[Python-ideas] Proposal : Python Trusted Computing API

[Abhiram Kasina]

Hi all

Thank you very much for the response. I have tried to answer all the
issues as much as I can.

> Hm... Given that most infections these days are JavaScript based and
> run in the browser, how does this provide any protection? I'm
> presuming you're going to say that it doesn't but that there are other
> use cases where it *does* provide protection; but most likely those
> use cases are only relevant for Windows (since that's what most
> attackers attack anyway).

Guido, I don't know the exact security model and I am currently going
through it. But it has a mechanism in which none of the passwords or
anything can be ever given out. So, phishing and pharming could be
fought better. I agree that most of the cases of viruses are in
Windows, but there are many cases in the past in which they have
affected linux machines as well. So, if security is being made better,
it should be used.

> Since this intefaces with the hardware, doesn't it require some kind
> of cooperation from the Linux kernel? And wouldn't it be better if
> Python was never allowed access to any of the protected resources in
> the first place?

There would be a wrapper on top of the drivers running at the kernel
level. Lets say there is a Python application which uses some sort of
password authentication. If the password is present somehow in the
memory, it could be stolen. But if its present inside a completely
separate hardware, which doesn't allow it to be retrieved, I think
that will be better.

> Where/what is Umit? (Google gives several meanings but it's unclear
> which you might mean.)

By Umit, I meant Umit Project [1]. Its the GUI for nmap and its being
built completely in Python.

> You'd first have to tell us more about the security model. What is a
> "secure application" and what does it protect against? And how?


Yes, I will take some time to understand the model and present you the
details of the model well when I get some time.

>  I personally have grave concerns about this technology, independent of
>  who is advancing it- just reading the links you provide makes it clear
>  that its primary purpose is to restrict the degree of control a user can
>  exercise over their own data, programs, and machine. Is it any wonder
>  that the same people who find DRM abhorrent find the technologies
>  used to advance it equally distasteful?

Geremy, I have read the TPM specifications to some extent and the only
thing enabling DRM here is the presence of a system-specific key. And
it is heavily impractical to encrypt every music file with that key,
when the vendor is selling it. It could be done even now,  they want
to do it.

>  If you were suggesting adding a crypto API to python, I'd be all
>  for it- but you're suggesting adding the ability to have Python
>  software vendors remotely cripple the code on your machine.
>  I just can't get behind that, and while you're sure to hear wildly
>  divergent opinions on this board, I suspect that mine will not
>  be an uncommon sentiment.

I appreciate the opinion and I am not suggesting adding a crypto API.


Thanks
Abhiram Kasina

[1] http://www.umitproject.org/