BoingBoing : Apple drops Trusted Computing

[Benoît Sibaud <bsibaud AT april.org>]

Apple drops Trusted Computing
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/11/01/apple_drops_trusted_.html

« Amit Singh has a fascinating technical article on Apple's use, non-use,
and ultimate abandonment of the Trusted Platform Module (TPM). »

Trusted Computing for Mac OS X
http://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter10/tpm/

«
Executive Summary

    * Regardless of what the media has been harping on for a long time,
and regardless of what system attackers have been saying about the "evil
TPM protection" Apple uses, Apple is doing no TPM-related evil thing. In
fact, Apple is doing no TPM-related cryptographic thing at all in Mac OS
X. Yes, I know, there has been much talk of "TPM keys" and such, but there
are no TPM keys that Apple is hiding somewhere.
    * More specifically, Apple simply does not use the TPM hardware. In
Apple computer models that do contain a TPM, the hardware is available for
use by the machine's owner. Of course, to use it you need a device driver,
which Apple indeed doesn't provide.
    * I am releasing an open source TPM driver for Mac OS X, along with
Mac OS X versions of popular open source trusted computing software from
the Linux world. No reverse engineering was required to write this driver.
    * The driver and the software stack together make trusted computing
possible on Mac OS X, assuming you have a machine with a TPM. This page
shows you how to "take ownership" of the TPM and begin using it.
»

-- 
Benoît Sibaud