Re: [RFC v3][PATCH 2/2] intel_txt: Intel(R) TXT and tboot kernel support

Pavel Machek
2009-05-24T19:42:59Z

Hi!

> With TXT, however, all of these problems go away. What you end up
> booting is completely under "Circit City's DIVX's" control, and may
> include a miniature Windows environment running in the trusted
> environment; it could then take over a portion of the screen for the
> video output, and the hardware would have special features set up to
> prevent the host OS from having any access to the video output of the
> movie player running in the TXT environment. (This was how Intel
> presented the LaGrande technology to the Kernel Summit several years
> ago, and I assume the capabilities of TXT hasn't change significantly
> since then.)

How does this interact with keyboard handling?

> Essentially, it's hard for me to think up situations where the TCPA
> chip would not be sufficient in terms of being a solution to a
> security problem that has the user's best interests at heart, rather
> than that of Hollywood, and where TXT would be a such a solution.
> Medical records are perhaps the best example I can come up with; and
> maybe some kind of bank security system where you're only allowed to
> engage in on-line banking if you run a bank-supplied application in
> the TXT environment. However, it's hard for me to believe banks and
> hospitals will invest in solutions that implement these sorts of
> benign solutions, and it's all too easy for me to believe that
> Hollywood will invest in these sorts of solutions.

I suspect it does not 'protect' keyboard at all, meaning it is only
useful for drm.
> The bottom line is it this is a social problem, not a technical
> problem, and probably needs to be solved by social means (i.e., an
> FSF-led boycott). But from a technical point of view, I would be
> shocked if the first major user of the TXT technology *wasn't* to
> provide DRM enforcement of one kind or another.

I see not merging / dropping changes only useful for drm from linux
kernelas a valid 'social means'...
Pavel

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