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Ambitious Plan to Let Users Control and Protect Information Will Require Remaking the Architecture of Personal Computers
Microsoft is developing a new system to improve computer security that will address concerns about privacy, security and intellectual property, Among the several benefits of the ambitious long-range plan, called "Palladium": it will seal information from attackers, it will block many viruses and worms from your computer and it will allow users to participate in new services and applications that allow control of their personal information even after it leaves their computer. Palladium could even help keep out spam from your inbox. To ensure security, the system requires special security chips, which Intel and Advanced Microdevices have agreed to produce. "It's one of the most technically complex things ever attempted on the PC," says Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds.
Technology Editor Steven Levy previews the new system in the July 1 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, June 24). Though Microsoft does not claim a panacea to security and privacy concerns, the system is designed to dramatically improve the ability to control and protect personal and corporate information. Even more important, Levy reports, it's intended to become a new platform for a host of yet-unimagined services to enable privacy, commerce and entertainment in the coming decades. "This isn't just about solving problems, but expanding new realms of possibilities in the way people live and work with computers," says product manager Mario Juarez
News source: Newsweek
Ambitious Plan to Let Users Control and Protect Information Will Require Remaking the Architecture of Personal Computers
Microsoft is developing a new system to improve computer security that will address concerns about privacy, security and intellectual property, Among the several benefits of the ambitious long-range plan, called "Palladium": it will seal information from attackers, it will block many viruses and worms from your computer and it will allow users to participate in new services and applications that allow control of their personal information even after it leaves their computer. Palladium could even help keep out spam from your inbox. To ensure security, the system requires special security chips, which Intel and Advanced Microdevices have agreed to produce. "It's one of the most technically complex things ever attempted on the PC," says Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds.
Technology Editor Steven Levy previews the new system in the July 1 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, June 24). Though Microsoft does not claim a panacea to security and privacy concerns, the system is designed to dramatically improve the ability to control and protect personal and corporate information. Even more important, Levy reports, it's intended to become a new platform for a host of yet-unimagined services to enable privacy, commerce and entertainment in the coming decades. "This isn't just about solving problems, but expanding new realms of possibilities in the way people live and work with computers," says product manager Mario Juarez
News source: Newsweek
The plan will also limit what arrives (and runs on) your computer according to where it comes from and who creates it. It won't let others pretend to be you. The system uses high-level encryption to "seal" data so that snoops and thieves are thwarted. It is also being offered to the studios and record labels as a way to distribute music and film with "digital rights management" (DRM) which could allow users to exercise "fair use" (like making personal copies of a CD) and publishers could at least start releasing works that cut a compromise between free and locked-down.
One hurdle in establishing this trust technology is getting people to trust Microsoft, Levy writes. To diffuse the inevitable skepticism, the company has begun educational briefings of industry groups, security experts, government agencies and civil-liberties watchdogs and is taking the unusual step of publishing the system's source code. Early opinion-makers are giving them the benefit of the doubt. "I'm willing to take a chance that the benefits are more than the potential downside," says Dave Farber, a renowned Internet guru. "But if they screw up, I'll squeal like a bloody pig."
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