proposals already for US laws that would require all computers to +support treacherous computing, and to prohibit connecting old computers to +the Internet. The + + + CBDTPA (we call it the Consume But Don’t Try Programming +Act) is one of them. But even if they don’t legally force you to switch to +treacherous computing, the pressure to accept it may be enormous. Today +people often use + + + Word format for communication, although this causes +several sorts of problems (see “We Can Put an End to Word +Attachments,” on p. @refx{No Word Attachments-pg}{). If only a treacherous-computing machine can read the +latest Word documents, many people will switch to it, if they view the +situation only in terms of individual action (take it or leave it). To +oppose treacherous computing, we must join together and confront the +situation as a collective choice. +

+

+ For further information about treacherous computing, see + + http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/tcpa-faq.html + + . +

+ + +

+ To block treacherous computing will require large numbers of citizens +to organize. We need your help! Please support + + + Defective by Design, the +FSF’s campaign against Digital Restrictions Management. +

+ + +

+ Postscripts +

+
    +
  1. + The computer security field uses the term “trusted +computing” in a different way—beware of confusion +between the two meanings. +
    2. +
  2. + The GNU Project distributes the + + + + + + + GNU Privacy Guard, a program that +implements public-key encryption and digital signatures, which you can +use to send secure and private email. It is useful to explore how GPG +differs from treacherous computing, and see what makes one helpful and +the other so dangerous. +

    + When someone uses GPG to send you an encrypted document, and you use +GPG to decode it, the result is an unencrypted document that you can +read, forward, copy, and even reencrypt to send it securely to +someone else. A treacherous-computing application would let you read +the words on the screen, but would not let you produce an unencrypted +document that you could use in other ways. GPG, a free software +package, makes security features available to the users; + + they + + use + + it. + + Treacherous computing is designed to impose restrictions on the users; + + it + + uses + + them. + +

    +
    3. +
  3. + The supporters of treacherous computing focus their discourse on its +beneficial uses. What they say is often +correct, just not important. +

    + Like most hardware, treacherous-computing hardware can be used for +purposes which are not harmful. But these features can be implemented in +other ways, without treacherous-computing hardware. The principal +difference that treacherous computing makes for users is the nasty +consequence: rigging your computer to work against you. +

    +

    + What they say is true, and what I say is true. Put them together and +what do you get? Treacherous computing is a plan to take away our +freedom, while offering minor benefits to distract us from what we +would lose. +

    +
    4. +
  4. + Microsoft presents + + + Palladium as a security measure, and claims that +it will protect against viruses, but this claim is evidently false. A +presentation by Microsoft Research in October 2002 stated that one of +the specifications of Palladium is that existing operating systems and +applications will continue to run; therefore, viruses will continue to +be able to do all the things that they can do today. +

    + When Microsoft employees speak of “security” in connection with +Palladium, they do not mean what we normally mean by that word: +protecting your machine from things you do not want. They mean +protecting your copies of data on your machine from access by you in +ways others do not want. A slide in the presentation listed several +types of secrets Palladium could be used to keep, including +“third party secrets” and “user +secrets”—but it put “user secrets” in +quotation marks, recognizing that this is somewhat of an absurdity in the +context of Palladium. +

    +

    + The presentation made frequent use of other terms that we frequently +associate with the context of security, such as “attack,” +“malicious code,” “spoofing,” as well as +“trusted.” None of them means what it normally means. +“Attack” doesn’t mean someone trying to hurt you, it means +you trying to copy music. “Malicious code” means code +installed by you to do what someone else doesn’t want your machine to +do. “Spoofing” doesn’t mean someone’s fooling you, it means +your fooling Palladium. And so on. +

    +
    5. +
  5. + A previous statement by the Palladium developers stated the basic +premise that whoever developed or collected information should have +total control of how you use it. This would represent a revolutionary +overturn of past ideas of ethics and of the legal system, and create +an unprecedented system of control. The specific problems of these +systems are no accident; they result from the basic goal. It is the +goal we must reject. +
    6. +
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