If Palladium is built upon a TCPA model, then it's possible that the specific hardware used within the PC will also be used to identify it, as Microsoft's Windows Activation regulation already does. "Once the data is sealed inside the TPM with a storage key, the sealed data can only be accessed from this hard drive with this platform configuration," reads a statement on Intel's Web site discussing the TCPA.
According to Juarez, Intel and AMD are among several microprocessor vendors participating with Microsoft in developing Palladium-aware products. Juarez says several dozen other companies have been contacted to participate. National Semiconductor, which was the first company to publicly announce the manufacture of a TPM, is "fully supporting Palladium from a hardware perspective," according to a company spokeswoman. She declined to comment further, citing NDA restrictions with Microsoft.
Members of the Palladium alliance described their efforts as necessary. "The TCPA's been around for a while; there's been a million press releases, but no one's really cared about it," said a spokesman for Intel, which declined to make an executive available to address Palladium questions. For his part, AMD's Strongin said that his company had independently worked to extend the TCPA/TPM model before Microsoft approached it.
The biggest single difference between TCPA and Palladium, according to Strongin, is that in Palladium, "trusted processing" is taking place on the main CPU. Strongin declined to discuss any details of a redesign, but said the "differences between what's in microcode and what's not in microcode is not a terribly important one--it's a behavioral effect."
"There will be new modes and new instructions," Strongin said. "'Extensions' is a better term." AMD uses a set of instructions called 3DNow! to accelerate 3D and other multimedia functions.
The "Palladium component" will leverage AMD's work on the TPM, Strongin said. He added that AMD would probably license the component to other chipset manufacturers. "We also look to the infrastructure (providers) to provide support for this," Strongin added.
Wave Systems Corp. was involved with both the design of the National SafeKeeper TPM component and with the Internal Security, Trust and Privacy Alliance, which released an open, policy-configurable framework in late May, spearheaded by Carnegie-Mellon University. Representatives of Wave Systems were unavailable for comment; the ISTPA's director, Kevin O'Neill, declined to comment on Palladium.
AMD's Strongin said its Palladium component was done entirely in-house, and the development was "fairly mature". He would not say when the chip would be brought to market, however. "We'll be there when we're needed to be," Strongin said.
Microsoft has been sharpening its focus on security all year. In January of this year, in an internal memo to all Microsoft employees, Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates called for a sweeping shift in Microsoft's company focus, toward better security. The contents of the memo were covered by PC Magazine's sister publication eWeek. In addition to several security-related announcements made in recent months, Microsoft has also been pushing forward with a broad-based plan for protecting online identities, although its Passport technology has raised privacy concerns.
