According to Microsoft, a flood of FUD -- spooky rumors intended to cause fear, uncertainty and doubt -- are swirling around its Next Generation Secure Computing Base.

Also known as Palladium, NGSCB is comprised of new software and hardware that will work in tandem to protect users' data from malicious hackers, viruses and spyware.

NGSCB software components debuted last week at the Windows Developers Conference and Microsoft plans to include the software in the next version of the Windows XP operating system, code-named Longhorn and slated for release in 2005. NGSCB-ready hardware should be available in the latter half of 2004.

Privacy advocates warn that NGSCB can, and probably will, be abused by content providers to enforce draconian copyright protections. But Microsoft representatives insist these worries are rooted in an incomplete and incorrect understanding of what NGSCB is and can do.

"There's this mythology surrounding NGSCB that Microsoft is in league with the media industry to override consumers' rights," said Mario Juarez, an NGSCB product manager. "That makes no sense. Who would buy a product that doesn't allow them to do what they want to do? No one. So why would Microsoft choose to commit professional suicide in that fashion?"

Juarez said that NGSCB has been unfairly described as a digital rights management system. He said it is instead a new security platform that, among many other things, could possibly enable copyright holders to build digital rights management applications that would be enforced by NGSCB.

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