Microsoft to Offer a Peek at Palladium

Microsoft in May plans to show early prototypes of computers using its Next-Generation Secure Computing Base, or NGSCB, technology, a combination of new hardware and software that Microsoft says will boost PC security but that critics fear could be a scourge for user freedom.

At its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in New Orleans in May, Microsoft also plans to share more technical details of the nascent NGSCB technology, formerly known by its Palladium code name, Brandon Baker, a Microsoft security development engineer, said Wednesday.

Looking at Longhorn

Further details and demonstrations of the security technology are planned for October, at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, Baker said. NGSCB is to be included in a future version of Windows, possibly in Windows XP successor Longhorn, scheduled for release in 2005, he said.

"We expect to be able to talk more about [development] progress and provide additional technical details first at WinHEC in May and then at the PDC later this year. We also hope to show very early prototypes of an NGSCB system, both software and hardware, at these events," Baker said in an interview via e-mail.

Microsoft plans to demonstrate NGSCB on "real hardware as opposed to emulators," Baker said, indicating that the technology has passed through the earliest development stages. Chip makers Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are working with Microsoft on the technology. Microsoft announced NGSCB as Palladium in mid-2002.

NGSCB includes a new software component for Windows called a "nexus" and a chip that can perform cryptographic operations called the Security Support Component. The technology creates a second operating environment within a PC that is meant to protect the system from malicious code by providing secure connections between applications, peripheral hardware, memory and storage.

Future antivirus applications, for example, can run in a secure execution environment to guarantee that the application is not corrupted, according to Microsoft.

Criticism Continues

However, NGSCB also enables strict Digital Rights Management enforcement and the security chip carries a unique security key, which could be used to identify the PC that used the chip. Critics have argued that NGSCB curtails users' ability to control their own PCs and could possibly remove fair-use rights when it comes to digital music and movie files.

Microsoft maintains that NGSCB does not interfere with any program running in the regular Windows environment and also does not give applications the power to do so. The company is working on a solution for the security key issue.

Also, Microsoft has said it will make the source code of the Windows addition for NGSCB, the nexus, widely available for evaluation and validation by others.