How will TC work?

A special security chip will be mounted in PCs that will be able to guarantee security, and will allows users, software and devices to authenticate themselves over a network. The security chip, together with new software designed to work with it, will look to see what programs are being loaded, and will only allow approved software to be used.

When will it become available?

The technology has already been included in a number of products, including the X-Box, and IBM's Thinkpad T-30 notebook computers.

The technology is expected to be widely available by 2007, including full integration with Microsoft's next Windows version, called Longhorn, anticipated in 2006. The supporting hardware environment will emerge in future generations of PCs and servers.

Digital Rights Management features of the technology are currently available through software such as Microsoft Office 2003, and Adobe's "Policy Server". Adobe's Acrobat Reader software has a user base of more than 500 million copies used for reading PDF files.

What are the potential uses of the technology?

As TC is an emerging technology, many uses for it are at the early stages of development. Some of these are identified below:

• Financial transactions - TC would allow financial applications to run in a far more secure environment. For example, it would allow safer storage of passwords, PINs and account numbers; stored data could be isolated from potential viruses; and spoofing by false inputs could be prevented.
• Digital rights management (DRM) - DRM technologies protect intellectual property rights, and enforce rules set by rights holders on the use of digital content. DRM is currently used to control access to and use of digital content, and will be further enhanced and strengthened when deployed in combination with TC.
• Software licensing - software licensed to a particular user for a particular machine would not work for another user or at another machine, unless specific permission was secured from the licensor.
• Online elections - TC could overcome risks inherent in running online elections with election software on an individual's PC. It would allow the voting server to make sure that the user's voting software had not been altered.