Re: [tboot-devel] Buying a machine that will actually work with TXT

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Hello,

regarding the original posters mention of trusted graphics and input paths:
Does anyone know what the status on this is? I know this is separate
technology from TXT but certainly it is part of trusted computing. Back in
2003 when especially Microsoft talked a lot about trusted computing, they
envisaged end-to-end encryption to/from the keyboard and the possibility for
creating trusted windows on the display that could not be grapped or
overwritten by non-trusted programs (and that could be recognized by the
user by some to be defined mechanism, like the one Mike suggested). I even
read that ATI and Nvidia were on board on the graphics part. I haven't heard
anything about this since and the relevant discussion forums on the trusted
computing groups seem to be closed. So do any of you have more recent info
on whether these techs are being/have been standardized somewhere?

Thanks,

Martin Thiim

On 7/15/08, Cihula, Joseph <jos...@in...> wrote:
>
> I should have also mentioned that all '08 (and forward) vPro and cPro
> systems will support TXT and that the DQ35JO motherboard is used in
> various ODMs' systems.
>
> Joe
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Cihula, Joseph
> Sent: Monday, July 14, 2008 4:33 PM
> To: 'Hal Finney'; Mike Hearn
> Cc: tbo...@li...
> Subject: RE: [tboot-devel] Buying a machine that will actually work with
> TXT
>
> I can't specifically recommend any systems, but I can add that the
> Intle(R) DQ35JO motherboard also supports TXT.
>
> And as Hal pointed out, the first mobile system will be available
> shortly (I can't comment on production dates, but the one in my office
> works with TXT just fine).
>
> Shortly we will be adding Linux support to tboot (i.e. to boot a Linux
> kernel) and posting the corresponding patches for Linux to LKML.
>
> Joe
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tbo...@li...
> [mailto:tbo...@li...] On Behalf Of Hal
> Finney
> Sent: Monday, July 14, 2008 3:12 PM
> To: Mike Hearn
> Cc: tbo...@li...
> Subject: Re: [tboot-devel] Buying a machine that will actually work with
> TXT
>
> Hi Mike - Boy, you'd think this would be easy to find out, wouldn't
> you? I just wasted (more optimistically, spent or even invested!) an
> hour trying to see what current chips, chipsets and systems support
> TXT. It certainly doesn't help that Intel chose such a widely used 3
> letter acronym.
>
> It doesn't look to me like any laptops yet support TXT. This file:
> http://download.intel.com/products/roadmap/roadmap.pdf on page 5
> indicates that the first mobile platform with TXT is the one Intel
> code-names Montevina, using processors code-named Penryn and a chipset
> code-named Cantiga, and that this should be coming out in Q2 08.
> Unfortunately, the mapping of these codenames to actual products seems
> to be a tightly held Intel secret - at least, I couldn't find it.
> However, Wikipedia has some useful information on the Montevina
> platform:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrino#Montevina_platform_.282008.29
> says,
>
> "The code-name Montevina refers to the fifth-generation Centrino
> platform, now formally named Centrino 2 to avoid confusion with
> previous Centrino platforms. It was scheduled for release at Computex
> Taipei 2008, which took place on June 3 - 7, 2008,[6] but has been
> delayed until July 14, due to problems with integrated graphics and
> wireless certification."
>
> July 14 happens to be today, so your question is in a way quite
> timely. And this tells us that what you want to look for would be
> Centrino 2. However it will probably be a while before systems are
> available with that architecture. And whether they will actually
> support TXT is unknown.
>
> When Trusted Execution was announced, 3 models of computers were
> identified as supporting it: The HP Compaq dc7800, Dell OptiPlex 755
> PC, and the Lenovo ThinkCentre M57p. I don't know of any others that
> have been added to that list since then.
>
> As far as the use of Tboot, it seems to be primarily oriented around
> launching the Xen virtual machine monitor, making it a measured VMM or
> MVMM. Xen can then launch Linux or certain other OS's, perhaps even
> measuring them as well.
>
> Personally I prefer the direction of Jonathan McCune's "Flicker"
> project, http://sparrow.ece.cmu.edu/group/flicker.html - it similar to
> what you describe, launching from within a running OS self-contained
> applets (which I think he should call, flicklets) that run for a brief
> moment in a measured, protected mode, perform some sensitive
> calculation and then return to the conventional OS. I was working on a
> similar idea but he is quite a bit further along with it, and last I
> heard it was already working with AMD's skinit and almost there with
> Intel TXT.
>
> Hal Finney
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 2:27 PM, Mike Hearn <mi...@pl...> wrote:
> > Hiya,
> >
> > I'm interested in playing with LaGrande/TXT. I've read the book,
> although
> > it's sort of confusing and probably out of date now. It seems clear to
> me
> > that from a users perspective, messing around with the low level
> GETSEC
> > instructions is the wrong way to go - I need drivers. Tboot appears to
> be
> > that project.
> >
> > From reading the archives though it seems that the hardware still
> isn't
> > quite solid yet. Comments like "you are lucky" to somebody who
> actually got
> > it to (sort of) work aren't reassuring :)
> >
> > Does anybody know of a decently priced laptop that implements a known
> to
> > work LaGrande setup? Including the protected graphics/keyboard
> channels?
> >
> > Also, does anybody have some example code of launching an app[let]
> into a
> > protected domain?
> >
> > How far is there left to go, really?
> >
> > Thanks!
> > -mike
> >
> >
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