AMD just as bad as Intel

[hapoo]

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/09/14/1031608343597.html


Bit by bit, digital freedom disappears
By Nathan Cochrane
September 17 2002
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Another stage in Microsoft's five-year plan to control our PCs and the Internet will kick off early next year with the launch of Advanced Micro Devices' latest chip, Opteron, aimed at business uses.

The new microprocessor, which will run both existing 32-bit applications and specially recompiled 64-bit programs, will support "Palladium", a set of security and privacy features Microsoft is building into its products. Both AMD and Microsoft are members of the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA), a cabal of 170 product makers developing a uniform approach to security and copyright protection. AMD has been working on the "trusted client" approach with Wave Systems Corp for two years.

AMD's chips will increase the security of those accessing programs and the Internet, says company marketer Patrick Moorhead. But it will also refuse to play certain content if it is not digitally signed by Microsoft or an authorised party.

For the end-to-end security features to work as envisioned by the TCPA, all parties along the network chain must build in complementary security features. Chips from the likes of AMD and Intel will only decode information, such as audio and video, if it comes with an unlocking key. Hard-drive makers will make drives that won't record certain types of information, and so on.

It is envisaged that once the TCPA system is fully functioning, our PCs would quietly report to authorities any unauthorised content on our machines. PCs and other devices would also refuse to play content, such as a music CD, tied to another device, and may be instructed by a remote server to delete information from the owner's hard drive.

Moorhead, AMD's vice-president of consumer advocacy, dismisses consumer complaints that the ever-tightening noose designed to stop online piracy, known as Digital Rights Management (DRM), will erode existing rights.

But he says AMD believes that these technologies should be "opt-in" - that the user should control it - not government mandates.

Hollywood and the music industry are lobbying hard to make DRM mandatory in all new devices, and existing laws here and in the US make it a crime to switch it off.

Moorhead says the end user has been "unfairly branded" as a thief, and he believes most people would buy content online if it was available but it is being held back by a skittish film and recording industry.

But Dan Bricklin, computing pioneer and co-developer of the world's first popular spreadsheet, VisiCalc, says attempts to copy-protect works are a "simple fix" to preserve out-dated business models.

Further, he wrote, using legislation to bolster technological methods would be "bad for society", hobbling technology.

"Copy protection, like poor environment and chemical instability before it for books and works of art, looks to be a major impediment to preserving our cultural heritage."

[spigidygak]

Well. . . maybe there will be a pencil trick for this too? heh. . . maybe if Apple doesn't do anything about this issue they'll get more users then :shrug: yeah right, who am I kidding, hehe.

[NuTs62]

perhaps we should buy up the chips of today, and when all those new chips come out, sell these at a premium? err well, i can dream can't I? blah.. the horror! we may hafta start doing everything legit! :angry:

[Ladogaboy]

Well, it's not even a matter of doing things legit. Stuff like this gives the hardware world an AOLish feel. You can only use "authorized" software. Anything that you didn't pay for, whether it be a home movie or an audio clip you just recorded, won't play or even store on your computer. :eek:

/me goes to ask George Orwell where he hid his crystal ball.

[Tommy Boomfiger]

woo hooo, multimedia computers which can only play "authorized" multimedia. how would they explain to the hundreds of thousands of computer users and businesses who use pc's to video and audio edit that they cant do this any more?

im thinkin that they arent going to stop all unauthorized content from playing, just files which are encoded a certain way. without a key they wont be playing anything. this will most likely be based on operating systems so there is probably a 90% chance it wont apply to anything but windows and macs. which will also mean that there wont be any official support for unix based os's and plenty of those people will be working on a way around that stuff. seems like a good time to start playing around with linux ;)

[bachviet]

With this rate, I would get the fastest P4 or AMD before implementation of the new "security" chip. I would keep the computer forever so I still could listen to my mp3s and videos. ;) I was hoping AMD won't go the way Intel does but I guess not!

[Ladogaboy]

Originally posted by bachviet
With this rate, I would get the fastest P4 or AMD before implementation of the new "security" chip. I would keep the computer forever so I still could listen to my mp3s and videos. ;) I was hoping AMD won't go the way Intel does but I guess not!

Haha, it would be really funny if a large portion of the population just stopped buying those computer components. It's funny to watch companies cry. :bawl: There's nothing like having your agenda planted squarely in your pocketbook.

[xsiled2]

i sure as hell aint going to VIA....

[Ladogaboy]

Originally posted by xsiled2
i sure as hell aint going to VIA....

Even if you stopped buying CPU's right now, you'd have to wait about 5 years for them to catch up. :heh:

[hapoo]

Originally posted by bachviet
With this rate, I would get the fastest P4 or AMD before implementation of the new "security" chip. I would keep the computer forever so I still could listen to my mp3s and videos. ;) I was hoping AMD won't go the way Intel does but I guess not!



