Computers with Security Chips Poised for Takeoff

When Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) Computer announced last month that it would begin shipping notebook computers incorporating a chip to make the units more secure, it sent analysts scurrying to their calculators. That's because Dell's inclusion of "trusted computing" hardware into its machines would be giving the technology a big boost in the coming year.

According to the latest estimates from IDC, a technology analytics firm in Framingham, Massachusetts, shipments of computers with Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) will more than double this year over last, to 20 million from 8 million.

"Dell is coming in with a lot of volume," IDC Vice President of Client Computing Roger Kay told TechNewsWorld.

Significant Volumes

TPMs are multipurpose devices that can perform a number of functions, according to Clain Anderson, director of security and wireless solutions for IBM's (NYSE: IBM) personal computing division. They can do local file encryption, where the keys for decrypting files are stored inside the TPM. They can bank and manage passwords. They can be used to emulate hard tokens, like smart cards. And they can act as a gateway for securing other functions on a system, such as authenticating e-mail and changing passwords.

"We're starting to see significant volumes being shipped by the major PCMs [personal computer manufacturers]," according to Brian Berger, executive vice president of Wave Systems (Nasdaq: WAVX) in Lee, Mass., and marketing chair of the Trusted Computer Group, an industry consortium of more than 100 companies that developed open specifications for TPMs.

Given the number of computer makers that have already announced products with TPMs and the number expected to do so during the course of the year, IDC's projections may be a little low, he added.

Asked what barriers slowed adoption of trusted computing technology in the past, IDC's Kay responded, "It costs something, so people want to know what they need it for. Beyond that, the software stack is pretty primitive, so what you can do with it is kind of limited. But other than that, it's pretty much open throttle at this point."

Great Value Proposition

An early adopter of the technology was IBM, which has been shipping machines with TPMs for five years. Over that time, the company has seen costs for the chips plummet, according to Anderson.

"When we started out, we were charging $50, and it was costing us about half of that to put in those things," he told TechNewsWorld. "These days, our costs have dropped to near a dollar, and we're charging zero."

"For the customer , it ends up being a great value proposition," he said. "What security solution can you find that's hardware and software and costs nothing?"

Boost from Microsoft

While the technology works with Windows XP, it's expected to get another big boost when Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) releases the long-awaited next version of its PC operating system, now referred to by the code-name Longhorn.

"When Microsoft releases a future OS that has support for these types of technologies, we believe it will improve the user's experience," said Berger.

Support for the trusted computing specs is wrapped into something Microsoft calls the Next Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB). "We do not have an update on NGSCB to share at this time," a company spokesperson, who asked that their name not be published, told TechNewsWorld via e-mail . "Microsoft continues to actively work through many of the technical details, and we expect to be able to provide more details in the near future."

Howls from Cybersphere

Early reports about NGSCB, originally called Palladium, revealed that Microsoft planned to use the trusted computing platform to enforce digital rights management (DRM) and counter piracy of its software products. That produced howls from some corners of the cybersphere.

In an essay titled "Can you trust your computer?" Richard Stallman, founder of the free software movement, the GNU project, and the Free Software Foundation, wrote:

"With a plan they call 'trusted computing,' large media corporations (including the movie companies and record companies), together with computer companies such as Microsoft and Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), are planning to make your computer obey them instead of you. ... Proprietary programs have included malicious features before, but this plan would make it universal."

According to IBM's Anderson, though, TPMs aren't designed to keep users from their data through DRM. "It's not an engine designed for digital rights management," he said. "It's actually poorly designed for that."

"Folks that are trying to do that are trying to protect content from the user," he maintained. "We're trying to protect the user and his data from the outside world."