RSSSeagate: The Hard Drive, Reconsidered
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published November 22, 2006, 6:59 PM
SPECIAL FEATURE It is a frame of mind that not even the smartest security engineers, working the problem for decades, may have considered: We speak of viruses infecting the operating system. We hold the manufacturers (or, more often, the manufacturer) of the operating system partly responsible, even partly liable, for the damage that malicious programs cause to people's work and livelihood, as if the entire work paradigm for information technology exists in software.
What if we think of the problem from a reverse angle: Aren't hard disk drives the things that get infected? Decades ago, we used to quarantine floppy diskettes that were believed infected, when diskettes were the primary means for viruses to spread, prior to the ubiquitousness of the Internet.
Today's malicious programs enter systems via this network, exploiting vulnerabilities in operating systems in order to become active, but inevitably, they get stored. For viruses to remain effective, at some point in their life cycle, they must become "data at rest" - files residing undetected amid a forest of millions along the surface of a perpetually spinning ceramic platter.
What if we could attack them there? Moreover, what if the mechanism that puts them there in the first place could prevent them from getting there? Viewed in that light, suppose hard drive manufacturers were to recognize the problem as a threat to their livelihood, and proposed a feasible, workable solution which involved the operating system only to a minimal degree?
This is not only the story of a technology, but also of a company that security engineers would consider a "bit player" on the security stage, though which considers itself not only a "bit" player but a big player in IT: Seagate Technology. Seagate's proposed solution to the information integrity problem could fundamentally redefine computing in a way Windows Vista could only dream.
Pursued to its fullest extent (though I grant you, no sweeping concept in the history of IT ever has been pursued to its fullest extent), it could uproot the very business model through which computers are sold. The hard disk drive itself, promoted from a passive storage receptacle to the role of co-provider of the "root of trust," could actually end up costing consumers and businesses less - one critical reason being, they won't be the ones paying for all of it.
Under this model, security software as we have come to know it may become demoted to the third, or perhaps even fourth, "line of defense." So the blasphemy that has become the notion of disengaging antivirus utilities, could metamorphose into feasibility.
Before you think this is just some other pipe dream promulgated by press releases, and predicated by a plethora of "what-ifs," consider the following underappreciated fact: Next week, the hard drive manufacturers of the world, along with that certain operating system manufacturer and other interested parties, will assemble together to vote on how they will actually do this. Their milestones include dates as soon as next year. And there may be little, if any, opposition to this plan among them.
If there is any opposition to be had, if there is any dark lining to be detected amid the silver cloud of interoperable solutions, it may yet come from the consumer. For riding piggy-back on this plan that bears the promise of terminating the current era of malware, is a subsidy which few may instantly embrace: a kind of lease agreement, where quite literally, other companies may reserve segments of the hidden memory inside the hard drive, for use for their own purposes.
Some of these companies could be security providers. Others will likely be content providers. And if this article stopped here, you could still see where it was leading.
Next: The Distrust Problem
Now it shows up - even to those who rejected any thought of this before.
This is only the beginning. There is a day coming that you won't be able to do with your computer what you wanna do - only what they want you to do .
This is the coming tyranny shining up now openly.
And you know it . . .
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|There aren't too many people out there that know how to build there own computer. If companies like Dell, emachine, HP so on and so forth decide to put these HD's into there machines, the general public isn't going to pay attention to what kind of HD is installed in there pc's as long as it boots up and runs the General public won't care. Most of us in this forum are computer savy enough to know the difference and prevent one of these HD's from being installed but thats a small drop in the bucket. I hate to say it but sometimes the government has to protect people from themselves and I agree in this case, it's not the customer that has to do something it's the G0d D$mn government which is a whole different problem in it's self since if they really cared Windows wouldn't have that WGA BS.
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|It's like this: drives will fail and new machines will be bought, culminating in new hard drives, one way or another. So if Seagate goes this route, and people snatch them up, other vendors will either follow suit or try to beat them with an alternative. If people don't snap them up, other vendors will continue on past Seagate while they're changing their tire on the side of the road. We (consumers) ultimately control the future of this.
