tamper-resistant
November 6th, 2005
This patent application illustrates several points:
- Apple is going to ship Intel-based systems that will fully support booting into Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux in 2006. I bet the bootloader will be very pretty.
- Apple’s Intel hardware will read a serial number from hardware upon boot. This might be the existing serial number on every modern Mac (option-click the version number in your “About This Mac…” dialog to find yours) or it might be a simplified description of the vaguely eeeevil TPM chip often rumored to be in the new Intel Macs.
- In the new systems, there will be some support for virtualization, which is to say, you will probably be able to run two operating systems concurrently. This is very exciting idea for nerds; for nerds, this is like getting to drive an Italian sports car and a cement truck at exactly the same time, as both vehicles are a lot of fun, but in very different ways.
- In the patent, there is a lot of emphasis on the phrase “tamper-resistant”, which suggests Apple will try to arrange the boot/runtime environment to keep the various operating systems from destroying each other. This is probably a good idea, because my Windows XP box often destroys itself by just sitting there.
- People who write patent descriptions/applications are clinically insane.
~jeff
How much you want a bet that there’s a vs. TPM chip hack available weeks before the machines hit the streets?
I wouldn’t take that bet. TPM chips are going to be much, much harder to crack than anyone suspects. Apple has already locked down the exploit that made it possible to install 10.4.1 on generic Intel boxes. And that’s without the TPM chip.
But if you’d like to make a modest gentlemanly wager, I will bet you $10 US that there will **not** in fact be a TPM crack that works in any *satisfying manner* on OS X Intel until six (6) months after the release of OS X for Intel, “satisfying manner” being defined by being able to install OS X on generic Intel hardware without modifying hardware (soldering mod chips, swapping hard drives amongst multiple computers, etc.) in any way.
Or, pistols at dawn. Your choice.
Oh, shit, dude. Pistols. But can we do it later in the day?
I don’t consider modchipping to be unsatisfying. Because the reason I care about it is that I want to build my own machines.
So, the bet, as I would see it:
There will be a way to get around TPM in less than six months that includes less than an hour’s work soldering or similarly hardware with-fucking.
To the winner goes the hand of the Lady Miss Cringebottom.
I can see you’ve never had the spectacularly nervewracking experience of installing a mod chip into a video game console. One slip while soldering and OMFG, you’re instantly out $200-$300 dollars… except in the case of an Intel mac, where you’d be instantly out $1000-$2500. LOL.
(I don’t want to suggest for a second that Josh isn’t capable of mod-chipping a teeny-tiny motherboard; he’s got a electronics workshop in his basement where, no kidding, he builds tiny robots and weird electro-acoustic instruments, so if anyone *could* chip something like this, he could. However, I still maintain that for *most people*, modding a $1000+ piece of hardware is not within the realm of the comfortably possible.)
Well, in your defense, the teeny tiny robot is mysteriously broken. I did just find some rubber bands that might be perfect for tractor treads, though, so I have some motivation to fix it or make a new one.
Anyway, the point is not, “is it accessible”. The point is, “Can I get the parts and make myself a computer that doesn’t have to run Linux (which satisfies approximately zero of my needs) or Clown Vomit XP (which is like having my sensibilities sanded down until they’re a bleeding, raw, corporate-friendly average)?”
Also, I don’t think it would have to be $1000 of gear. Part of the challenge here is making single-purpose computers, so scrounged parts are a viability. I see P3s scattered around on street corners pretty often. This would give me a reason to pick them up beyond the power supply (which is usually crap anyway.
I’ve said for a long time that I wanted to make a house server that could serve movies, music, telephone, TV, and the like. That’s not a huge bunch of requirements. When I want to play flight simulators (the one thing that CB XP really offers), I’ll do it on a Macintel. Most other stuff doesn’t need the monster spec.
Damn, now I wanna go down and make a robot.
I used to have a basement like that. Over the years it became constipated with dozens $75 television sets that needed a $125 horizontal output transistor to get working again.
Needless to say, the only electronics activity I still maintain is soldering mod chips into consoles and hooking up car stereo systems.
My soldering iron and I sure as hell hope there’s a Mactel modchip market :)
Heh. Ben, that’s the kind of thing I stay away from. I’ve got a bunch of computer power supplies, but unless I a) need a part from the scrounged goodie or b) am learning about the scrounged goodie, it stays on the sidewalk for me.
Something occurred to me: the Playstation mod chip was because the hardware had to recognize the software, but with MacOS it’s the other way around. That means that the easier thing to change would probably be the software. I bet you (by “you” I mean “people who are smart programmers”) could make a custom installer that would deflect the hardware query to a text file or some such shennanigans.
I maintain that you are *grossly* underestimating how difficult this will be to do.
$10 US. Six months. And even then, any workaround found will suh-uh-uck.
If someone can, at some point in the future, hack a Vaio so that it runs OSX, I will perhaps be the happiest person in the world.
yrs–
–Ben