Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is a
chip on a
computer board or in a notebook that is commonly made by Infineon and is used to make the
computer Trusted
Computer Group compliant! The small
chip holds data encryption keys that are said to be used for
computer security... Although many believe otherwise!
The commonly accepted use of it is Digital Rights Management (DRM) and it is used to give content providers administrator rights to your file system similar to the way a rootkit trojan does!
In it's development, TPM had also been known as Palladium and "Fritz
chip" but they rename it everytime it recieves negative press reviews so when people buy a product that contains TPM, it's just more technical jargon on the box that no one knows about!
TPM has been in ibm thinkpads for a long time now and it is in apple computers aswell as many others! The consortium that makes up the Trusted Group consists of most large companies in the
computer industry, including microsoft and intel...
The "public key" inside the tpm can also be used to uniquely identify a computer (much like intels failed cpu id scheme from years ago) and this is seen by many as Big
Brother inside of the computer tracking and snooping on everything you do! Like the pentium2 id feature, this can be disabled in computers that have it today since the feature is gaining acceptance so slowly, it is relatively useless! Yet legislation has already been drafted to make it a crime to either manufacture, possess or use a non-compliant computer with no TPM!
"My
computer is so awesome it does everything! It even has TPM security!"
A skeptical onlooker asks: "If TPM is such great security, how did some teenagers on the web crack it to allow OSX to install on any
computer after apple used it for protection?"
Here come the apple lawyers... "OK pal, that's DMCA violation! You're going to
jail."