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|Exactly!! There is no law requiring this as of yet. With the majority of drives already being produced overseas there will be plenty of companies willing to produce drives that don't leash customers. There are plenty of people who possess the savy to engineer and design hard drives (thaks to American comcpies sending their manufacturing and jobs there.
The market dictates who gets the business. Here we have a company that shrinks its warranty while assuming it's consumers will just suck it up. All done in name of third part industries that have no interest in the consumer product other than altering manufacturing processes and technology against the end user - the end user who is paying the bills.
Buy the alternate product folks. It may not be the "Rolls Royce", but in terms of man hours saved in battling intrusive schemes it may well be a bargain in the long run. I maintain that there are ample companies that have the technology to produce quality drives and would be more than willing to take on their share of the market should the big boys decide they can dictate what I put in my machines.
There is no need to be brow beaten into submission. Avoid this like the plague or in five years you may be forced to buy hard drives that phone home.
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|Why is the public such a bunch of sheep? Don't buy the friggen things. Hold out. IT people tell your companies the drive are misery and non cost effective. Here we sit with the money and we are going to allow this? Get a life already and refuse to reward this crap with your money people. What is so hard about this? Has everyone turned helpless?
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|Hard disks need to get replaced, newer faster ones are always needed, more space is always needed, so there is no escape to buy new products and if they ship only products to enslave people and limit usage there is no way to avoid buying them.
The politicians, the laws should stop this madness from happening along with the insane Microsoft WGA spy-on-customers thing that started all this DRM/TPCA thing to limit people usage and get more and more money out of customers.
Like Amazon and iTunes Apple selling Tv-Series episodes DRM stuff at $1.99 each .. which is an insult and it should be banned. Producers and sellers nowadays are allowed to make a fool of customers because the law is not acting to stop their illegal actions, what once was illegal to do nowadays is considered to be illegal despite it's just like a fraud.
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|I just thought of another issue with this DRM Crap. What happens if these HD's find there way into servers? Would a company really want to risk all of these "validations"? As a Network Admin I would view this as a breach in security as you truly wouldn't know what information was really being sent over the net to the validating company. In addition to this I can't think of too many companies that don't use other forms of OS's and DB's such as Redhat, Linux, Oracle etc... Wouldn't these HD's limit the use of these? I know many companies would love to get rid of Open Source and I wouldn't be too suprised if we found out that Microsoft had something to do with this.
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|Here something else I noticed.. All those enterprise/in-house custom written softwares that so may companies use .. guess what? You replace the current technology drives with one of these new DRM like drives and suddently the huge $$ investment in those in-house softwares stop working because they aren't on the 'Approval list' and are being seen as 'intrusion or rogue softwares' and blocked from use.
Here's another.. what about the growing population of computer GAMERS out there that change hardwares very frequently.. This DRM like crap can really be a headache!! And the encrypt/decrypt will make the decerning gamer CRY because it slows his FPS performance too. I could go on and on.. you know the drill here if you're a gamer.
In the end, the HDD compan(y)(ies) that adopt such a scheme will be the ones selling LESS drives overall when perforance tests go public about how they perform SLOWER in real-world use than today's drives do [attributed to the extra workload of the drive]
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|I think you're reading a lot more into this than there is, seascape. First of all, I don't see any evidence of a "whitelist" of approved software. True, new drives could come preconfigured to work with applications that the user may either purchase or find pre-installed on systems, so that could increase the incentive to purchase (for instance, security software that engages the trusted software in the drive). But that doesn't mean a DriveTrust-enabled drive will disallow something from being installed; that would imply that it has some operating system-like capabilities, like navigating to the "Program Files" directory (assuming Windows), which isn't even technically feasible.
About the gaming problem: I can think of a number of legitimate concerns that gamers may have about active DRM schemes in their systems, but if slowing down the frame rate is truly on the top of their list, then this isn't really much of a problem after all.
