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RSS feedsI think I must be getting a little bit paranoid. I've just had Internet Explorer close on me, first asking if I'd like to send Microsoft an error report.
I said no and wondered whether my three Explorer windows had been closed because at that particular time I had three websites open, each containing a highly critical report of a new Microsoft project called Palladium.
Palladium isn't, as I thought, the name of a large theatre just off Oxford Street given to producing large family-oriented spectaculars. Palladium was the name of the building housing a statue of Pallas Athene, erected to protect the ancient city of Troy.
Microsoft has taken this name to describe its next-generation operating system, an act that presumably makes the Redmond campus the new Troy. Classical scholars will recall that Troy's end came when it was besieged by the Greeks at the end of the Trojan War by the Trojan horse. The statue of Pallas Athene proved useless in defence.
Having learned a little more about the plans behind Palladium, I can only hope that a similar fate awaits Microsoft's proposed protective edifice. For Palladium is a deeply unhealthy vision of the connected, globalised, US-centric world operated by mega corporations.
It might only be a vision-vapourware, but it's one that describes a world where software and data held on your PC are rendered unreadable or can even be removed by some unseen hand because they don't think you should be looking at it.
It's a world where you'll be milked by an array of methods for every penny you have to watch a movie, listen to a tune, use an application and whatever else.
The basic idea is to encrypt data and applications on your PC, then use a system of checks and 'trusted agents' to confirm the validity of these items before allowing them to be used.
Microsoft insists that this is an open system and that it will be the user who chooses to enable these features but, if applications coming from elsewhere require that it and third parties are determining the rules of access, what choice is the user left with?
And where will these 'trusted agents' come from anyway? According to Microsoft, the system is based on creating trusted holders of information who control the applications and data held on your PC.
Your PC is monitored by a new piece of silicon that will be integrated into processors from AMD and Intel, and which will check the state of your PC, applications and hardware and determine whether you have up-to-date licences. If not, you won't be able to use them.
The reason for all this was to help the operating system take control of copyrighted material. However, this vision has now spread to cover every aspect of your PC and seems to have been devised with US-based business objectives in mind. It's an example of how to capture markets, avoid piracy in places like China and the Far East and make more money out of PC users.
It's a chilling vision, but this announcement's has got out way ahead of its planned time. Microsoft hoped to launch Palladium next year. However, its well laid plan went wrong because US journalists discovered some patent applications for the concepts and asked the company what it was all about.
The technical implications and complexities are well described by others (see Ross Anderson's Q&A here), but every observer seems to agree that this a bad thing.
Microsoft's own explanation is available here and repeatedly reminds us that the technology can be switched off. But if we switch it off, exactly what will we be left able to do?
As well being a Microsoft vision, this concept ties in both Intel and AMD. If all three persist in pushing this concept, I suggest we stop buying the products as soon as they decide to incorporate the unwanted technology.
Maybe this is the boost that the Chinese chip industry and Linux needs to kick off as a viable alternative.
However, I hope Wintel/AMD realise this is a step too far in interfering in our privacy and freedom and step back from the brink. But maybe we're just seeing a process of expectation setting.
When the 'real' Palladium is announced and turns out not to be quite the Big Brother concept being represented at the moment, we'll all heave a sigh of relief. Yes, I must be getting paranoid.
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