TABLE OF CONTENTS The Trusted Computing Group (TCG) was formed in 2003 with the goal of developing and promoting open standards for trusted computing. The group was founded by Advanced Micro Devices, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Infineon, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems, and currently has 135 members. The main product to come out of the TCG so far is the specification for the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), and the corresponding specification for the Trusted Computing Group Software Specification (TSS). The TPM is the key hardware component of a trusted computing platform and the TSS is the specification for an application program interface (API) that developers can use to create software that will interact with the TPM.
Windows Vista supports only version 1.2-compliant TPM devices natively, although third-party software, such as Wave s Embassy Trust Suite, is available that you can use to support some functionality of version 1.1b TPM devices. Version 1.2 of the TPM specification from the TCG was published in October 2003, and has since been revised. In this chapter, we will cover only the native Windows Vista support for version 1.2 TPM devices. In 2006, PC OEMs started to make a big push to incorporate TPM version 1.2 devices into their products. Laptops seem to be on the leading edge of this new technological wave, with Dell, HP, and Lenovo cranking up production of laptops.
The TPM is a microchip for motherboards that is designed to create, store, and protect cryptographic keys, and the fact that the...
