[Freedombox-discuss] Trusted Computing Modules

[Chris Troutner]

I did some work for a company a few years ago writing a Linux driver for
their TPM chip. From a software perspective, the TPMs rock.

However, the TPMs were put into consumer PCs in a very sneaky, stealthy
way and their primary focus was for DRM management. So I (personally)
think this might be reason why it never took off in open-source circles.

However, the TPM isn't as awesome as the industry consortium would lead
you to believe. It's pretty trival to solder a hardware sniffer onto the
data bus of the chip in order to reverse engineer access to the chip. If
you aren't worried about someone (the government) *physically* taking
control of your hardware, then the chip is pretty great. 

This was the conclusion I reached after several months of studying the
chip, however, that was several years ago and my memory may be foggy.

Chris Troutner
http://thesolarpowerexpert.com