Microsoft may abandon Palladium for AMD's NX-bit

Now these two stories confuse me a little bit. When we first heard about
Palladium (or NGSCB or whatever it's being called today), it was supposed to
be this dire invasion of our privacies, etc., etc. But now it simply looks
like it was something to stop viruses. So how exactly was Palladium supposed
to work anyways? Was there supposed to be some hardware support for this
technology, or was it entirely software? If there was hardware support, were
they using separated code and data segments as has existed in 32-bit
processors but never implemented, since the 386? What was Palladium supposed
to be really?

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15737

http://www.crn.com/sections/Breaking...rticleID=49936

Yousuf Khan

--
Humans: contact me at ykhan at rogers dot com
Spambots: just reply to this email address ;-)

On Wed, 05 May 2004 16:33:27 +0000, Yousuf Khan wrote:

Now these two stories confuse me a little bit.

Not surprising since the Inquirer article is bogus. The NX bit is
orthogonal to Palladium.

When we first heard about
Palladium (or NGSCB or whatever it's being called today), it was supposed to
be this dire invasion of our privacies, etc., etc. But now it simply looks
like it was something to stop viruses.

Palladium provides little protection against viruses/worms; it's not
intended to.

So how exactly was Palladium supposed
to work anyways? Was there supposed to be some hardware support for this
technology, or was it entirely software? If there was hardware support, were
they using separated code and data segments as has existed in 32-bit
processors but never implemented, since the 386? What was Palladium supposed
to be really?

http://www.eff.org/Infrastructure/tr...0031001_tc.php

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

--
Wes Felter - - http://felter.org/wesley/

Wes Felter wrote:

On Wed, 05 May 2004 16:33:27 +0000, Yousuf Khan wrote:

What was Palladium
supposed to be really?

http://www.eff.org/Infrastructure/tr...0031001_tc.php

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html


Looks like security for THEM at our expense. I love being treated like a
thief! This BS is why I stopped using MS products to start with!
--

Stacey

Wes Felter wrote:
Palladium provides little protection against viruses/worms; it's not
intended to.

So how exactly was Palladium supposed
to work anyways? Was there supposed to be some hardware support for
this technology, or was it entirely software? If there was hardware
support, were they using separated code and data segments as has
existed in 32-bit processors but never implemented, since the 386?
What was Palladium supposed to be really?

http://www.eff.org/Infrastructure/tr...0031001_tc.php

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

Oh yes, now I remember what we were so afraid of Palladium for. :-)

Your computer breaks down and you call for tech support, and part of the
tech support questions would be, "were you trying to run something illegal,
sir?"

Yousuf Khan

CRN said:
"Microsoft's 64-bit Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 for Extended
Systems will also support the NX feature in Intel Itanium processors for
clients due out in the second half."

I'd like to know how they do it now and how they plan to do it in the
future, considering this sentence makes no sense to me. The Itanium
architecture doesn't have an NX bit. There are two things they could
do. First they could actually use the fact that Itanium has separate
ITB and DTB and don't map your code pages into the data TLB! Second
they could set their data pages' access rights level to 2 (read, write),
and their instruction pages' access rights to 1 (read, execute) (other
combinations would give more useful but equally safe access to various
priviledged code). But really, what is the chance than Microsoft would
write correct, much less safe, code? They don't even use the split TLB
system properly or allow any page size besides 8KB, AFAIK.

Alex
--
My words are my own. They represent no other; they belong to no other.
Don't read anything into them or you may be required to compensate me
for violation of copyright. (I do not speak for my employer.)

Yousuf Khan wrote:

Oh yes, now I remember what we were so afraid of Palladium for. :-)

Your computer breaks down and you call for tech support, and part of the
tech support questions would be, "were you trying to run something
illegal, sir?"


Well, more like:

We determined that you have run something illegal. Homeland Security has
been alerted!

