This news is not new but it is closer to becoming a reality!

The Trusted Computing Group (TCG) is an alliance of Microsoft, Intel, IBM, HP and AMD which promotes a standard for a `more secure' PC. Their definition of `security' is controversial; machines built according to their specification will be more trustworthy from the point of view of software vendors and the content industry, but will be less trustworthy from the point of view of their owners. In effect, the TCG specification will transfer the ultimate control of your PC from you to whoever wrote the software it happens to be running. (Yes, even more so than at present.)

The TCG project is known by a number of names. `Trusted computing' was the original one, and is still used by IBM, while Microsoft calls it `trustworthy computing' and the Free Software Foundation calls it `treacherous computing'. Hereafter I'll just call it TC. Other names you may see include TCPA (TCG's name before it incorporated) and NGSCB (the new Microsoft name). Intel has just started calling it `safer computing'. Many observers believe that this confusion is deliberate - the promoters want to deflect attention from what TC actually does

TC provides for a monitoring and reporting component to be mounted in future PCs. The preferred implementation in the first phase of TC emphasized the role of a `Fritz' chip - a smartcard chip or dongle soldered to the motherboard. The current version has five components - the Fritz chip, a `curtained memory' feature in the CPU, a security kernel in the operating system (the `Nexus' in Microsoft language), a security kernel in each TC application (the `NCA' in Microsoft-speak) and a back-end infrastructure of online security servers maintained by hardware and software vendors to tie the whole thing together.

The initial version of TC had Fritz supervising the boot process, so that the PC ended up in a predictable state, with known hardware and software. The current version has Fritz as a passive monitoring component that stores the hash of the machine state on start-up. This hash is computed using details of the hardware (audio card, video card etc) and the software (O/S, drivers, etc). If the machine ends up in the approved state, Fritz will make available to the operating system the cryptographic keys needed to decrypt TC applications and data. If it ends up in the wrong state, the hash will be wrong and Fritz won't release the right key. The machine may still be able to run non-TC apps and access non-TC data, but protected material will be unavailable.

The companies:
The TCPA was founded 1999 by Compaq, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft. But in the meantime around 200 companies joined them. You will find Adobe, AMD, Fujitsu-Siemens, Gateway, Motorola, Samsung, Toshiba and many other well known companies. HP, Dell and IBM have already started to sell there first desktops and notebooks with integrated TPM(trusted platform module).

What does this all mean? The implications are endless, we will start with just a few...

The long term result will be that it will be impossible to use hardware and software that's not approved by the TCG Presumably there will be high costs to get this certification and that these would be too much for little and mid-range companies. Therefore open-source and freeware would be condemned to die, because without such a certification the software will simply not work. In the long term only the big companies would survive and could control the market as they would like.

Some specific industry sectors may be hard hit. Smartcard vendors, for example, face the prospect that many of the applications they had dreamt of colonizing with their products will instead run on TC platforms in people's PCs, PDAs and mobile phones. The information security industry in general faces disruption as many products are migrated to TC or abandoned. The overall economic effects are likely to include a shift of the playing field against small companies and in favor of large ones; a shift against market entrants in favor of incumbents; and greater costs and risks associated with new business startups. One way of looking at this is that the computer and communications industries will become more like traditional industry sectors.

The rights and licenses would be central managed by the TCG. And as soon a violation is noticed, they will get notified.

It is almost certain that law enforcement will have a back door onto the entire TCG infrastructure. The ultimate in "Big Brother" tools! They could in theory access, read, modify, delete any file on any TCG compliant computer!

The Longhorn operating system from Microsoft will support Fritz. Beta releases as of May 2004 included a version of the software. Longhorn is said to be scheduled for release later this year. The "specialized software" that will enable compatibility with Fritz-chip hardware is code-named Nexus. In Longhorn, Nexus will be the last of the authorized software in the chain of trust. Nexus will then let other programs get access to the secure environment that Fritz enables. Such programs will be called "Nexus Aware". Such programs will be nearly impossible to debug or modify. Nexus is intended to be open source, so that people can trust that Microsoft doesn't have any backdoors in the software. Some say that the only reason for Microsoft deciding to make Nexus open source is that most countries' laws require it to be. In May 2004, Microsoft announced that Longhorn will not include the Nexus API, but that they had invested a considerable amount in the technology, and it will be included in future releases of Windows.
There is also a project to make Linux compatible with Fritz.

check

http://www.againsttcpa.com/

for more information ...
especially if you are german you got to listen to the chaosradio discussion you will find under download