A continual revolution

[Dave Aitel <dave () immunitysec com>]

So as of today, Immunity has moved our headquarters from New York City 
to Miami Beach. (Why? Because we can. :>) If you've been calling us or 
emailing us and we've been a bit slow to respond, that's why. You can 
reach me on my cell phone (on the Immunity web page) if you need to. Is 
there an information security community down here that anyone knows 
about? I have a funny feeling our new trainings are going to fill up 
pretty quickly.

One thing I have noticed despite the ongoing termoil is that Microsoft 
has been quietly asking for and getting encrypted channels to the screen 
and the USB ports. In case anyone wondered why that was, it's because 
Palladium requires signed and encrypted channels to your keyboard, 
mouse, display, and audio card. When a dialog box comes up from 
Palladium, it has to have your password/shared-secret in the border 
around it, or you will know it's not from your Pd chip. To do this, all 
input and output has to be able to be run through your OS without your 
OS being able to manipulate it. Does that make sense? I just think it's 
important to note that while everyone thinks Pd is dead, in reality, 
it's very much alive. Apple, of all companies, is reportedly using early 
Pd functionality to prevent you from installing Mac OS X on non-Apple boxes.

Which is a good thing, since:
1. It's nice to be able to say "Only GPG can read my GPG key"
2. It'll not be as strong for DRM as media vendors would like to think 
it will be, in my opinion. Fair Use is still fair use.

-dave


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