Tuesday September 26, 2006

Trusted Computing Platform Alliance - an initiative to manage rights on hardware level - isn't really a thing I trust in. two designers from Augsburg (where I live in Germany) Benjamin Stephan and Lutz Vogel have given a video statement which you HAVE to see.

A better resolution is available at http://www.lafkon.net/tc/.

Why I think TCPA isn't good
TCPA stands for Trusted Computing Platform Alliance. For the technology we will speak from TCP (The trusted computing platform). This plans that every computer will have a TPM (Trusted Platform Module), also known as Fritz-Chip, built-in. At later development stages, these functions will be directly included into CPUs, graphiccards, harddisks, soundcards, bios and so on. This will secure that the computer is in a TCPA-conform state and that he checks that it's always in this state.

This means: On the first level comes the hardware, on the second comes TCPA and then comes the user. The complete communication works with a 2048 bit strong encryption, so it's also secure enough to make it impossible to decrypt this in realtime for a longer time. This secures that the TCPA can prevent any unwanted software and hardware. The long term result will be that it will be impossible to use hardware and software that's not approved by the TCPA. Presumably there will be high costs to get this certification and that these would be too much for little and mid-range companies. Therefore open-source and freeware would be condemned to die, because without such a certification the software will simply not work. In the long term only the big companies would survive and could control the market as they would like.

More info at http://www.againsttcpa.com/.

Wednesday September 20, 2006

Trisent is a technology company that has created a revolutionary new way to continuously track the location of mobile phones. Unlike Cell-ID technology the system is continuously aware of the location of the tracked phone, when a phone moves the location is automatically updated. This is a real alternative to GPS and it uses standard mobile phone handsets! Trisent argues: "GPS handsets are expensive, they drain your battery quickly and in many situations they cannot see the satellites so they don't always work. Trisent's technology overcomes these problems by using off-the-shelf technology which works anywhere with mobile coverage."

Trisent, a scottish mobile company, partners together with russian operator Vimpelcom to roll this service out. Perhaps a nightmare for every worker but a great control about their employees for the companies using this service. The only opportunity NOT to get tracked is by switching of the mobile phone...

More info at http://www.trisent.com/.