What Is a Trusted Computing Platform?
The term Trusted Computing Platform arises from the ability of a Trusted Computing Platform to provide reliable information about itself and its current software processes, and provide attestation to its construction and attestation to operation of its software processes. This ability is under the explicit control of the platform’s owner. Recipients of such information from a Trusted Computing Platform, including the user of the platform, can use the information to decide whether it’s safe to interact with the platform for their particular purpose. In other words, they can decide whether to trust the platform. Trusted Computing Platforms are not typical “secure” platforms, although they unavoidably use information security mechanisms: The basis of Trusted Computing is provision of reliable evidence about the current computing environment, and attestation of selected computing environments. When a Trusted Computing Platform reports a given environment and supplies attestation that that
