Replies to post #106686 on Wave Systems Corp. (fka WAVXQ)

[1260]

khillo...Rootkit

Your analogy of your turbo Arrow and DC-3 to security development is well taken.

Your conclusions about the TPM limiting functional is something that I will disagree with. I am an old pilot from many moons ago and I was at one time current in every single engine plane that Piper Aircraft produced. The turbo Arrow was one of my favorites as was the J-3 Cub.

I remember when controlled airports came online. Everyone complained they had to get permission to land. What about the J-3 with no electrical for a radio. They used colored lights for landing clearance. Then planes got faster and more of them, clearance light were phased out and mandatory radio communications at controlled airports was required.

Many predicted the demise of private aviation if radios were required.

Next came the controlled airspace around a few airports. It looked like an inverted wedding cake. How dare the FAA tell me that I can't fly over an airport without permission!!!!

Many predicted the demise of private aviation if we couldn't fly over airports.

They came the little "black boxes" Transponders that squawked our identification. Big brother FAA could watch you. Many predicted the demise of private aviation. Next altitude encoding was added. Big brother FAA knew WHO you were, WHERE you were and HOW high you were!!!!

Many predicted the demise of private aviation.

Today private aviation is thriving. Small planes slide into and out of the system with large commercial planes. The system is fully meshed together.

TPMs will do the same thing for computers. The computers will know who to whom they are talking and will allow the data to be fully meshed together. It you want to play outside the rules they will know who you are and can tell you to get back inline.

Offline(outside of controlled airspace) you can still do anything your heart desires.

Just my comments on a Saturday afternoon.

1260

PS:One Cub I used to fly had a sign posted that only stalls, lazy eights and 60 degree banks were the recommended maneuvers. For any others three things were recommended: 1. Copy of the Lord's prayer, 2. Copy of the 23rth Pslam and 3. A very good parachute!!!

[goin fishn]

khillo, this blog has serious problems:


I’m not sure if this is your blog, or you are just posting it, but it is riddled with logical fallacies.

Paragraph 1-
Last night I was reading an article about the birth of the DC-3, one of the world's classic airplanes. What caught my attention was the fact that the DC-3 was designed and built just 30 years after the Wright brothers made their first flight. The DC-3 was arguably the first modern airliner in form and function, completely recognizable to today's passengers.

False analogy-a DC-3 was made of metal, had seats and engines, but that’s where the simlarities end. Today’s airliners are pressurized, have jet engines, fly several times higher and faster than the DC-3, control surfaces are computer controlled, have GPS, and a whole host of other improvements. There have been incredible changes in passenger aircraft since the DC-3.

Paragraph 2-

I fly and my plane is, by almost any external measure, primitive. Even so, my 1978 Turbo Arrow is still state-of-the-art by most aviation industry standards and the envy of many private pilots. Except for where computers have affected the avionics, my plane is almost identical to any plane you would have found for sale in the 1940s and 1950s. A pilot from that era would feel perfectly at home in the cockpit of my plane (as long as you turned the GPS off so it didn't distract them).

This tends to refute paragraph 1. The controls and abilities that the author attributes to his 1978 Turbo Arrow are the very ones that a DC-3 had, yet, for this paragraph, they are “primitive.” Are airliners today primitive?


So, why am I telling you about the sorry state of flying in a blog about technology? Because I think it holds a lesson for us.


Paragraphs 3 and 4

The trajectory of progress represented by the drive from the Wright brothers to the DC-3 is a story that most techies to day would recognize as analogous to the progress that's been made in the first 50 years of the computer age. Most of us assume that that progress will continue unimpeded. We imagine, or try to imagine, what the world will be like in 5, 10 or 20 years given the pace with which computers have changed in our recent past.

Early aviation pioneers did the same thing–that's where those visions of flying cars come from. But I argue that if the designers of the DC-3 and their colleagues could be brought forward to the first decade of the 21st century, they'd be sorely disappointed by the state of aviation.