Let me see if I can try again to phrase the situation in its proper light, because there are some problems we may have to face going forward, but I'm not certain you're pinpointing the right ones: Say for the sake of argument that I'm a media player program. Up to this point in history, I've relied on drivers running in the operating system to determine whether an MP3 file includes rights management. If so, my problems have been whether the certification on the file is legitimate, and whether the attribution on the file applies to the current user. Presently, I have to delegate those tasks to something akin to PlaysForSure, running within the operating system, to give me the answer. This is how DRM works today. In the future, I may wish to delegate these two tasks to a standardized process enabled by the Trusted Software Stack running within the hard drive.
Realize what's happening: In the future, I could bypass traditional DRM. And, I would be speeding up the computer in the process for the sake of the gamer, because the computer now would have fewer tasks usurping those frame rates.
Here may be the problem you want to focus on: As DRM schemes evolve, they may not want me as a lowly media player to delegate that authority. Instead, they may want me to rely on drivers within the operating system to do the delegation, so all I do is just sit back and play what I'm told I can play and not play what I'm told I can't.
So what happens to the poor fellow for whom all his MP3s were acquired legitimately? There's the possiblity of open warfare between different tiers of software, over who gets the right to say how any of his files get played, and by what software. Expand the problem to still photos and video, and suddenly you have situations where photographs users shot with their own cameras may not be viewable by software that doesn't support the DRM scheme preferred by the camera manufacturer. It's this type of situation that makes things far more difficult for the user of purely legitimate files than it would be for the guy who picks up all his music off of mass downloads from some underground P2P service - accomplishing the reverse consequence of what DRM intended.
This is not a problem that would be caused by DriveTrust, in my opinion, but one which could be precipitated by it if we as users and consumers fail to guide the technology properly. DriveTrust could be the technology that unites everyone behind a common solution to the problem, or it could touch off a pretty big powder-keg.
SF3
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|I'm wondering how the heck a troubleshooting staff or PC repair shop would be able to do anything to fix a PC with this sort of mechanism in place. The repair persons [i.e. CompUSA, Best Buy, and other Local Computer Fix-it shops] would not be able to access the data to fix problems in all cases. AND if there were memory leaks of sorts, could lead to move blue-screen of death, lock-ups, etc.. corruption would essentially mean you need to buy a new hard drive for what would normally still be a working hard drive [i.e. Reformat/repartition = prob fixed situation]. This scheme looks to work in a utopian world, where data corruption/probs never occur [and we all know that will never be the case]. This seems more aimed on selling more hard drives, as you would end up replacing currupted drives as bad drives faster than the current model drives that die off due to hardware failures typically. It now becomes a hardware & software issue, defaultingly increasing the likilyhood to have to replace it sooner than current 'model' designed drives.
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|This is an interesting concern, seascape. Indeed, the presence of encryption on consumer hard drives will exacerbate an already difficult problem with repairs. Speaking personally, I already have a problem with the idea of entrusting a hard drive with critical business data on it, to somebody I don't know personally. I would ask, if you're worried about the possibility of content providers getting a peek at what's on your hard drive, and what an invasion of personal privacy that might be, wouldn't you also be worried about the possibility of some guy in a repair shop flipping through your spreadsheets?
My belief is that there's an opportunity here to enable knowledgeable and qualified hard drive repair-people (both of them) to diagnose and repair the mechanism of the drive, without being able to touch the data contents beyond access to the encrypted image. This could eliminate (nearly) the problem of entrusting drive mechanisms to individuals whose trustworthiness has not been established.
Something else from personal experience: I've found that data corruption occurs less frequently as a result of mechanical corruption when there's some sort of mathematical arbiter overseeing the data - in other words, in the presence of compression or encryption, or both. When you can add a layer of error correction to the process, data has a better chance of withstanding the inevitable problems caused by mechanical corruption.
SF "Living Proof of Mechanical Corruption" 3
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|You want to hijack people PCs with that link or what ?
I wonder how many trojans will get loaded thru you link..
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|don't spam the forums.
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|nice to see spam get yanked, coulda removed the linked posts though.
:-p
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|Where are the mods when u need em, I wonder?
Seriously though--how many people do you think will actually click on his link? Why post stuff here? Wha--nevermind...
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|The manufacturers are getting paid tons of money by the gang of lawyers and marketing guys to put DRM-like control technologies with DSP running crypto algorithms on board.