(back in the lurk mode
--
Sam I am
Spam alert! Reply-to address is bogus
spam_heaven at sympatico dot ca is where I can be reached

On a sunny day (Thu, 06 May 2004 21:09:53 GMT) it happened "Yousuf Khan"
wrote in
able.rogers.com:

Wes Felter wrote:
Palladium provides little protection against viruses/worms; it's not
intended to.

So how exactly was Palladium supposed
to work anyways? Was there supposed to be some hardware support for
this technology, or was it entirely software? If there was hardware
support, were they using separated code and data segments as has
existed in 32-bit processors but never implemented, since the 386?
What was Palladium supposed to be really?

http://www.eff.org/Infrastructure/tr...0031001_tc.php

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

Oh yes, now I remember what we were so afraid of Palladium for. :-)

Your computer breaks down and you call for tech support, and part of the
tech support questions would be, "were you trying to run something illegal,
sir?"

Yousuf Khan
In the US that would be:
'Can you PROVE you were not running anything illegal'?
This law will make it, as it saves companies ++++ on support.
JP

"Alex Johnson" wrote in message
...
CRN said:
"Microsoft's 64-bit Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 for Extended
Systems will also support the NX feature in Intel Itanium processors for
clients due out in the second half."

I'd like to know how they do it now and how they plan to do it in the
future, considering this sentence makes no sense to me. The Itanium
architecture doesn't have an NX bit. There are two things they could
do. First they could actually use the fact that Itanium has separate
ITB and DTB and don't map your code pages into the data TLB! Second
they could set their data pages' access rights level to 2 (read, write),
and their instruction pages' access rights to 1 (read, execute) (other
combinations would give more useful but equally safe access to various
priviledged code). But really, what is the chance than Microsoft would
write correct, much less safe, code? They don't even use the split TLB
system properly or allow any page size besides 8KB, AFAIK.

I was wondering about that, i.e. how data and instruction pages are
separated in Itanium? So it's actually done with two separate page tables,
as opposed to a single page table with a special attribute. This would also
make more sense in long-term architectural design point of view, as Itanium
is brand new and they can take brand new paths like this, whereas with x86
you have to take somewhat more limited steps.

Yousuf Khan

"Alex Johnson" wrote in message
...
CRN said:
"Microsoft's 64-bit Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 for Extended
Systems will also support the NX feature in Intel Itanium processors for
clients due out in the second half."

I'd like to know how they do it now and how they plan to do it in the
future, considering this sentence makes no sense to me. The Itanium
architecture doesn't have an NX bit. There are two things they could
do. First they could actually use the fact that Itanium has separate
ITB and DTB and don't map your code pages into the data TLB! Second
they could set their data pages' access rights level to 2 (read, write),
and their instruction pages' access rights to 1 (read, execute) (other
combinations would give more useful but equally safe access to various
priviledged code). But really, what is the chance than Microsoft would
write correct, much less safe, code? They don't even use the split TLB
system properly or allow any page size besides 8KB, AFAIK.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...ge_support.asp

Thanks,
Eugene

Alex
--
My words are my own. They represent no other; they belong to no other.
Don't read anything into them or you may be required to compensate me
for violation of copyright. (I do not speak for my employer.)

Alex Johnson wrote in message ...
The Itanium
architecture doesn't have an NX bit. There are two things they could
do. First they could actually use the fact that Itanium has separate
ITB and DTB and don't map your code pages into the data TLB! Second
they could set their data pages' access rights level to 2 (read, write),
and their instruction pages' access rights to 1 (read, execute) (other
combinations would give more useful but equally safe access to various
priviledged code). But really, what is the chance than Microsoft would
write correct, much less safe, code? They don't even use the split TLB
system properly or allow any page size besides 8KB, AFAIK.


This is silly. Page access rights on IPF let you do everything you
can do with the U/S, R/W and NX bits on an x86, and then some. Or do
you think that somehow being able to explicitly disable execution on a
page is somehow different than having to explicitly enable it?