Ms Palladium

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ABSTRACT As we tend towards a more and more computer centric world, the concept of data security has attained a paramount importance. Though present day security systems offer a good level of protection, they are incapable of providing a “trust worthy” environment and are vulnerable to unexpected attacks. Palladium is a content protection concept that has spawned from the belief that the pc, as it currently stands, is not architecturally equipped to protect a user forms the pitfalls and challenges that an all-pervasive network such as the Internet poses. As a drastic change in pc hardware is not feasible largely due to economic reasons, palladium hopes to introduce a minimal change in this front. A paradigm shift is awaited in this scenario with the advent of usage of palladium, thus making content protection a shared concern of both software and hardware. In the course of this paper the revolutionary aspects of palladium are discussed in detail. The Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB), formerly known as Palladium, is a software architecture designed by Microsoft which is expected to implement "Trusted Computing" concept on future versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. Palladium is part of Microsoft's Trustworthy 1 Microsoft Palladium

Transcript of Ms Palladium

Page 1: Ms Palladium

ABSTRACT

As we tend towards a more and more computer centric world, the concept of data

security has attained a paramount importance. Though present day security systems offer a

good level of protection, they are incapable of providing a “trust worthy” environment and

are vulnerable to unexpected attacks. Palladium is a content protection concept that has

spawned from the belief that the pc, as it currently stands, is not architecturally equipped to

protect a user forms the pitfalls and challenges that an all-pervasive network such as the

Internet poses.

As a drastic change in pc hardware is not feasible largely due to economic reasons,

palladium hopes to introduce a minimal change in this front. A paradigm shift is awaited in

this scenario with the advent of usage of palladium, thus making content protection a shared

concern of both software and hardware. In the course of this paper the revolutionary aspects

of palladium are discussed in detail.

The Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB), formerly known as

Palladium, is a software architecture designed by Microsoft which is expected to implement

"Trusted Computing" concept on future versions of the Microsoft Windows operating

system. Palladium is part of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative. Microsoft's

stated aim for palladium is to increase the security and privacy of computer users. Palladium

involves a new breed of hardware and applications in along with the architecture of the

Windows operating system. Designed to work side-by-side with the existing functionality of

Windows, this significant evolution of the personal computer platform will introduce a level

of security that meets the rising customer requirements for data protection, integrity and

distributed collaboration. It's designed to give people greater security, personal privacy and

system integrity.

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CONTENTS

SNO CONTENTS PG.NO

1. INTRODUCTION---------------------------------------------------------------------------------03

1.1 WORKING OF PALLADIUM------------------------------------------------------------------05

2. FEATURES OF PALLADIUM ----------------------------------------------------------------06

3. COMPONENTS OF PALLADIUM-----------------------------------------------------------13

3.1. HARDWARE COMPONENTS----------------------------------------------------------------13

3.1.1. TRUSTED SPACE ----------------------------------------------------------------------------13

3.1.2. SEALED STORAGE--------------------------------------------------------------------------13

3.1.3. ATTESTATION -------------------------------------------------------------------------------14

3.2. SOFTWARE COMPONENTS -----------------------------------------------------------------14

3.2.1. NEXUS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------14

3.2.2. TRUSTED AGENT----------------------------------------------------------------------------14

4. COMPARISON OF TCPA AND PALLADIUM -------------------------------------------22

5. ADVANTAGES OF PALLADIUM -----------------------------------------------------------23

5.1. BLOCK MALICIOUS CODE ------------------------------------------------------------------23

5.2. DIGITAL RIGHT MANAGEMENT ----------------------------------------------------------23

6. DISADVANTAGES OF PALLADIUM ------------------------------------------------------25

6.1. UPGRADES --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------25

6.2. INTEROPERABILITY -------------------------------------------------------------------------25

6.3. LEGACY PROGRAMS ------------------------------------------------------------------------26

7. CONCLUSION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------27

8. REFERENCES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------28

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1. INTRODUCTION

The Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB), formerly known as

Palladium, is a software architecture designed by Microsoft which is expected to

implement"Trusted Computing" concept on future versions of the Microsoft Windows

operating system. Palladium is part of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative.

