Last friday Brian LaMacchia from Microsoft held a presentation about a set of hardware and software security features currently under development for a future version of the Windows operating system.

Arnold Reinhold writes:

"I went. It was a good talk. The room was jam packed. Brian is very forthright and sincere. After he finished speaking, Richard Stallman gave an uninvited rebuttal speech, saying Palladium was very dangerous and ought to be banned. His concerns are legitimate, but the net effect, I think, was to make the Q&A session that followed less hostile.

Palladium sets up a separate trusted virtual computer inside the PC processor, with its own OS, called Nexus, and it own applications, called agents. The trusted computer communicates with a security co-processor on the mother board, and has a secure channel to your keyboard and mouse and to a selected window on your CRT screen."

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Comment:

Interesting information about Palladium can be found at Epic.org.

Related items

• News: Microsoft's Palladium: the real deal? (8 August 2002)
• News: Palladium debate heats up (29 July 2002)
• News: Microsoft Palladium: Access denied! (18 July 2002)
• News: Palladium holds Promise, and Peril (8 July 2002)
• News: Microsoft security plan shouldn't shut out competitors (3 July 2002)