Hardware-based Computer Security Techniques to Defeat Hackers: From Biometrics to Quantum Cryptography

Chapter 8

THE TRUSTED PLATFORM MODULE

THE NEED FOR INCREASED NETWORK AND PC SECURITY

When they were first developed, general-purpose personal computers were not designed with security and trust as an integral part of the architecture. After all, computers then were completely stand-alone—data was transferred only through sharing of disks, which at that time was a relatively safe and trustworthy process. The Internet was developed by people who saw great potential in being able to share scientific and military information quickly and easily between computers. Security and the need for trust did not surface until viruses began to spread by disk, and, more significantly, these open computers were attached to networks. When networking was created back in the 1980s, it primarily served a function of enhanced communication and sharing of information between researchers within a laboratory or university department. As networking grew, it began to form connections between buildings, then between different universities, and ultimately between widely disparate organizations spanning the globe. As networking expanded, so did the realization that this new medium of interconnectivity introduced a significant degree of anonymity to the remote parties. Users were relying on trust. As viruses began to spread using these networks, the reliance on trust began to fade, and users sought ways to protect their computers and data. Moreover, as they are currently designed and implemented, if a user has ...