Microsoft's stated aim for palladium is to increase the security and privacy of computer

users. Palladium involves a new breed of hardware and applications in along with the

architecture of the Windows operating system. Designed to work side-by-side with the

existing functionality of Windows, this significant evolution of the personal computer

platform will introduce a level of security that meets the rising customer requirements for

data protection, integrity and distributed collaboration. It's designed to give people greater

security, personal privacy and system integrity. Internet security is also provided by

palladium such as protecting data from virus and hacking of data In addition to new core

components in Windows that will move the Palladium effort forward, Microsoft is working

with hardware partners to build Palladium components and features into their products. The

new hardware architecture involves some changes to CPUs which are significant from a

functional perspective. There will also be a new piece of hardware called for by Palladium

that you might refer to as a security chip. It will provide a set of cryptographic functions and

keys that are central to what we're doing. There are also some associated changes under the

chipset, and the graphics and I/O system through the USB port—all designed to create a

comprehensive security environment. "Palladium" is the code name for an evolutionary set

of features for the Microsoft Windows operating system. When combined with a new breed

of hardware and applications,

"Palladium" gives individuals and groups of user’s greater data security, personal

privacy and system integrity. Designed to work side-by-side with the existing functionality

of Windows, this significant evolution of the personal computer platform will introduce a

level of security that meets the rising customer requirements for data protection, integrity

and distributed collaboration.

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Users implicitly trust their computers with more of their valuable data every day.

They also trust their computers to perform more and more important financial, legal and

other transactions. Palladium provides a solid basis for this trust: a foundation on which

privacy- and security-sensitive software can be built.

There are many reasons why "Palladium" will be of advantage to users. Among these

are enhanced, practical user control; the emergence of new server/service models; and

potentially new peer-to-peer or fully peer-distributed service models. The fundamental

benefits of "Palladium" fall into three chief categories: greater system integrity, superior

personal privacy and enhanced data security. These categories are illustrated in Fig 1.1

Fig 1.1 Palladium enabled system

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Today's personal computing environment has advanced in terms of security and

privacy, while maintaining a significant amount of backward compatibility. However, the

evolution of a shared, open network (the Internet) has created new problems and

requirements for trustworthy computing. As the personal computer grows more central to

our lives at home, work and school, consumers and business customers alike are

increasingly aware of privacy and security issues.

Now, the pressure is on for industry leaders to take the following actions:

Build solutions that will meet the pressing need for reliability and integrity.

Make improvements to the personal computer such that it can more fully reach its

potential and enable a wider range of opportunities.

Give customers and content providers a new level of confidence in the computer

experience.

Continue to support backward compatibility with existing software and user

knowledge that exists with Windows systems today.

Together, industry leaders must address these critical issues to meet the mounting

demand for trusted computing while preserving the open and rich character of current

computer functionality.

1.1 WORKING OF PALLADIUM

Palladium is a new hardware and software architecture. This architecture will include

a new security computing chip and design changes to a computer’s central processing unit

(CPU), chipsets, and peripheral devices, such as keyboards and printers. It also will enable

applications and components of these applications to run in a protected memory space that is

highly resistant to tempering and interference. The pc-specific secret coding within

palladium makes stolen files useless on other machines as they are physically and

cryptographically locked within the hardware of the machine. This means software attacks

can’t expose these secrets. Even if a sophisticated hardware attack were to get at them, these

core system secrets would only be applicable to the data within a single computer and could

not be used on other computes

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2. FEATURES OF PALLADIUM

Development of "Palladium" is guided by important business and Technical

imperatives and assumptions. Among these are the following:

A "Palladium"-enhanced computer must continue to run any existing applications and

device drivers.

"Palladium" is not a separate operating system. It is based on architectural

enhancements to the Windows kernel and to computer hardware, including the CPU,

peripherals and chipsets, to create a new trusted execution subsystem (see Fig 1).

"Palladium" will not eliminate any features of Windows that users have come to rely

on; everything that runs today will continue to run with "Palladium." In addition,

“Palladium" does not change what can be programmed or run on the computing platform; it

simply changes what can be believed about programs, and the durability of those beliefs.

Moreover, "Palladium" will operate with any program the user specifies while maintaining

security.

"Palladium"-based systems must provide the means to protect user privacy better than

any operating system does today.

"Palladium" prevents identity theft and unauthorized access to personal data on the

user's device while on the Internet and on other networks. Transactions and processes are

verifiable and reliable (through the attestable hardware and software architecture described

below), and they cannot be imitated.

With "Palladium," a system's secrets are locked in the computer and are only

revealed on terms that the user has specified. In addition, the trusted user interface prevents

snooping and impersonation. The user controls what is revealed and can separate categories

of data on a single computer into distinct realms.

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Finally, the "Palladium" architecture will enable a new class of identity service

providers that can potentially offer users choices for how their identities are represented in

online transactions. These service providers can also ensure that the user is in control of

policies for how personal information is revealed to others. In addition, "Palladium" will

allow users to employ identity service providers of their own choosing.

"Palladium" will not require digital rights management technology, and DRM will not

require "Palladium."