Everyone must phone, send letter, send e-mails to the manufacturers, the RIAA, BSA, MPAA as well as news networks and political parties to express how much you are disgusted to get considered like a criminal and how much you dislike DRM technologies, that no Company or manufacturer must be allowed to spy on customers and people like it was done by a secret agency which no manufacturer or association surely is about.
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|It's all a scheme, and I did another post here:
http://www.betanews.com/...by_Microsoft/1163113145
And I think that Seagate has already been using DRM in their hard drives. Read the post. It explains it,, and tell me if you don't agree that the problem I've discovered is related to that brand new Seagate hd... They already have RFID on the packages. I've scanned it and made a post on another forum.
http://www.bleepingcompu.../forums/topic70596.html
It'll show you what the RFID chips look like. RFID means (Radio Frequency IDentification)
What no one mentions the really bad downfalls to this whole ordeal, and it's:
1. If you have no Internet access, you won't be using your hard drive.
2. If you want to install any software, you'll need to be connected to the Internet.
3. If you put in your original cd's/dvd's, you'll need to veify them... by going online.
DonGato wrote:
Yes, that's the best way of acting.
First, pronounce your dissatisfaction all around the world. Second, boycott their products. Third, don't buy anything from them or their associates.
So we should start by not even thinking about Windows Vista. :P
Well said, and should be practiced, and I won't dare think about using Windows Vista.
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33Nick wrote:
It looks like another move into another market lockdown. It feels like DRM is being used by companies to lockdown a market instead of truly innovating.
Without me. I'll stick to my old har drives, even if I have to stock up ;)
That's what I'm going to do. I'm also going to pawn off my Seagate to someone that needs 160G,, and then I'll buy one from a company that ISN'T a so-called trusted company.
They are moving to dictate every aspect of our computing habits to benefit only them. There is no benefit what-so-ever in any of this for the end user. I'll be damned if I'm going to buy a hard drive, then having to activate it. That's simply crazy. Then after it's all said and done... it'll secretly send whatever you load on your hd back through the Internet, and you'll never know it.
It's simply tracking and spying on us.
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|yes its the same in europe,we have the rights to privecey law here it comes under human rights im sure the E. u. as in u.s.a will put a stop to these asholes,if you follow the u s a you will see their growing court battle where the goverment has been phone tapping millions of americans and violating the fourth amendent ,thats a big no no over thier watch the space Also mirocsoft has just been fine by the E.U about 325 million euroes
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|Trust, that's great except, i will never trust any company, what i trust is the end product only to the point of which - how it can benefit me and ONLY for so long as i PERSONALLY feel it will do that job. Therefore, since this seems to me to be nothing more then trying to convince me that DRM will benefit me, rather then just the company, by using neat terms like "trusted computing", i say.... stick it.
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|George Orwell's "1984" has certainly lived up to its promise....here comes BIG BROTHER.
The feature is good and bad. Good in that virus writers can be tracked down readily. Now Visual Studio 2005 etc already encrypts your CPU & HW info into the pseudo code already. With DRM and HDD serial no etc, we can pinpoint the PC on which each and every new virus was created on and travelled thru.
The bad new is that this legitimizes "SPY ware" operations by the Big Guns RIAA etc. Everytime you play a tune (genuinely purchased) it would want to know which CPU HDD S/w ver it is being run and send info for "validation" which allows them to operate "legal spyware" - spying on your music/vide tastes etc...
And why would it be cheaper? In fact such HDD will be more expensive as manufacturers will launch it as a premium HDD. So far RIAA etc have always insisted on this and that, but cost of the end product is always borned by the consumer. I don not see this being any different.
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|As you said, the trust is not made by money and is a personal thing. I can trust a company another people don't trust and vice versa. So, the decision of trusting or not can't be handled to another party (e.g. Seagate).
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|Depending on which side of the table you are sitting on is the way to look at this...
If you are a Hardcore to better than your regular PC user, you may find this a Lock Down... but if you are regular Joe who clicks on just about anything that moves on the screen this may be a Great feature.
If this feature could be simply turned on and off via the BIOS, then I could see this a great feature that could be setup for different types of users.
