IP: FYI my seminar course at CMU this fall

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

90-921, Digital Rights Management -- Technology, Policy and Societal Issues

12 units
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Last month there was a authorized newspaper article on the Palladium Trusted
Operating system from Microsoft. This effort was complemented with the
activities of the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA) toward
producing the hardware support mechanism that supported, among other
applications, MS future software.

In April 2002, EE Times said about the challenges facing the effort:

"Those challenges include plugging dozens of known security holes in the PC;
defining just what security means for the PC; igniting demand for security
features among cost-conscious PC users; avoiding clashes with government
agencies, privacy advocates and consumers who will see some security
features as compromising rights; and balancing the drive for greater
security with the push to extend PCs to larger, more open business and home
nets."

This seminar will focus on the technology underlying the efforts and the
work that preceded these highly controversial efforts; on the societal,
legal and commercial issues that are raised by the enabled mechanisms --
such as digital rights management, protection of software against
unauthorized modification etc.

The source material will be from publicly available documentation and
invited guests who have been involved as advocates or critics of the effort.

For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/