Challenges for Trusted Computing

Some of the technical hurdles that might hinder trusted computing's widespread adoption, are discussed. Trusted computing is the collection of inter-related and interoperating technologies that when combined, help establish a more secure operating environment on commodity platforms. The most challenging is deploying and managing the Public key Infrastructure (PKI) necessary to enable general use of the security services that trusted computing supports. Another unresolved issue is standardization, as the parameters to be measured must be chosen so that each software component's integrity measurement can be uniquely identified. Isolation technologies allow a platform to be partitioned into isolated execution environments, thereby simplifying attestation-statement verification. The usability issues are a reflection of the general immaturity of trusted computing technology and the associated marketplace.