Digital rights management (DRM) is an important, emerging technology that many

believe will be central to the digital economy of the future. As a means of defining rules and

setting policies that enhance the integrity and trust of digital content consumption, DRM is

vital for a wide range of content-protection uses. Some examples of DRM are the protection

of valuable intellectual property, trusted e-mail and persistent protection of corporate

documents.

While DRM and "Palladium" are both supportive of Trustworthy Computing,

neither is absolutely required for the other to work. DRM can be deployed on

non-"Palladium" machines and "Palladium" can provide users with benefits independent of

DRM. They are separate technologies. That said, the current software-based DRM

technologies can be rendered stronger when deployed on "Palladium"-based computers.

User information is not a requirement for "Palladium" to work.

"Palladium" authenticates software and hardware, not users. "Palladium" is about

platform integrity, and enables users - whether in a corporate or home setting - to take

advantage of system trustworthiness to establish multiple, separate identities, each to suit

specific needs.

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For example, an employee logs onto the corporate network from home. A trusted

gateway server at the corporate network mediates the remote access connection, allowing

only trusted applications to access the network. This ensures that the network is protected

against infection from attacks by viruses that the home user might have received through

personal e-mail. Once connected, the employee can use Remote Desktop to access the

computer at the office or save a file back to the corporate server by using locally active

Trusted Agents and sealed storage (see below) on the client.

With this technology, the corporate network is protected, while the individual can

also be confident that the company is not using the remote connection as an opportunity to

snoop into the contents of the user's home computer.

"Palladium" will enable closed spheres of trust.

A closed sphere of trust binds data or a service to both a set of users (logon) and to a

set of acceptable applications. As shown in Fig 2.2, the nexus (formerly referred to as the

Trusted Operating Root, or TOR) does not simply open the vault; the nexus will open only a

particular vault, and only for a small list of applications.

Palladium is based on the concept of trusted space. A closed sphere of trust binds

data or a service, to both a set of users and to a set of acceptable applications. Due to this an

unauthorized user cannot access the data or software which is based on a server. For

example in the revised system the encrypted question papers are put up on the J.N.T.U’s

palladium based server and all the affiliate colleges use college-specific palladium

computers. It works as follows:

A third party trusted agent (government or private programmed) is employed who is

responsible for granting of access to JNTU examination server. It processes the

requests and forwards only those certified by the “nexus” of the JNTU’s palladium

based server.

If an unauthorized system (without palladium) forwards a request it is immediately

rejected by the server’s trusted agent. Even if an unauthorized palladium PC tries to

access the server its request is rejected.

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The PC-specific secret coding within palladium makes stolen files useless on other

machines as they are physically and cryptographically locked within the hardware of

the server or trusted computer.

During examinations the palladium computer of the college issues a request to the

common trusted agent (of JNTU and college) via internet. This request is granted

and each-particular question paper pertaining to that day is accessed by the college.

Palladium with closed spheres of trust

Fig 2.1

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"Palladium" is an opt-in system.

"Palladium" is entirely an opt-in solution; systems will ship with the "Palladium"

hardware and software features turned off. The user of the system can choose to simply stay

with this default setting, leaving all "Palladium"-related capabilities (hardware and software)

disabled. Palladium must be highly resistant to software attacks (such as Trojan horse

viruses), and must provide users with the integrity of a protected, end-to-end system across

networks.

Palladium as an opt-in system

Fig 2.2

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Palladium provides a trusted processing environment. Trusted code runs in memory

that is physically isolated, protected, and inaccessible to the rest of the system, making it

inherently impervious to viruses, spy-ware, or other software attacks. With respect to

viruses, the contribution from Palladium is fairly straightforward. Since Palladium does not

interfere with the operation of any program running in the regular Windows environment,

everything, including the native OS and viruses, runs there as it does today. So antivirus

monitoring and detection software in Windows will still be needed.

However, Palladium does provide antivirus software with a secure execution

environment that cannot be corrupted by infected code, so an antivirus program built on top

of a Palladium application could guarantee that it hasn't been corrupted. This grounding of

the antivirus software allows it to bootstrap itself into a guaranteed execution state,

something it can't do today.

One of the key Palladium building blocks is "authenticated operation". If a banking

application is to be trusted to perform an action, it is important that the banking application

has not been subverted. It is also important that banking data can only be accessed by

applications that have been identified as trusted to read that data. "Palladium" systems

provide this capability through a mechanism called sealed storage.

