tpms

>unlike the typical TPMs that only allow vendor software to be authenticated, these TPMs would allow the user to directly authenticate the firmware.

But, if Google just mandated TPMs, then a 4-digit PIN is fine as the hardware can perform a lockout/cooloff/self-destruct.

Nearest you can get is heavy obfuscation (Skype) or communication to a secure hardware bastion (TPMs for DRM or otherwise, ARM TrustZone).

TPMs kind of suck if they are not able to be updated OTA.

TPMs aren't super-hardened, but against losing your phone in a taxi, or random local cops trying to crack it, it's probably good enough.

TPMs have already been broken, Christopher Tarnovsky showed that for some Infineon TPM.

I find it suspect that Lenovo, for instance, is making sure they have truly hardened TPMs.

The other big threat is that TPMs are probably cheaply built, and anyone with decent hardware skills can probably pop the key out of the TPM.

Except for the Enrollment Key, that's how TPMs work.

Note there was a lot of anger when TPMs were initially introduced, because they could effectively be used to force a system to only ever boot a signed OS.

I'm not an expert on trusted computing, but I thought that TPMs can enforce secure boot and encrypt data that cannot be recovered if unauthorized software is running on the system.

Using smartcards for humans and TPMs for servers is a step in the right direction, but it seems ssh-agent is still missing this basic functionality - or am I missing something?