Pontdugar re: mobiles and trust
I wrote my previous post thinking about exactly that point and what it meant. He does make the point that smart phones have already built in the issue of Identity. They don't need Wave to manage their systems. His argument is, as I understand it, that if the PC is to survive then it MUST build equivalent Identity awareness PCs.
The previous post's interview with SKS (from 2007) has him expecting consumer TPMs to start going into consumer machines then, as I read it now. Let's hope that too, is coming next year.
However, as I've been thinking about the mobile issue what seems to me to be the truly critical issue has rarely if ever been discussed.
The point about TPMs is that the provide AUTHENTICATION TO SIGNIFICANT DATABASES. Smart phones do not have SIGNIFICANT data bases. Smart phones don't hold users intellectual property, contracts, medical records -- Now as tablets which are phones get smaller this may happen more and more. The issue then becomes, assuming PCs and larger databases continue to flourish and survive is how do you download your info to a personal protected storage base and keep that secure and/or how does the large corporate storage bases (which will not be individual smart phones) maintain secure contact with the smart phones. (This is essentially I believe the same problem as keeping your information secure in the cloud. SKS and the various study groups of TCG all work on this problem which is central to the very reason for TPMs.
It's pretty obvious that marrying the ID protected smart phone with unprotected (IDed) PCs (larger databases) is critical to the growth of e-commerce beyond its current stage. It's inevitable, but first we will need to see business protecting their own databases and critical information whether they be on desktops, laptops, tablets, or servers. That's why Wave around the time of that interview shifted its focus from enabling TPMs to securing storage SEDs.
Understanding that TPMs need to authenticate access to important information (not streaming data or my personal list of phone numbers) is I now think central to understanding what is going on.
Ask yourself whether anything on you cellphone could be used by Wikileaks or your wife's attorney, or your main competitor, and you'll see what I mean about authenticating access to your phone v. your computer. Lastly, with the coming of the new Android that can hold your credit card numbers, things will barely start to change, and we will see how long development of apps to tap and charge, and then actual implementation of, and awareness of potential ID theft on those networks impacts PCs. I only hope that SKS's optimism on time lines becomes more accurate. He's always three years ahead of himself. So, I'm cautiously optimistic that 2011 will bring a lot of stuff we hoped for in 2008. TTT
