The Null Device

Your next computer will be a trusted client: The latest great white hope for the content industry is known as InTether. Based on military security technologies, InTether is a Windows-based universal copy control system, which takes control of the operating system and can disable software such as screen grabbers. What's more, it can detect attempts at tampering and shut down the computer, or self-destruct, taking all secured content with it.

To begin with, Friedman says, the system incorporates 11 layers of security defenses. ''All have to be successfully navigated'' in order to hack the system. ''But one piece does nothing but check continually the integrity of the other pieces,'' he says. ''If you could disable a certain piece, within milliseconds our system would know.''

Could this be a real-life "black ice"? Bruce Schneier, for one, is skeptical.

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