"Palladium" Plan for Trustworthy OS Revealed

Palladium is the code name for a long-term Microsoft project to better protect data on the PC platform from unauthorized use or tampering. According to current plans, Palladium will use a combination of new operating system (OS) components and new hardware to create a kind of virtual “vault,” with restricted memory and secure storage, on a PC. Data and application code in the vault will only be accessible and modifiable by “trusted” software—even the user or administrator of a Palladium PC will not be able to modify material inside its vault without permission from the party that secured it. In addition, the elements used by Palladium will be crytographically “provable” to other computers, programs, and services, helping to ensure that data, once secured, is not shared with an insecure system.

For Palladium to succeed, Microsoft will need widespread industry cooperation (particularly from hardware partners) and will need to convince consumers and businesses of its incremental benefits. With this in mind, the company announced it now—at least two and a half years before its debut—to try to build support.