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|This sounds more like a move to lock down a computer to prevent us the freedoms associated with choosing what software we want to run on a particular pc. It's scary even if a fraction of this can come true. I'd prefer to see them focusing on access speeds instead of this crap, but hey I'm not suprised since some idiots want to start taxing emails and controlling whats on the net, we're not too far from either one of those why not start limiting what we can run on our pc's.
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|don't buy stuff, the companies will understand themselves.
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|Yes, that's the best way of acting.
First, pronounce your dissatisfaction all around the world. Second, boycott their products. Third, don't buy anything from them or their associates.
So we should start by not even thinking about Windows Vista. :P
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|DRM isn't the issue here. It's the fact that there's a price for certification - it's not like it's a 'body of terms' to comply to, to make software/hardware trusted. You pay, you're in. You can't afford to pay, you're out. So there are ups: viruses/malware/bad things/etc. can't run on aby of your protected hardware (in theory), but there are downs as well: open-source, free programs (from people/companies who can't afford to pay for certification), etc. may not be able to run/use this hardware (MAY NOT). So we're really not sure what will happen - but from past trends, in my humble opinion, it'll be rather scarey. I run a host of free programs, not because I'm 'poor' but because they're just as great as things that bigger companies offer for a price. Take that away from me, and I would have to shell out 2-300 for the alternatives, this is not including stuff that requires that you pay for a subscription like AV programs, Spyware programs, etc. but wait! We won't NEED these right?! Who knows....perusing the list of companies that have joined, I noticed Symantec (which maybe I'm wrong but seems to be a company focussed on security software only) --- so, did I miss something? Believe me, I'm trying not to be cynical or skeptical but it's difficult. It seems like an organization more to the tune of forcing away 'freedom' than to really be about security. By freedom I mean consumer freedom - Free to choose openoffice rather than ms office, free to choose linux rather than vista, free to choose avast rather than symantec, free to choose a micro innovations usb2 hub rather than a belkin, etc, you get my point.
On the other hand, the more optimistic one....this could be a good thing. I'd love to not be worried about viruses and malware sneaking into my system, or backing up my music and movies 3 times over to make sure they don't just get wiped away one day. Then again, who to say that one day they'll even be able to play on a device that may require a drm signature to run?
I'll keep my eyes open and my caution set to high for this one.
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|Problem of infections is not in operating systems, it's not in software, and it's certanly not in hardware, but it's in dumb factor between display and chair. Yep, you figured out, it's the user.
They should improve transfer and access rates instead such stupid stuff. HDD's are the only thing that hasn't changed for decades in terms of speed. All they do is evolve in size. Well we have enough of space, give us the speed damn it...
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|It looks like another move into another market lockdown. It feels like DRM is being used by companies to lockdown a market instead of truly innovating.
Without me. I'll stick to my old har drives, even if I have to stock up ;)
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|After reading this entire article, and while in theory the solution presented ny Saegate seems workable, there appears to be one huge flaw that was not mentioned. not really a flaw, but a potential issue. That is, Seagate employs the use of these partitions that are paid for by the software manufacurer, and said software can be installed at any point and "be trusted" because the software company has a contract with Seagate to utilize the hard drive TCM, paying Seagate "a few pennies" per instance of use; so...how do software manufacturers offfset this "few pennies per use" cost? They will pass it onto the consumer, that's us! What about the small software company who cannot afford a contract w/ the hard disk manufacturer? Or the developer who does not wish to partake in any type of Trusted Computing scheme of any kind?
Here's anothet thought. If these hidden partitions can be created at time of manufacture, then it will only be a matter of time until someone develops a process that can uncreate them using software or another hardware device.
At any given time, about 20% of the people in the world are "sources of trouble" and to some degree insane. At any given time, about 15% of all people are involved in some criminal activity. At any time, abpout 2.5% are actual dangerous criminal psychotics. The solution to trusted computing is not more laws and penalties, as is the model of TPM, but handling the causes of crime itself.
Have a look around you. Crime rates have been rising upward for a long time. Modern laws as solutions don't curb crime nor do they prevent it. TPM parrellels this approach to handling crime. Thus, one can conclude that the present approach does not work nor will it ever work.
