[OT] Phoenix Developing DRM-Equipped BIOS

[Vincent Touquet]

On Thu, Sep 04, 2003 at 08:16:13AM -0700, Dale Harris wrote:
>This isn't exactly on topic, but I thought it was interesting
>nonetheless.  So with a mobo that would support this BIOS, could we
>still pop out the Phoenix BIOS and pop in a LinuxBIOS or FreeBIOS?
>http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1237519,00.asp
(cut)

Not a chance in hell I guess.
I was lucky to be able to join a talk about the upcoming new and
improved secure windows with an extra vertical separation between left
and right, where right is the old kernel space, with on top the old user
space. Basicly they stop trusting kernel space.

    basic services     | old user
-------------------------------------
    NEXUS              | old kernel

The nexus would be some micro kernel with supposedly code that is open
to peer review (no word about the license).

All circuits on board would be encrypted, all the way to the graphics
card (eg. to securely display sensitive information, no word about
attacks which use the radiation of the screen as the basis though :)

The BIOS will check the Nexus and its signature and then load it, the
nexus then fires the operating system (only windows up till now I
guess).

MS was having active connections with mobo manufacturers, but of course
they need time for anything like this (imagine the changes required to
the hardware ...). My guess is that this is one of the prime reasons for
the delay of Longhorn to 2005. It will be presented as the saviour of
the content industry. I wouldn't be surprised if lobbying towards people
only being allowed to use trusted PCs would start at around the same
time. This is all speculation though.

Not sure if the Phoenix DRM BIOS fits into this picture.

v