Slashdot Mirror
Development of the Secure PC Proceeds
Licensed2Hack writes "Microsoft Corp, IBM and Intel Corp, et al, are developing technologies that could be built into PCs that would prevent the copying of files without copyright owner permission. For more information, read the stories on news.com or theregister.co.uk."
Well, looks like my next PC will be built around Linux, AMD, and (disk manufacturer other than IBM)... :-)
This only makes sense. As the PC becomes less of a computer and more of an entertainment device, it only serves Microsoft's monopolistic desires to have a MS-only, proprietary media format. The recording industries will only want to release media in this secure format because of this, Microsoft and Intel will have cornered the market on multimedia. One hand washes the other.
And, of course, consumers will flock to the new system since it's the only way they'll be allowed to use the media they so desperately want. And you won't be able to claim restraint of trade or any of that -- look how much choice you have! Why, you can buy your PC from Dell or Gateway OR IBM, and you can play stuff from Time-Warner or Sony or Disney!
All is well. Procreate. Consume.
This sounds exactly as the DIVX, so I think the market will decide on it.
It's a idea so stupid as marketing boomboxes without a tape recorder (or with a tape player, with no 'record' button).
I suppose there are some in the market: cheaper, of course.
Anyway, a hardware layer must have a software layer in order to work: it won't take to much time before someone finds a very simple hack to make it work.
Will each and every storage device in the market support this? Of course not! You'll always have the choice of 'old' devices (that *must* be supported for a long while) so even if you can't record in your brand new PC, you still have a chance of using that old box in the attic. Or brand new devices not intended for end user.
But there's something to do: educate consumers in such a way that they really know what they purchase. Create awareness exactly in the same way that people became aware of that silly trap that DivX was.
--
We need to ensure that enough people are well-informed about any hardware which incorporates this kind of technology, that it falls flat on its face, and whichever companies are pusing it are stung badly and punished for their arrogance.
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Actually, it is possible to build a codec that produces better sound quality (at the same bitrate) as MP3.
But none of these codecs will be superior, in sonic quality, to CD-Audio, DVD-A, or SACD. Of course, one is unlikely to find PC ports of the latter two formats.
On the other hand, the percieved audience for SDMI probably does not include audiophiles. People who listen to EnSync have neither the taste nor the equipment to enjoy a higher resolution format. However, if you pair that insipid pap with a "free ticket" offer (available exclusively with the SDMI format) there might be some takers.
(indidentally, a DRM becoming mandatory would kill linux, which is something I don't see IBM doing in the future).
They could carve up the market into two categories:
1) server machines (3x as expensive, run Linux, cannot run Secure PC players)
2) desktop machines (cheap, copy control built in, tied to proprietary Secure PC OSes (Microsoft's, and possibly Sony's BeOS variant); also shipped in nice consumer-electronics cases)
The pricing structure would work like consumer vs. professional DAT, or IDE vs. SCSI disks; consumer outlets would only sell Secure PCs and components, with the server machines being sold through trade outlets. Needless to say, the server machines will be useless for listening to downloadable music, online banking, web surfing with plug-ins, games, &c.
If the new Secure PC standard includes copy control in the hardware, and will only boot a Secure PC-enabled OS/send data to software that can authenticate itself, Linux will not run on it. Even if someone cracks it, it will be driven underground like DeCSS.
This is probably part of the plan; cut off Linux as a desktop alternative, benefiting both Microsoft and the RIAA/MPAA (a Microsoft monopoly is someone they can deal with).
Well, if it's anything like CPRM, you can do that, but the file becomes a meaningless jumble of bits at the other end. Actually decrypting it involves having the right permissions.
As for writing your own decrypting/copying program, the information will not be available to do that; unless you crack it, in which case releasing it will land you in federal prison with a large guy named Bubba.
Welcome to the Digital Millennium.
> This is about free market conditions, and the invisible hand of the free market, and yadayadayada.
Bullshit. That line, and most all of the rest of capitalistic theory is predicated on an open, competitive market. In a world with monopolies and cartels, it has virtually zero meaning.
If all hardware companies got together and decided to implement CPRM or SDMI or whatever, the free market is left with no alternative. If people don't like the new measures, they are out of luck. There is no competition to take their business to, they have to suck it up and deal with it, or simply not buy hardware at all.
Rosy, isn't it?
--Lenny
If it is presented to customers using above statement, than no wonder almost everybody will buy those "MP3 enabled" hard drives.
But if you tell them that this "new" drive contains "new MicroHardware feature which will protect you from software pirats/hackers/crackers/whoever" and "forgot" to tell them it means they will be unable to store MP3s, then I imagine almost nobody will buy those real storage devices - because almost everybody will buy "You are trying to do something nasty. You are bad guy! Pity on you!" devices.
hany
What if there's no real pc's anymore?
Intel released the P3 with the little GUID in it that everyone was up in arms about. Regardless, there is very little that we can do about it - Intel has many more customers than the small collection of them that view it as an invasion of privacy, and a foreshadowing of what's to come. They don't give a rat's ass about us, and the market is sufficiently big that they don't have to.
