Bugs made it possible to extract the private keys from TPMs and defeat their restrictions. What a shame that these bugs have been fixed!

The TPM was invented for treacherous computing, and the private key it contains was intended to enforce DRM restrictions. The idea was that the TPM would enable a web site to verify that your computer was running some officially authorized malicious program, rather than a replacement program that would not restrict you. Extracting the private key would give you the option to run a patched program that could bypass the DRM.

People have found ways to use TPMs for other purposes, jobs that are not oppressive. If you're using a TPM this way, the bugs would have worked against you. However, you don't need a TPM to do these things. Keys that you are forced to use but cannot extract or change can act as handcuffs, and we should not allow them in our computers.

We must learn to recognize the difference between true security, which works for the users, and tyrannical "security" which is meant to clamp down on the users (like the Hong Kong "security forces"). Breaking the former "security" can be bad. Breaking the latter is a victory.

Too bad these bugs could be fixed.