Another capability provided by authenticated operation is attestation. "Palladium"

will allow a bank to accept only transactions initiated by the user and that are not viruses or

other unknown machines on the Internet. Because "Palladium" software and hardware is

cryptographically verifiable to the user and to other computers, programs and services, the

system can verify that other computers and processes are trustworthy before engaging them

or sharing information. Users therefore can be confident that their intentions are properly

represented and carried out, as illustrated in Figure 3. Moreover, the source code for the

operating system's critical nexus will be published and validated by third parties.

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Finally, interaction with the computer itself is trusted. "Palladium"-specific

hardware provides a protected pathway from keyboard to monitor, and keystrokes cannot be

snooped or spoofed, even by malicious device drivers.

"Palladium" data security features will make a Windows-based device a trustworthy

environment for any data.

The "Palladium" system is architected with security and integrity as its primary

design goals. Trusted code cannot be observed or modified when running in the trusted

execution space. Files are encrypted with machine-specific secrets, making them useless if

stolen or surreptitiously copied. In addition, machine-specific system secrets are physically

and cryptographically locked (the machine's private key is embedded in hardware and never

exposed), and the trusted hardware architecture prevents snooping, spoofing and data

interception. Core system secrets are stored in hardware, where no software attack can

reveal them. Even if exposed by a sophisticated hardware attack, the core system secrets are

only applicable to data on the compromised system and cannot be used to develop widely

deployable hacks. Finally, a compromised system can likely be spotted by IT managers,

service providers and other systems, and then excluded.

A "Palladium" system will be open at all levels.

"Palladium" hardware will run any nexus. Some platforms may allow a user to

restrict the nexuses that are allowed to run, but the user will still be in full control of this

policy. The "Palladium" TOR will also run trusted agents from any publisher. Again, the

user may choose to restrict the trusted agents that run on the system, but the user will remain

in full control of this policy. The "Palladium" nexus will work with any network service

provider of the user's choosing.

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3. COMPONENTS OF PALLADIUM

"Palladium" comprises two key components:

3.1. Hardware Components

3.2 Software Components

3.1 HARDWARE COMPONENTS

Engineered for ensuring the protected execution of applications and processes, the

protected operating environment provides the following basic mechanisms:

3.1.1 TRUSTED SPACE:-

The execution space is protected from external software attacks such as a virus.

Trusted space is set up and maintained by the nexus and has access to various services

provided by "Palladium," such as sealed storage.

3.1.2 SEALED STORAGE:-

Sealed storage is an authenticated mechanism that allows a program to store secrets

that cannot be retrieved by nontrusted programs such as a virus or Trojan horse. Information

in sealed storage cannot be read by other nontrusted programs. (Sealed storage cannot be

read by unauthorized secure programs, for that matter, and cannot be read even if another

operating system is booted or the disk is carried to another machine.) These stored secrets

can be tied to the machine, the nexus or the application. Microsoft will also provide

mechanisms for the safe and controlled backup and migration of secrets to other machines.

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3.1.3 ATTESTATION:-

Attestation is a mechanism that allows the user to reveal selected characteristics of

the operating environment to external requestors. For example, attestation can be used to

verify that the computer is running a valid version of "Palladium."

3.2 SOFTWARE COMPONENTS

The platform implements these trusted primitives in an open, programmable way to

third parties. The platform consists of the following elements:

3.2.1 NEXUS: -

The component in Microsoft Windows that manages trust functionality for

"Palladium" user-mode processes (agents). The nexus executes in kernel mode in the trusted

space. It provides basic services to trusted agents, such as the establishment of the process

mechanisms for communicating with trusted agents and other applications, and special trust

services such as attestation of requests and the sealing and unsealing of secrets (a technology

formerly referred as Trusted Operating Root (TOR)).

3.2.2 TRUSTED AGENT: -

A trusted agent is a program, a part of a program, or a service that runs in user mode

in the trusted space. A trusted agent calls the nexus for security related services and critical

general services such as memory management. A trusted agent is able to store secrets using

sealed storage and authenticates itself using the attestation services of the nexus. One of the

main principles of trusted agents is that they can be trusted or not trusted by multiple

entities, such as the user, an IT department, a merchant or a vendor. Each trusted agent or

entity controls its own sphere of trust, and they need not trust or rely on each other.

Together, the nexus and trusted agents provide the following features:

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Trusted data storage, encryption services for applications to ensure data integrity and

protection.

