Cheers Stephen for sending in this via email.. and neo1980 for posting this in BPN Forum.. Microsoft wants to change the fundamental architecture of the PC, adding security hardware to a future release of its Windows operating system, the company acknowledged Monday, after a media report and an analyst briefed by the company said as much.
The Redmond, Wash.-based company wants future PCs to contain a security technology called Palladium, and is in discussion with Intel and Advanced Micro Devices to develop the chips, according to a report in the July 1 issue of Newsweek magazine published Sunday on the MSNBC Web site. Microsoft owns a stake in MSNBC.
Palladium "is really about security, privacy and system integrity," said Mario Juarez, group product manager for the content security business unit at Microsoft. "We're talking here about rearchitecting the PC platform."
Palladium will create a secure space within a PC in which users will be able to run applications and store data, he said. The secure space will not be accessible to the rest of the PC, meaning that a virus infecting the non-Palladium part of the computer would not make its way into the secure area, Juarez said.
The timeframe for Palladium's inclusion into Windows is unsure for now, as the initiative is only in its early stages, he said.
Among possible applications of the technology are authentication of communications and code, data encryption, privacy control and digital rights management (DRM), according to the Newsweek report. Microsoft was awarded a U.S. patent on a "digital rights management operating system" in December 2001, though Juarez could not definitely say that that patent was directly related to Palladium.
News source: Full article @ Infoworld
View: Does it take hardware to repel pirates? (Posted @ Neowin 03/23/2002)