The statement about what imaginary time travelers would think is a Red Herring, it is totally unrelated to the issue of the TPM. That it is based on a false analogy only exacerbates the weakness of the argument.


Paragraph 5

How did we get to this moribund, stagnant state of affairs? Simple: the government decided to make flying safe. When I moderated a talk by Rick Adam, CEO of Adam Aircraft, he said that they'd spent $80 million before they ever got the first product they could deliver. Much of that was a direct result of responding to government regulation.

This is a combination Red Herring and a Straw Man argument. Government interference with aircraft design is the Red Herring, it has nothing to do with TPMs. The author then sets up government interference with the aircraft industry as his straw man, and proceeds to argue that it is bad. He argues against the straw man, not TPMs, which is why it is such a weak form of argument. These statements are essentially irrelevant to the issue of technology. The statement that aircraft manufacturers spend over 80 million dollars developing planes is also a Fallacy of Exclusion. The author does not reveal other information which might potentially refute his case, and instead merely attributes cost increases to one factor-the government-the figure of 80 million dollars is not adjusted to 1930s dollars, (when the DC-3 was developed) nor are other increased expenses for manufacturers noted. And who or what is Adam Aircraft, anyway? What does Boeing say?


Paragraph 6

Admittedly, there's a trade-off here. We like to be safe. Especially when the true cost is hidden. Efforts to use digital restrictions management tools like TPM (the trusted platform module–part of the Trusted Computing Platform) to reduce identity theft are a case in point. The hidden cost in this case is the potential loss of general purpose computing platforms as we know them. With TCP technology Microsoft, Apple, or even the MPAA could become the arbiters of what will and what won't run on your system. It would be possible to construct software whitelists and blacklists under the control of someone other than the person who owns the computer. TCP is essentially a rootkit you can't uninstall. That scares me.

Probably the best paragraph here, it is still filled with unsupported statements of what the government, Apple, Microsoft, etc. are going to do. Relax, issues like this are why we have representative government. Fill your congressman’s ear with your concerns and make sure to vote on election day.


goin fishn

[go-kitesurf]

khillo, interesting sumary.

It would be possible to construct software whitelists and blacklists under the control of someone other than the person who owns the computer. TCP is essentially a rootkit you can't uninstall. That scares me.

If I may, to look at the opposite effect, the effect without such "restrictions" to create safe flying...

If one were to "time warp" an early 20th century aerospace engineer to today's world, would they be disappointed as you say? Today, flying is safer than driving. The reason it costs $100M to develop and build a new plane today is that without rules, every yahoo would be building a flying machine that would crash into someone's home and kill them, and the unsuspecting family in their living room. Did you see the movie about Howard Hughes? He crashed into suburbia because he was unsafe. How about air traffic control today? Without it, without rules, everyone would be landing whenever they pleased, getting into other's wakes, and crashing regularly. The reason there is control and regulation is that there is a a NEED for it. Today, jet fuel is one of the most volatile substance in regular use. I think the world would be a disaster without such regulations and you miss the entire point. Think not only airline, think automobile, airline, space, internet, appliance, power tool, etc etc etc. From microwaves that explode to Ford Explorers that flip or have exploding tires, sure, progress was impeded, but at the cost of saving probably thousands, or millions, of lives.

Same with computers and security. You obviously have missed the upteen thousand presentations and articles about rampant forgery, identity theft, financial scandals, and intellectual property misuse. Today, in America (to use one example), more entertainment, business software, systems control, etc etc etc Inetllectual Property exists than in any other country. As America moves forward in innovative thinking and forward-leading progress to create systems that are intelligent, and movies that entertain, it is increasingly crucial for America to control their IP and not have it stolen. America is losing manufacturing jobs and many other industries to the third world. Beyond this, Americans are becoming victims of net abuse. Banks, Mortgage Houses, Credit Card mining companies, mass vendors, etc are all victimized weekly. One of my own websites was just hacked last week and the entire database was destroyed!

You state, "That scares me."

I'll tell you what scares me...

A world with a billion devices without any method of trust and security!