Bruce Potter: Trusted Computing: Could it be... SATAN?

Abstract: Trusted computing is not inherently evil. It sounds scary, but it's true. While the public perception of trusted computing is that content providers will use trusted computing to enforce their digital rights and take away our civil liberties (whew! a mouthful), the reality is that there is a lot of good to be done by trusted computing. For more than thirty years, computer scientists have been trying to find ways to make trusted computing a reality. Unfortunately the technology simply wasn't there, and info sec folk and hackers alike have spent their time chasing an impossible dream. Now we finally have the ability to have trusted hardware in general purpose devices and we need to figure out what to do with it. Everything we know about security changes with trusted computing...firewalls, SSL transactions, and even SMS have very different concerns with trusted computing than they do now. This talk will attempt to dispel some of the myths of trusted computing, discuss the current state of trusted hardware, and examine how software will change due to the TPM. Heck, we'll even have some tools for you to play with on your TPM-enabled hardware. Bio: Bruce Potter is the founder of the Shmoo Group of security professionals, a group dedicated to working with the community on security, privacy, and crypto issues. His areas of expertise include wireless security, software assurance, pirate songs, and restoring hopeless vehicles. Mr. Potter has coauthored several books including "802.11 Security" and "Mastering FreeBSD and OpenBSD Security" published by O'Reilly and "Mac OS X Security" by New Riders. Mr. Potter was trained in computer science at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Bruce Potter is a Senior Associate with Booz Allen Hamilton.