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|There are only two reasons why any of this is even a concern at all. It's because of the level of ignorance and apathy when it comes to the average computer user aswell as the fact that large companies like Microsoft, Dell, etc. actually push for and help create situations ripe for infection. Most pre-built computers come infected right out of the box. Since most people have no clue how to properly deal with computers, this is what we have. I know the concept of the mechanical harddrive is going to end anyway, but the only real answer to todays biggest computer problems is simply for people to actually learn something about the equiptment they own and stop going for things that only "look" good while s***ing all the problems onto other people.
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|I've read all five pages, and now I've got these "visions" of secure partitions on the hard drive being exploited by the large software corporations to "lure" the general public into "trusting" the provider.
Blah!
Why can't we just realize why malware and viruses exist in the first place, and tackle the problem of software piracy and security in a way that benefits ALL humanity, not just the large software and media providers?
I do agree with Dr. Willett, the future business model will involve individual data providers (both media and software) the ability to publish and distribute their material entirely on their own, without record labels, entertainment companies, publishing companies, or distribution companies. This falls in line with the Convergence Era, and as technology advances, individuals are empowered with better opportunities.
However, this fact of the future business model still doesn't limit widespread domination by large corporations who want to "control" what the general public sees and hears. Just because the individual creators will have the ability to publish and distribute their material on their own, doesn't mean the actual networks still won't be controlled by large corporations. Thus, the same ole "rich get richer while the poor get poorer" still flurishes.
Eventually we humans are going to have to come to terms with our own greed and selfishness.
It just so happens that the I.T. industry continues to be transformed by individuals who come up with innovative ideas and concepts; not by multibillion dollar corporations who implement the ideas and concepts.
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|good post.
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|"the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" is a foolish way of thinking.
The poor have more now than ever before. Most of the people that are considered "poor" own more than one tv, a car, one or two computers, jewelry, have internet access, and various other luxuries of life.
One of the biggest things that seperate the rich from the poor is the way of thinking when it comes to money. Most of the rich are not rich because they won the lottory. Most of the rich are rich because they work hard and make smart choices for their money. If your a "poor" person...waiting inline for a week to pay $600 for a ps3 is NOT a wise choice for where to spend your money and time. Paying a thousand dollars for that same ps3 on ebay is also not a wise way of spending your money. These types of things are what keeps the poor man down.
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|a rich man creates profit, not product.
if you can't see that the rich take advantage of the poor, you are blind to the world.
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|Just who is it that you think does create product? The poor?
If the poor are being takin advantage of, Then I question the mentality of the poor person that allows themselves to be takin advantage of. This reminds me of the idiocy of the ps3; waiting inline for a week to pay $600 for that just screams out "I want to be takin advantage of". It's even worse (louder) when a poor person pays a grand off of ebay for that same ps3.
If you want to talk about people taking advantage of other people.....
The only reason the Geek Squad exists is because of people that wont learn anything about the computer the own. This creates a situation where you get takin advantage of by spending more money due to an unwillingness to learn when you could get your computer fixed for free (doing it yourself). It's not like computer repair is rocket science or some government secret. Everyone wants something for free, but are so willing to pay the Geek Squad for something they could do for free.
It all comes down to the choices in life we make.
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|This whole third paragraph makes me laugh. You can say that about ANY consumer product, tvs, cars, houses, etc... The computer isn't "life" to a majority of the people in this world, in fact it's nothing more than a tool to get a job done, whether personal or professional.
Are you saying everyone should be become knowledgeable to the point of repair on everything they own? or just computers? wow, would be a pretty boring world. What's wrong with enjoying the "things" and calling on someone to fix them when they're broke?
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|Most people simply would get more enjoyment out of their computers (and cars) if they would learn how to properly deal with them.
Personally, I consider computers to be important "tools" in the world of ours. But many don't. Hammers are tools too, but if you use them wrong or don't understand how to properly deal with them, you could end up spending even more money because you got hurt. Due to the need, the capabilities, and the things computers can do....a user is better off knowing the computer they own. More money could be saved and more hassle could be avoided.
