A lot of false notions about the TPM exist, and simply the Trusted Platform Module is a cryptoprocessor. The biggest misunderstanding is that it can stop you from freely running applications, what it really stops is these applications, like OpenOffice, or the SECUROM crack for Grand Theft Auto IV (if they used it, which they didn't) from being able to make the slightest bit of sense of the GTAIV binaries in memory or otherwise. One thing that won't be implemented on a TPM secured game is the good old trainer and this is sad. Yet, I honestly believe it is getting pretty disgusting that everyone from graphic artists to software developers are getting short changed just because they don't believe their software should be free.
Also, one could look at the TPM as an alternative to Statism such as the DMCA being necessary at all. Microsoft and software publishers benefit with the TPM simply because your revenue and being able to protect it simply isn't based on the size of legal teams. There is a valid issue also against software patents that startups simply don't have enough lawyers - and people working in large companies can often be told their great works are untenable because of a multitude of patents. Yet it is the big companies that have defensive patents, you didn't see Apple wipe out Palm's WebOS because they had the patent and they also had a huge growth in market capital on Wall Street over its announcement.
Simply, I believe in human liberty and the TPM is not being forced into computers, and the device itself doesn't force me to run software. The specification allows the user control of things because of the simple economic problems behind central planning. These companies are currently giving people what they want.
I personally like the idea of TPM and a thing called "Free Banking," where you have multitudes of currencies to avoid currency shocks and recessions from spreading as easily. Essentially, it means someone without the apparatus of a specialist printer to create something impossible to counter-fiet is no longer needed. I do believe even in the current shitty economic system where there is no free market for the exchange medium itself, TPM will be used, and in a way, you will be obliged to use it just to access online banking with perfect security.
This means it will probably be tied with RFID chips, that for security purposes could be in your arm. I've thought for my scifi for a kind of "bone code" where raditation burns a code into your bones that a reader accesses. As a dreamer, all of what I write is speculation. I don't think security technology should be feared.
