[11589] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive

home help back first fref pref prev next nref lref last post

Re: Palladium and malware

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Frantz)
Fri Aug 30 15:20:55 2002

In-Reply-To: <48f10ea6a997d377d8f0d82a43c3c387@dizum.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 11:16:49 -0700
To: Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com>, cryptography@wasabisystems.com
From: Bill Frantz <frantz@pwpconsult.com>

At 9:40 PM -0700 8/29/02, Nomen Nescio wrote:
>There is a computer design called the Harvard architecture which has a
>strict separation between code and data space, and conceivably Palladium
>could use a similar approach to make it impossible to run decrypted code.
>Adopting this approach would add credibility to Microsoft's promises
>not to use Palladium for software copy protection.  But if they don't
>go to such an extreme, it is likely that Palladium would allow the use
>of various techniques to help malware hide from its opponents.

All general purpose computers require a way to move data space to code
space to support compilation.  Even if you don't allow compilation, most
modern systems have enough different powerful scripting languages that
interpretation is sufficient to support viruses.

Cheers - Bill


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Frantz           | The principal effect of| Periwinkle -- Consulting
(408)356-8506         | DMCA/SDMI is to prevent| 16345 Englewood Ave.
frantz@pwpconsult.com | fair use.              | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA



---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo@wasabisystems.com

home help back first fref pref prev next nref lref last post