IBM Research has prototyped a security solution using the infamous Trusted Platform Module that allows users to accurately validate the identity and integrity of all software running on a remote server and client machine. This approach uses a combination of software and hardware architecture defined by an industry standard body called the Trusted Computing Group (TCG).

[Trusted Computing, of which secure boot is a component, hurts the environment and inhabitants of earth because it denies old computers the possibility of installing GNU/Linux and hastens their fate as e-wastes.] The UK government will emphasise the pivotal role of trusted computing in its upcoming cyber security strategy [thereby declaring war against earth].

Despite my gripe about the Web site's sparse message and design, the message is a good one. The Trusted Computing Project allows its recipients to free themselves from the clutches of Microsoft and find themselves in a position where open source is the way of the land.

I discovered the animated short film, Trusted Computing, today. Great movie! It is licensed under a Creative Commons (Sampling Plus 1.0) license that I wouldn't categorize as free but certainly more permissive than the standard copyrights. However, I was irritated by the lack of a truly high quality OGG video, whereas proprietary formats such as the Quicktime .mov had such quality copies.

But the German government has made an official statement on Secure Boot (and Trusted Computing). Since it’s just a position statement, it does not count as a legal challenge to Microsoft, but it’s s start.

With all the talk about Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing, one of the missing aspects is the hardware that enables this. Yes the hardware becomes less and less important, but you still have to have something there. Netbooks are certainly part of the hardware that will enable true cloud computing, but devices like TechCrunch's CrunchPad will most likely, in the long run, be a bigger part.

This time, Microsoft may have outdone themselves with a proposed patent of such breathtaking hubris that it makes their previous FUD pale by comparison.

A team of researchers has implemented support for ‘trusted computing’ in a commercially available version of the open source operating system Linux, breaking new ground in the global drive toward more secure computing environments.

TPM brought into SUSE, handing over control of one's PCs to vendors and corporations