June 29, 2007 - TPMKit
by Darington Forbes
Until early this week, security experts Nitin and Vipin Kumar of NV Labs were scheduled to present a briefing entitled "TPMkit: Breaking the Legend of Trusted Computing (TC [TPM]) and Vista (BitLocker)" This talk was removed from the schedule at the request of the presenters. The topic generated quite a great deal of interest and its removal from the schedule without comment has generated some confusion and controversy.
According to Tim Greene at Network World, the brothers said in an email comment, "We have pulled back our presentation from...Black Hat. So, we won't be presenting anything related to TPM/BitLocker in Black Hat...We would not like to say anything about the TPM/BitLocker for the time being." They have so far declined further comments in the media.
"This talk was removed from the schedule at the request of the presenters."
Black Hat did not pull the talk under external pressure. The decision to not present was made wholly by the Kumars and Black Hat was informed by the Kumars that they would not be presenting. If Black Hat receives further information on the decision, we will share it here.
Black Hat is a strong proponent of disclosure in the security space. The conference opposes the pressure to censor controversial talk content and strongly encourages its speakers and trainers to do the same.
At Black Hat Europe 2007, the Kumars presented a briefing called "Vboot Kit: Compromising Windows Vista Security." The paper they submitted can be found on the Black Hat Europe 2007 Media Archive.
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