Actually as long as you don't upgrade to an OS that supports it you don't have anything to worry about. I have a feeling the linux crowd is going to get a little bigger now.

[ski]

I was required to install Linux for my Data Structures course here at Virginia Tech. I had friends that had played around with it before, but I was kinda skeptic of it at first. When you actually get into using it, you notice that Microsoft rips a lot of Linux ideas off and uses them in XP. You'll notice the way the toolbars are grouped together (like 6 IE windows will show up as one on the bottom).

But I read and article over the summer in a PC magazine saying that if Photoshop were ever released for a UNIX environment, it would even the playing field even more for Linux vs. Windows. Amazing how it balances on one program's support ;)

[Cantacuzene]

I think it says you have the option of turning it on or off. Its a business thing, so businesses will want to turn it on. Its something you have full control of if you are teh admin of your computer.

[Maarchk]

How can a chip tell what programs you are using? wont it require mobos and other pieces to all be "anti bad guy" compliable? and for that matter.. what about programs ? i had heard that winamp was going to make things that only let you play cd's and rips of cd's that matched your ip and other such sillyness... but i mean can a chip without other parts do what they are saying? i have kinda been seeing things like this coming so i have been slowly backing my world up so to speak... every time new protection on programs and stuff claims to be coming... i make a cd with all my old program installs on it, so if a new one has security or spyware i dont like, i can always go back to an older version..... who knows.. maybe in the future i will be usuing windows 3.1 and a 386 so i can listen to my music... hehe wouldn't that be fun?:P

Maarchk

[xsiled2]

Originally posted by Ladogaboy


Even if you stopped buying CPU's right now, you'd have to wait about 5 years for them to catch up. :heh:

bah hahahaha, they suck.

[Tommy Boomfiger]

Originally posted by Maarchk
How can a chip tell what programs you are using? wont it require mobos and other pieces to all be "anti bad guy" compliable? and for that matter.. what about programs ? i had heard that winamp was going to make things that only let you play cd's and rips of cd's that matched your ip and other such sillyness... but i mean can a chip without other parts do what they are saying? i have kinda been seeing things like this coming so i have been slowly backing my world up so to speak... every time new protection on programs and stuff claims to be coming... i make a cd with all my old program installs on it, so if a new one has security or spyware i dont like, i can always go back to an older version..... who knows.. maybe in the future i will be usuing windows 3.1 and a 386 so i can listen to my music... hehe wouldn't that be fun?:P

Maarchk audio and video files have to be decoded to play. all of the stuff you are playing now wont be affected by this because it hasnt been encoded with any protections on it. in order to decode it you will need software which relies on hardware to run. that hardware will detect it and wont play it without a "key" to decode it properly. chances are these files will only play on processors that support this method of encoding, BUT, there will be systems and/or software which can decode it and reencode it into a format which can be played on any system

[smurphy]

Just a thought. What if Microsoft gets their way and gets legislation that forces all computers (x386) to run only their OS's and end the linux issue. That would complete the 1984'ish feel. Most OEM ship Windows regardless of the users choice, except Dell I think.

Has anyone heard what Apple is doing? Is it only MS?

Don't know, kind of gets me.....

Don't know if that would work here in Canada but we usually follow suit with that stuff.

Cheers,
Scott Murphy

[NuTs62]

Originally posted by smurphy
Just a thought. What if Microsoft gets their way and gets legislation that forces all computers (x386) to run only their OS's and end the linux issue. That would complete the 1984'ish feel. Most OEM ship Windows regardless of the users choice, except Dell I think.

Has anyone heard what Apple is doing? Is it only MS?

Don't know, kind of gets me.....

Don't know if that would work here in Canada but we usually follow suit with that stuff.

Cheers,
Scott Murphy

Interesting thought, but with the government going anti-monopoly against Microsoft, thats highly unlikely.

[smurphy]

Yea that is what I thought too until I read about the Win2K SP3 and WinXP SP1 EULA that basically states that MS can access your computer whenever they want legally (Time for Zonelabs to be running and blocking all unknow apps!). This then lead me to think that maybe the DoJ softened their stance with the possibility of access to all Win OS's for "security reasons". Wow the paranoia is high...just me maybe?!

Cheers,
Scott Murphy

[kain9i6]

ANYTHING that is engineered.. Can be reverse engineered..
That's the way it's always been and will always be. Just have to find the person with the patience, or the person who knows someone, who knows someone, who knows someone who works for the company that engineered whatever it is and slip him a fifty =0P

[hapoo]

they tried to do that with the xbox... one year later we've got linux running on it :P

[NuTs62]

Originally posted by hapoo
they tried to do that with the xbox... one year later we've got linux running on it :P

and Microsoft plans to do some more to stop that.. they are modifying it from what I saw on the news yesterday.

[Tommy Boomfiger]

Originally posted by NuTs62


and Microsoft plans to do some more to stop that.. they are modifying it from what I saw on the news yesterday. got a link or some site that has more info on that?