Authenticated boot, facilities to enable hardware and software to authenticate itself

From the perspective of privacy (and anti-virus protection); one of the key benefits

of "Palladium" is the ability for users to effectively delegate certification of code. Anyone

can certify "Palladium" hardware or software, and it is expected that many companies and

organizations will offer this service. Allowing multiple parties to independently evaluate and

certify "Palladium"-capable systems means that users will be able to obtain verification of

the system's operation from organizations that they trust. In addition, this will form the basis

for a strong business incentive to preserve and enhance privacy and security. Moreover,

"Palladium" allows any number of trusted internal or external entities to interact with a

trusted component or trusted platform. The initial version of Palladium will require changes

to five parts of the PC's hardware. Changes will be required to the CPU, the chipset (on the

motherboard), the input devices (e.g. keyboard), and the video output devices (graphics

processor). In addition, a new component must be added: a tamper-resistant secure

cryptographic co-processor, which Microsoft calls SCP or SPP.

Although the SCP is tamper-resistant, it is likely that a skilled attacker with physical

access to the inside of a Palladium PC can still compromise it or subvert its policies

in some way.

So it is possible that an attacker with physical access can still compromise the

system, even though the SCP is meant to be tamper-resistant, partly because other

components (like RAM) are less robust against modification. Palladium primarily

defends effectively against two classes of attacks: (1) remote network mounted

attacks (buffer overflows and other programming flaws, malicious mobile code,

etc.), because even if some malicious code is installed in one part of the system, it

still can't effectively subvert the policy of another part of the system, and (2) local

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software-based attacks, including things like using a debugger to try to read a

program's internal state while it's executing or to try to subvert its policy. Thus,

Palladium can probably guarantee that you can't write or download any software

(and nobody else can write or upload to you any software) which would compromise

the policy of software running locally which is making use of Palladium trust

features.

Palladium's changes to the CPU allow it to be placed into a new mode where certain

areas of memory are restricted via a technique called "code curtaining" to an ultra

privileged piece of code called the "nub" or "TOR". ("Nub" is the Palladium team's

term for this code, and "TOR", for "Trusted Operating Root", is the official public

term.) The nub is a kind of trusted memory manager, which runs with more privilege

than an operating system kernel. The nub also manages access to the SCP.

The SCP is an 8-bit tamper-resistant cryptographic smart-card which contains unique

keys, including public key pairs (2048-bit RSA), and symmetric keys for AES in

CBC mode. These keys are unique per machine and the SCP does not reveal them to

anything outside the SCP's security perimeter. It also contains a variety of other

cryptographic functionality, including SHA-1, RSA, AES, and other cipher

implementations, a small amount of memory, and a monotone counter. The SCP can

do a number of cryptographic protocols. It also contains a thing called a PCR. (I

think that stands for "platform configuration register".)

When you want to start a Palladium PC in trusted mode (note that it doesn't have to

start in trusted mode, and, from what Microsoft said, it sounds like you could even

imagine booting the same OS in either trusted or untrusted mode, based on a user's

choice at boot time), the system hardware performs what's called an "authenticated

boot", in which the system is placed in a known state and a nub is loaded. A hash (I

think it's SHA-1) is taken of the nub which was just loaded, and the 160-bit hash is

stored unalterably in the PCR, and remains there for as long as the system continues

to operate in trusted mode. Then the operating system kernel can boot, but the key to

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the trust in the system is the authentication of the nub. As long as the system is up,

the SCP knows exactly which nub is currently running; because of the way the CPU

works, it is not possible for any other software to modify the nub or its memory or

subvert the nub's policies. The nub is in some sense in charge of the system at a low

level, but it doesn't usually do things which other software would notice unless it's

asked to.

The nub interfaces with other software on the system by means of programs (outside

the nub) called trusted agents (or TAs). The TAs can implement sophisticated

policies and authentication methods, where the nub (and SCP) just implements fairly

simple primitives. A TA can also communicate with user-space programs (at least,

that will be a feature of Microsoft's nub; other people can write their own nubs which

can support different kinds of TAs or even do without TAs entirely). The TAs are

protected by hardware from one another and from the rest of the system.

Even PCI DMA can't read or write memory which has been reserved to a nub's or

TA's use (including the nub's or TA's code). This memory is completely inaccessible

and can only be accessed indirectly through API calls. The chipset on the

motherboard is modified to enforce this sort of restriction.

The SCP provides a feature called "sealed storage" by means of two API calls (called

SEAL and UNSEAL). If a TA running on a system in trusted mode wants to use

sealed storage, it can call into the APIs implemented in the nub.

Sealed storage is implemented by means of encryption (sealing) or decryption

(unsealing) with a symmetric cipher When the SCP is given data to seal, it's given

two arguments: the data itself and a 160-bit "nub identifier"

Sealing is performed by pretending the nub identifier to the data to be sealed, and

then encrypting the result with a private symmetric key -- the "platform-specific

key", which varies from machine to machine and is secret. That key is kept within

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the SCP and is a unique identifier for the machine which performed the sealing

operation.