The more things you can fix on your own around your home....the better off you will be. Things will break and when they do; how much of your hard earned money will you spend on getting it fixed? Personally, I would rather spend ten dollars and do it myself as opposed to spending two hundred on having someone else do the same thing. That hundred and ninety dollar differance could be used in more usefull ways. Like making sure there is food in the house for another week or new clothes for the kids. Maybe even having the extra money to actually be able to afford another luxury like upgrading my computer.
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|like i said previously, the poor man is fixing the rich man's computer.
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|I get your point prndll and will leave it at that...by the way, my money isn't "hard earned", I work in IT :-)
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|"It all comes down to the choices in life we make...."
And just what "choice" did any member of the Bush family ever make to make them rich? Not a single one has ever worked a day in their lives over the past four generations, and they've spent most of the 20th century looting the public treasure. Same goes for Cheney — you think Halliburton is an honest business? Methinks your confused conservatism mistakes being poor with today's ravaged middle class, my friend.
You can "choose" to be anything you want, but that doesn't mean you have any chance of becoming it. You won't become president; you won't become the next Bill Gates; you won't become an engineering genius; and you won't become a billionaire just from PMA (positive mental attitude). Think again.
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|You seem to live in a place without poor people as your example it's far from the reality at most undeveloped countries. Really poor people does not have a TV or a Car or anything valuable. They barely eat.
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|Well, most of the times is the poor the "creator", but the one holding the rights as he employs the first one for that is the rich one. I don't see anything wrong in that unless the "poor" is being forced to work or abused. That's capitalism and with its problems it's still the best system we have.
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|"That's capitalism and with its problems it's still the best system we have."
i grudgingly agree
:-p
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|I don't see poor people creating the PS3 or Xbox. I don't see poor people creating the cars we all buy. I don't see poor people creating the computers we all buy or tv's. I don't see people poor people creating much of anything. Now, sometimes it's a poor person that comes up with an idea that ends up making them rich. But, by the conversations I run accross (like this), being rich seems to be a bad thing.
It is important to have both the rich and the poor. Both need eachother.
If you are "poor", then you need to do everything you can to NOT be poor. Waisting your money on strip clubs, drugs, etc. is only going to keep a person poor. Most people don't get rich by some fluke like winning the lotto, inheritance, or some stroke of pure luck. Most people get rich by being smart about what they do, working hard, and making wise decisions. Not everyone is going to do these things though. This is what maintains the state of being poor. You can't spend $600 on a ps3 while you are living paycheck to paycheck barely getting by and still expect to get somewhere positive. You can't spend your entire paycheck on a stripper in one night and expect to get somewhere positive. If you can afford to make payments every month on a computer that will end up costing you twice as much, then you can afford to build one that you will not only spend alot less money for but also be alot more proud of. There are all kinds of ways to save money and spend money wisely. Most people wont and most of those people are the same ones complaining about being poor.
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|there aren't many millionaires building computers or cars.
i really don't know where you see rich people creating things. do you have any examples?
most "rich" people do nothing but manage finances, and make "big" decisions based on profit.
"Wasting your money on strip clubs, drugs, etc. is only going to keep a person poor."
those activities are abused by the rich as much as the poor, and have nothing to do with financial status.
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|The cast of characters: Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Samsung, flash drives, tape drives, Microsoft, AMD, and Intel. (RIAA? Might they be at that meeting, too?)
The story's [not-so-fairy tale] ending: Once upon a time, and not so long ago, computers were considered "personal". . . .
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|So very true, but nothing has been "personal" for a long time now.
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|Actually, there is still a very large portion of people that see computers as toys to be "played" on.
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|Umm... Didn't read the entire article, but it sounds to me like they're describing the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA).
http://www.AgainstTCPA.com/
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|No more Seagate for me then. Just waiting for the UNTRUSTED manufacturers of drives. :)
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|Sounds like a fantastic idea, i had thoughts along a simmilar idea at least a year ago, a wish list would be windows vista Hard written onto a a hard drive that could not be accessed by anyone unless a pluged wire was inserted to write further functions, paging file, software and progs could be put on another drive if needed.
