Trusted Computing Platform Alliance

The Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA) is an initiative by Intel and others to put digital rights management technology into personal computers, removing their ability to act as general-pupose computers and making them into a "trusted computing" platform controlled by the intellectual property of the TCPA members.

Founder members of the TCPA are Compaq, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft.

Members of the TCPA represent the initiative as beneficial to the consumer, by allowing them to use their PC as their home entertainment centre, secure in the knowledge that copyright owners are protected against any attempt they might make to make unauthorised copies of that media.

The choice of the term "trusted computing" is interesting to note, as in computer security a "trusted system" is one that you are forced to trust, not one that is particularly trustworthy.

Opponents of the TCPA represent it as a movement towards preventing competition in the computer industry, and deleterious to the rights of the individual. They also point out that it represents a threat to free software. A critique of the TCPA can be found in Ross Anderson's paper Security in Open versus Closed Systems - The Dance of Boltzmann, Coase and Moore.

Anderson states that:

"[...] TCPA appears likely to change the ecology of information goods and services markets so as to favour incumbents, penalise challengers, and slow down the pace of innovation and entrepreneurship. It is also likely to squeeze open systems, and may give rise to serious trade disputes between the USA and the EU."

External references:

• Security in Open versus Closed Systems
• Trusted Computing Platform Alliance