The SCP actually also pretends a random nonce to the data to be sealed before

encryption (and discards the nonce upon decryption). This is a clever privacy feature

which prevents someone from creating an application which "cookies you" by

recording the output of sealing an empty string (and then using the result as a

persistent unique identifier for your machine). A program which tried to "cookie

you" this way would find that, because of the random nonce, the result of sealing a

given string is constantly completely different, and no useful information about the

identity of the machine is revealed by the sealing operation.

After encryption, the SCP returns the encrypted result as the return value of the

SEAL operation.

When an SCP is given encrypted data to UNSEAL, it internally attempts to decrypt

the encrypted data using its platform-specific key. This means that, if the encrypted

data was originally sealed on a different machine, the UNSEAL operation will fail

outright immediately. (You can't take a sealed file and transfer it to another machine

and unseal it there; because the platform-specific key is used for encryption and

decryption, and can't be extracted from the SCP, you can only UNSEAL data on the

same machine on which it was originally sealed.)

If the decryption is successful, the SCP performs a second check: it examines the nub

identifier which resides within the decrypted data. The nub identifier was specified at

the time the data was originally sealed, and indicates which nub is allowed to receive

the decrypted data. If the nub identifier for the decrypted data is identical to the nub

identifier which is currently stored in the PCR (which is the SHA-1 hash of the

currently-running nub on the machine at the moment UNSEAL was called), the

UNSEAL is successful and the decrypted data is returned to the calling nub.

However, if the nub identifier does not match the contents of the PCR, the SCP

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concludes that the nub which is currently running is not entitled to receive this data,

and discards it.

Thus, sealing is specific to a physical machine and also specific to a nub. Data sealed

on one machine for a particular nub cannot be decrypted on a different machine or

under a different nub. An application which trusts a particular nub (and is running

under that nub) can seal important secret data and then store the resulting sealed data

safely on an untrusted hard drive, or even send it over a network.

If you reboot the machine under a debugger, there is no technical problem, and you

can debug the software which created the encrypted file. However, since you aren't

running the proper (no debugger- friendly) nub, the debugger will work, but the

UNSEAL call won't. The SCP will receive the UNSEAL call, examine the PCR, and

conclude that the currently-running nub is not cleared (so to speak) to receive the

sealed data. Your applications can only decrypt sealed data if they are running under

the same machine and under the same software environment within which they

originally sealed that data!

This is remarkably clever. When you are running under a trusted nub, your

applications can use the SCP to decrypt and process data, but you can't run software

which subverts a TA's policy (because the nub will not permit the policy to be

subverted).

When you are not running under a trusted nub, you can run software which subverts

a TA's policy (because the nub isn't able to prevent it), but your applications will no

longer be able to decrypt any sealed data, because the SCP won't be willing to

perform the decryption.

There is a long discussion of how you can make a backup, or upgrade your system,

or migrate your software and data to a new system, etc. The default with sealed

storage is that any sealed data will be unusable when migrated to a new system. The

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Microsoft nub provides wrappers around the SCP's sealing features which allow the

software which performs the sealing operation to specify a migration policy at the

time the sealing operation is originally performed. The migration policy can be

(approximately) one of the following, at the software's sole option:

a. Migration is prevented entirely, and the data must die with the current PC

where it was created.

b. Migration is permitted upon some kind of authentication by a local user (e.g.

a password) which will decrypt or command the decryption of data

temporarily in order to permit it to be migrated.

c. Migration is permitted with the assistance and consent of a 3rd party.

Palladium's modifications to input and output hardware will prevent software from

doing certain kinds of monitoring and spoofing, as well as "screen scraping". A

program will be able to ask Palladium to display a dialog box which can't be

"obscured" or "observed" by other software, and Palladium hardware can enforce

these conditions. And there is a way to be sure that input is coming from a physical

input device and not spoofed by another program.

The secure output features also permit, e.g., a DVD player program to prevent other

software from making screen captures. The initial version of Palladium does not

control audio output in this way, so you can still record all sound output via

something like Total Recorder.

In principle, nub and kernel are independent, so a non-Microsoft kernel could run on

a Microsoft nub, or vice versa. Patent and copyright issues might prevent this from

being done in practice, but it is apparently technically possible within the design of

Palladium.

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Microsoft's nub, including its source code, will be published for review by anyone

who wants to examine it, in order to allow all of Microsoft's claims about its security

properties to be verified. There is no part of Palladium's design or code which needs

to be kept secret, although each SCP will contain secret cryptographic keys loaded at

the time of its manufacture. Microsoft will encourage non-Microsoft people to read

and discuss its nub. You will also be able to create your own nub, except that

changing the nub will (as discussed above) prevent previously-sealed data from

being decrypted.