The closest i can come to envisioning such a state at this time would be to ghost windows and open your operating system with a virtual disk drive (doing it this way is faster than a dvd or cd).Getting the bios to aknowledge a virtual drive is a stiking point, that would be overcome if motherboard co wereasked.
But at the moment its nearly christmas so im dreaming ;)
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|crap! then all won't buy them at all (atleast i wont buy such crap hardware)
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|So is this thing possibly going to be something they force on us or is it an option? Personally, i dont need nor do i want any DRM BS. Same goes for the "Trusted" crap.
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|For some, it's more practical and efficient to have hardware that doesn't check every Bit of data written so as to determine whether it should not be written. Cut out the middle man and you've a faster process.
For others, it's more practical and efficient to have such a feature due to the idiotic behaviors some people undergo when they're prompted with an Active X link "FREE PORN XXX! CLICK TO INSTALL DIALER!". Although, Seagate could save themselves the money developing such hard drives, and actual End Users could employ persons that are competent in operating a computer.
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|This will bring a new meaning to the words, "I forgot my password." lol
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|Great feature, thanks to Scott Fulton. "Control" seems to be the operative word here. The more security you want, the more freedom you give up, just like in society. Therefore, I'd hate this HD and run, not walk away from it.
________________________________________________
OFF TOPIC: Anyone else noticed that when you hit "Print this article" to attempt to read it on one page, it still splits the article among five pages?
Funny.
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|We hold the manufacturers (or, more often, the manufacturer) of the operating system partly responsible, even partly liable, for the damage that malicious programs cause to people's work and livelihood, as if the entire work paradigm for information technology exists in software.
So irresponsible.
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|5 pages are a little too much.
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|DRM is a serious malware, I can't believe this pretend to be presented as "solution" to anything.
I take 100k "standard" viruses and pay some antivirus, anti-spam and a firewall before a DRM hardware touch my hand. In fact, the day we have no right to choice but to use a DRM infected computer, I'll leave my IT job and start a new agriculture career.
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|ummmm....NO
why would i want a computer based on hardware control rather than software?
the whole point of the software interface is to give the user custom functionality and a unique personal experience.
i still don't understand how it's going to stop viruses, if it can be accessed and modified, it can be manipulated and destroyed.
not ot mention,
idiots will still break them!
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|Not to mention that in my experience a large number of hard drives turn flaky or die in 3 to 5 years. Its bad enough when a drive no longer will read it's boot sector but what happens when it won't read its magic protection sector and the box say's "I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that."
IMHO this stuff is as stupid as the coded parallel port dongle of times past.
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|A very good point, and the quote made me laugh; though it may be impossible, what we should be focusing on, as mentioned by others many times, is getting computer laymen to STOP CLICKING ON THE ****ING OK BUTTON. And, well, use some bloody common sense
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|The potential for more DRM. Wicked. Just what we need.
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|I think I'll stick with a software AV, the only "technology" Seagate seems to deliver effectively is a "lemon" in every box. I was buying these for my clients for about a year and don't anymore, because virtually all of them failed. I personally returned the following from my own system(s) (3x120s, 1x300).
-Christian Blackburn
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|Good thing they have a 5 year warranty. That's why I buy seagate exclusively.
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|Stupid idea, only a way for companies to take over your computer and files. I don't have anti-virus or any other anti stuff and guess what, I only got a virus once and it was on purpose. The problem is not the design, it is the stupidity of the user. Let them be controlled by DRM stuff I will be free!
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|you do realize this is an 5 page article? :-)
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|lol i stopped at the first paragraph, did betanews even write it? somebody has too much free time
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|What's wrong with full length features on BetaNews? Scott Fulton does in fact work for BN. This is the kind of stuff we can look forward to in addition to the news. After all, is this concept not "beta" and cutting edge theory? Writers write stories for a living, so how would writing an in depth piece relate to having too much free time?
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|Maybe it's just me, maybe it's just because "Scott M Fulton III" sounds a little pretentious, but I have not been able to read a single one of his articles without feeling the urge to vomit profusely.
5 wasted pages, if you ask me...and yes, sadly, I read them.
Now, where do I go to get that 10 minutes of my life back. I want a full refund. :p
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|lol
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