On May 14, 2011, at 1:25 AM, Ralph Green wrote: > I insist on no such thing. I just steer clear of it. No fear > mongering is involved. Just rational analysis.
Hence the use of rational, non-emotional words like 'treacherous' and 'His Steveness' and 'control freak'. 8-/ The *hardware* cannot be set to do what you claim, because the control of TPM is done by SOFTWARE. (and in software I'm including any firmware or EFI code to enable it because both EFI and firmware are re-writeable.) RMS has problems with proprietary* OS'es and TPM because they could be used to implement such controls as you describe, but the presence of a TPM chip alone can not do that. The link to the Amit Singh article with accompanying source code proves that. You can make the TPM module accept an arbitrary key pair for verification. Indeed, it should be possible to write a TPM driver that ensures that only truly GPL'ed and open code can run. It would involve some seriously gnarly (gnu-rly?) key management and verification stuff and require servers to do that (akin to PGP key exchanges and trust relationships) but it could be done. GPL violations could be handled by revocation of the key. Boom! Violating code no longer runs. It's like turning the Empire's strength against it. So to speak. 8-P *well,aside from his problems with proprietary software, full stop. -- Bruce Johnson "Wherever you go, there you are" B. Banzai, PhD -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