Microsoft suggests that Palladium is flexible enough that many entities could use it

to create their own policies, judgments, certification services, etc. Palladium has a

more robust technical enforcement mechanism than either of those standards.

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4. COMPARISON OF TCPA AND PALLADIUM

TCPA stands for ‘Trusted Computing Platform Alliance’, an initiative led by Intel.

Their stated goal is a ‘new computing platform for the next century that will provide for

improved trust in the PC platform’. Palladium is software that Microsoft says it plans to

incorporate in future versions of Windows; it will build on the TCPA hardware and will add

some new features.

The TCPA and Palladium rely on the addition to the hardware of normal PC’s. While

Palladium calls for more extensive changes, the modifications are remarkably similar. Both

call for a new chip to be placed on the motherboard of all future computers. The chip would

include new encryption functions as well as a small amount of memory that would act as a

digital vault to store important keys to decrypt protected data. The TCPA refers to the chip

as the “Trusted Platform Module”, a successor to the Intel’s processor. Microsoft refers to

the hardware components of Palladium as Secure Cryptographic Coprocessor or SCP.

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5. ADVANTAGES OF PALLADIUM

5.1 BLOCK MALICIOUS CODE

One of the more promising aspects that Palladium will bring to end-users is the

ability to authenticate the programs they use. A user will allow certain applications access to

resources. Originally, it was thought that Palladium would not permit unauthorized code to

run on a system; therefore it would stop the execution of programs like viruses. Recently,

however, Microsoft has backed off these claims about Palladium. Now it simply claims that

Palladium will provide a secure execution environment for anti-virus programs (MS

Palladium Technical FAQ). The benefit of a secure environment is that viruses and other

malicious code cannot alter the behavior of a Palladium-enabled anti-virus program.

Microsoft has decided that legacy support for existing Windows applications is important

enough so as not to require all programs to be rewritten for Palladium. This means that

existing programs and viruses will still run on a Palladium system. The implied benefit to

Palladium, aside from the added protection to anti-virus programs, is the increased

authentication with new Palladium enabled programs. If Palladium proliferates as Microsoft

hopes, there will come a time when legacy support will not be important anymore, and

unauthorized programs will not be run. It appears as though this is the first step on the way

to that idea.

5.2 DIGITAL RIGHT MANAGEMENT

The digital rights management (DRM) potential with a Palladium system is what

content producers and distributors are interested with. Digital rights management has to do

with controlling whom and how long content is distributed. Microsoft touts Palladium as

being independent of any existing DRM technology today (MS Palladium Technical FAQ).

On the other hand, it acknowledges that Palladium systems are being designed to coincide

with DRM technologies to help content developers (MS Palladium Technical FAQ). A

Palladium system is supposed to make it easier for individual users to implement DRM on

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their own personal data. For example, a user may setup a vault containing credit card

information. Palladium would allow the user to setup a group of trusted agents that would

have access to all or certain parts of that data. Along with data, Palladium promises to give

users the option to regulate time interval that data is available to the trusted agents they have

specified.

Digital rights management (DRM) is a generic term for access control technologies

that can be used on the usage of digital content and devices. The term is used to describe any

technology that inhibits uses of digital content not desired or intended by the content

provider. The term does not generally by hardware manufacturers, publishers,

copyright holders and individuals to impose limitations refer to other forms of copy

protection which can be circumvented without modifying the file or device, such as serial

numbers or keyfiles. It can also refer to restrictions associated with specific instances of

digital works or devices. Digital rights management is used by companies such

as Sony, Apple Inc, Microsoft, AOL and the BBC.

Digital rights management (DRM) is a systematic approach to copyright protection

for digital media. The purpose of DRM is to prevent unauthorized redistribution of digital

media and restrict the ways consumers can copy content they've purchased. DRM products

were developed in response to the rapid increase in online piracy of commercially marketed

material, which proliferated through the widespread use of peer-to-peer file exchange

programs. Typically DRM is implemented by embedding code that prevents copying,

specifies a time period in which the content can be accessed or limits the number of devices

the media can be installed on.

Although digital content is protected by copyright laws, policing the Web and

catching law-breakers is very difficult. DRM technology focuses on making it impossible to

steal content in the first place, a more efficient approach to the problem than the hit-and-

miss strategies aimed at apprehending online poachers after the fact.

