Do you trust TPM and Intel's TXT?

Do you trust the Trusted Platform Module and Intel's Trusted Execution Technology? Or do you think they are risk for your privacy and ability to control your computers?
Do you run your machines with them enabled or do you try to disable or circumvent them?

 

I don't have any computer with a TPM chip built-in and I'd like things to stay that way

 

As far as I have seen so far from TPM chips is that they are only useful in a corporate IT environment. They give IT more control over Bitlocker so employees can't bypass corporate security.
Absolutely useless for individual users. Worse, they give individuals false sense of security since there is every reason to expect that the NSA can bypass them if they need to.

 

If there were TPM that I could actually trust, I'd want them. Otherwise, no thanks.

 

Dumb question: Is the TMP chip really only for corporate PC´s? I thought it was a standard feature on higher end machines, to be honest.

 

The TPM could be used to restrict what software can run on a machine. An OEM-owned TPM might, for example, allow only Microsoft-approved software to be run. Or it might be used to encrypt log data sent to Microsoft, the NSA or wherever.

 

@ mirimir

OK, so it sounds like something you do not want to have, I will check it the next time I buy a machine.

 

Trust is such a big word!

I've actively added some Infineon TPM chips to a couple of W7 desktops, specifically to be able to use WDE with Bitlocker, including on the system drive. As far as I know, it's the ONLY completely transparent way to do this, with no user intervention required. Without using TPM, or with other WDE, you're faced with entering a (necessarily strong) password and/or having a USB key for every boot. With the TPM, disk access requires a windows login which I have protected with a Yubikey. TPM also provides some protection against rootkits. It makes failed disk disposal easier too, because everything's encrypted from the start.

Do I trust the TPM against some threats? No, and I know there are potential dangers with them - if they happen, then I'll move off 'em.

So for protecting me against people pinching my machines - not bad. Against the NSA - well, there are a whole load of things to be thinking about there....!