A guest editorial in Linux Devices explores the consequences of embedding "trusted computing" technology in the processors that drive everything from personal stereos to life-support systems in hospitals:
Heart patient Mr. Smith's life is in the hands of the sophisticated critical care life-support equipment that breaths for him, keeps his heart beating, delivers drugs in measured doses, and watches all his vital signs. A nurse plugs a digital thermometer into the life-support machine, not knowing that the thermometer was dropped and broken. The DRM agent in the core system tries to validate the passport on the new component, fails, declares that someone is stealing digital content, and shuts the main processor down. Too bad for Mr. Smith.
DRMP advocates will say that I'm an alarmist and that there will be ways to turn off the DRMP system or mitigate the effects. This is hard to credit. Try browsing the Internet without enabling cookies and Java to see how easy it is for pervasive options to become non-optional. DRMP only works if two conditions are both true (1) it is physically impossible to turn the agent off and (2) DRM agents are omnipresent, creating an inescapable web of DRM. If there is a way to turn the DRM agent off in a processor, some teenager will discover it and distribute disabling software over the network (see note 3) Let's figure out what would be needed to allow medical instrument makers to turn off DRMP.
(via /.)