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6. DISADVANTAGES OF PALLADIUM

6.1 UPGRADES

In order to take advantage of what Palladium is supposed to offer, users will have to

upgrade both their current operating systems and hardware. The next version of Windows,

due out in 2004, will need hardware support for Palladium features to work at all (MS

Palladium Technical FAQ). It is unclear at this point whether the next major Windows

release will run on non-Palladium compatible hardware. The central processing unit will

have to support the trusted execution mode that Palladium offers. It is clear that future

motherboards will need to contain the security chip for Palladium to run properly (MS

Palladium Technical FAQ). More upgrades may be of concern in the area of graphic

hardware and peripherals such as keyboards and mice because of the encryption in between

these hardware devices and the software they are interacting with.

6.2 INTEROPERABILITY

Palladium has received wide criticism for being a so-called General Public License

(GPL) killer (Anderson). Now, Microsoft clearly states that the Palladium-enabled operating

system will be able to co-exist with any Linux based system, just as their operating systems

do today. The question that comes to mind is, will that change with wide spread adoption of

the Palladium architecture? For example, if a bank switches over to exclusively Palladium

systems, would customers of that bank who don’t run Palladium systems be able to use the

bank’s services? Palladium is not a direct attack on GPL or Linux based system, but is an

attempt to change the rules of the names.

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6.3 LEGACY PROGRAMS

By Microsoft’s own admission, the Palladium-enabled operating system will not

have perfect legacy support (MS Palladium Technical FAQ). All existing debuggers will

need to be updated in order to work under Palladium. Performance tools that monitor

operating system or user processes will need to be updated. Any memory dump software

will not work correctly without changes to support Palladium. Hibernation features of

motherboards will need to be updated as well. Memory scrub routines, at the hardware level,

will need to be rewritten to accommodate Palladium. The reason for all of these updates is

the trusted agent policy that Palladium enforces. No program is allowed to invade the

execution space for any other program. In the case of a debugger, it will need special

permission from the operating system to monitor the execution space of the target program.

Even software developed for the TCPA specification will need to be rewritten if it tries to

directly write to any TCPA hardware. This description of incompatible legacy programs is

by no means comprehensive; it is simply what Microsoft is disclosing at this time (MS

Palladium Technical FAQ).

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7. CONCLUSION

Today, IT managers face tremendous challenges due to the inherent openness of end-

user machines, and millions of people simply avoid some online transactions out of fear.

However, with the usage of "Palladium" systems, trustworthy, secure interactions will

become possible. This technology will provide tougher security defenses and more abundant

privacy benefits than ever before. With "Palladium," users will have unparalleled power

over system integrity, personal privacy and data security.

Independent software vendors (ISVs) that want their applications to take advantage

of "Palladium" benefits will need to write code specifically for this new environment a new

generation of "Palladium"- compatible hardware and peripherals will need to be designed

and built. The "Palladium" development process will require industry wide collaboration. It

can only work with broad trust and widespread acceptance across the industry, businesses

and consumers

.

"Palladium" is not a magic bullet. Clearly, its benefits can only be realized if industry

leaders work collaboratively to build "Palladium"- compatible applications and systems and

then only if people choose to use them. But the "Palladium" vision endeavors to provide the

trustworthiness necessary to enable businesses, governments and individuals to fully

embrace the increasing digitization of life.

The Internet and the proliferation of digital content have sparked the need for more

privacy and security of data. The looming question whenever anyone talks about security

and privacy is: for whom? Palladium certainly gives digital content 16providers the control

over their product that they have wanted for a long time. In recent months, Microsoft has

clearly emphasized the benefits that the marriage of Palladium and DRM can bring to end-

users. Microsoft claims that users will have complete control of their personal information.

The Palladium-enabled operating system isn’t due for at least another year. It could take

months after the initial release for anyone to feel its effects.

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8. REFERENCES

1. Anderson, R. “TCPA / Palladium Frequently Asked Questions Version 1.0.” July

2002. University of Cambridge Online. 5 Jan 2003

<http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/tcpa-faq.html>.

2. “Microsoft Palladium.” 11 Nov. 2002. Electronic Privacy Information Center Online.

5 January 2003

<http://www.epic.org/privacy/consumer/microsoft/palladium.html>.

3. Boutin, Paul. “Palladium: Safe or Security Flaw?.” 12 Jul. 2002. Wired News

Online. 31 Jan 2003

<http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/0,1551,53805,00.html>.

4. Hachman M., and Rupley S. “Microsoft's Palladium: A New Security Initiative.” 25

Jun. 2002. ExtremeTech Online. 5 Jan 2003

<http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,274309,00.asp>.

5. www .wikipedia.org

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