Can we trust Microsoft's Palladium?

Critics say Redmond's new security initiative will imprison users. But why would Bill Gates want to do that?

By Farhad Manjoo

Jul 11, 2002 | Bruce Perens, a programmer, an author and a pioneer of the open-source software movement, has this axiom to describe the tech industry: "Nobody takes a new technology seriously until Microsoft does it."

Perens is not a fan of Microsoft, and he does not offer this observation as praise. Instead, what Perens means is this: Nothing can get you contemplating the full and various horrors that might be enabled by some simple and even dull-sounding technology -- "Web services," say -- quite like an announcement that Redmond is looking into it. It's especially rattling, Perens continues, when Microsoft says it's doing something unusually "big" or "ambitious," and when it frames its plans in terms of security and privacy.

Perens' observation held true in June, when Microsoft announced that it plans to use public-key cryptography and special cryptographic microprocessors to make the Windows operating system more secure. The initiative, called Palladium, after the mythological statue that defended ancient Athens against invaders, sits on a set of technologies that have long been in use. Neither public-key cryptography, which is decades old, nor the idea of using special hardware to bolster cryptography is new.

But it was only when Microsoft unveiled Palladium and disclosed that both Intel and AMD were willing to build hardware to support the plan that people became seriously worried about the idea of ubiquitous, cryptographically enabled and, in this case, monopolistically abetted "trusted computing."

Many longtime critics of Microsoft have been quick to dismiss the idea as smoke and mirrors, mere public relations. It's too complicated to ever actually work, some say, and it's just an attempt to convince people that Microsoft is sincere about wanting to make computers "safer." It's also easy to see Palladium as no more than a gesture made to appease Hollywood and the recording industry, which have long been clamoring for such systems.

But what if it's not all puffery? What if Microsoft does manage to build a foolproof Palladium and deploy it to 100 million users? Those questions elicit the really troubling scenarios. "If Microsoft has its way, there just won't be any open-source software," says Perens, referring to the thriving ecology of software development in which users freely share code and constantly modify each other's applications. Perens is convinced that Palladium will let Microsoft decide which applications can run on a machine and which are simply too unsafe for public consumption -- such as programs written by open-source hackers. Perens even thinks that's the point of Palladium: "It's designed to kill off open-source development."

Open-source hackers aren't the only ones who are worried. Palladium could also significantly strengthen digital rights management (DRM) -- the ability of media companies to manage the content you play on your machine. At least in concept, critics say, Palladium could prevent the unauthorized copying of media of any kind, not only shutting off the MP3 file-sharing free-for-all but also interfering with the rights of consumers to make personal copies of music or movies that they purchased legitimately.

Could Palladium function as a kind of technological straitjacket, a Redmond-operated remote control over your data and, in consequence, your life? According to those who've looked closely at the proposal, the answer is a definite, unhelpful "maybe." But the better question is this: Why would Microsoft want to build such a restrictive system?

"It would be a very expensive proposition just to satisfy Hollywood," says David Farber, the chief technologist of the Federal Communications Commission. Microsoft itself says that Palladium is not meant as a vehicle for DRM -- that it will play anything users want it to play, whether that's an MP3 grabbed from KaZaA or an illegally copied "Simpsons" episode. More to the point, if Microsoft did come up with a restrictive hardware and software solution that clamped down on user freedom, people would just find a way to work around it, say some observers. Either folks will break the system, which is not inconceivable, or they'll use another system. And from what we know about Bill Gates, this much is clear: The thing that keeps him up at night is the thought of people using other systems.

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