Oh, and if MS writes Windows so that it only runs when this sort of thing is present in the CPU, for instance, AMD will have to comply, or else they're sunk.
Get a few of these companies in critical spots cooperating with each other and they are no longer effected by market forces. Intel, MS, the few big HD manufacturers, that'll do it. You'll buy their stuff because you'll have no other choice.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
AMD is still in a position of having to make Intel-compatable chips. Intel can't make massive changes b/c of compatability issues, but if they do something that AMD has to follow to retain compatability, they will have to.
Someday there may just be an x86 standard or something, and Intel and AMD and others try to adhere to it. But given what happened with browsers, where there's a standard that is widely ignored, and where people write for IE and NS alone, I don't think it would hold up well.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I think you greatly underestimate the abilities of both the technologies and the technologists to, if not kill this content-control scheme, then at least to mortally wound it.
The most dangerous tool available which can be used to overcome any content-control, inasfar as computers are concerned, is a compiler. The most dangerous group of people in this context are programmers.
If the content control is of the type which merely depends on a "Go-no-go" decision, then it is little more than trivial to ensure, through changes in code, that the favorable path is always taken: often only one opcode need be changed.
If access to the controlled content is dependent on a key, then, given that, for practicality in the consumer market, all devices must use the same key for any given content, all that is needed to unlock the content is one key!
How difficult would it be, and how long would it take, to discover that key, using the programming power of the very same technologies and technologists which made possible the lock protected by that key?
The obvious method of attack in this case is to use a networked group of computers to brute-force try the 'lock' ala Distributed Net: try all possible keys. Once the key is dicovered, all content requiring that key is available to anyone with a copy of the key.
My point is that it seems that any practical content-control scheme used in the consumer market will have to depend, at some point in its process, on one easily (by today's standards) influenced decision: "Is the password correct?" or "Is this the right key?"
The only way to really prevent meaningful circumvention of content-control, is to take away the very same tools from the very same people responsible for the creation and implentation of those control schemes in the first place.
That's you and I, ladies and gentleman. And that's all of our development tools. The people represented by Slashdot would have to be put out of business, if not under lock and key, themselves.
At any rate, the period of time that will pass before any such content-control technology is rendered useless, will depend on the value of the content. It is possible that the actual value of the controlled content will lose much of, if not all, of its value because of its "protection". In that case, who will care that it is lost to the mass market? How bad do we really care about music by the Backstreet Boys? On the other hand, content which is deemed valuable to the mass market, or at least, to the greatest segment of that market, will be more quickly wrested from any controls.
You would assume this would be the case wouldn't you. We have the example of DVD region encoding. Specifically stated by the companies involved to restrict markets as a counter example. So it appears as though companies can directly cooperate in limiting markets and it does not fall under anti-trust.
Trusted paths are great until they become subverted. Consider the ultimate viris/worm on a trusted path machine. Presuppose a hole in the operating system allowing access. Now the intrusion program simply creates a new access category and grants no one access to it in any way. On a complete trusted path system all process and files owned by the viris could then be made invisible to the rest of the system. Try finding and removing that intrusion.
Oh, you want some process with super access to find the isolated intrusion. This super access puts it all back to square one.
Which consumer is this: the consumer that doesn't have enough technical savvy to program a VCR, let alone understand why mandatory copy protection is bad (for example: most consumers)? Or the consumer that understands that it's not in their best interests to support a technology, but doesn't give a shit anyway because they're so anxious to get their hands on the latest bad sci fi movie with documentary and out-takes (for example, the Slashdot crew)?
We don't control the media, so we're not in a position to inform people about all the facts. Even if we were in such a position, people probably wouldn't care. Our best bet, to prevent this monstrosity from hitting the market, is to strangle it in the crib. Talking about letting the market decide is living in an Adam Smith pipe dream.
ObJectBridge (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.
Finding God in a Dog
Waay to go!
Hey, wait! Without insipid culture to put the masses to sleep, they might actuall start to (gasp!) **THINK** for themselves!!! Uh-oh!!!
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Right! Does anyone seriously think that a ``Secure PC (tm)'' will offer the end-user any more security than garden-variety PCs do now? Is running Microsoft Windows Whatever on a Secure PC going to be any more secure than Windows users expect today? What will be more secure is the music files. The cracker that breaks into your Windows PC won't be able to play the music files they're able to steal from you.
What's the benefit of the Secure PC to the end user? None? I thought so.
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Intel starts making chips that have copyright protection built-in, it only opens up a market to a chip manufacturer that won't.
Yeah, 'cause anyone can build a chip fab in their basement and compete with intel. Anyone who doesn't like it can just build their own damn multi-gigaherz CPUs, and develop their own instruction sets that are 100% compatible with x86 yet don't infringe on a single Intel patent.
Rah, rah, Ayn Rand...
---------------------------------------------
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
There is lots of money (read: businesses) in Linux now, some of them making and/or selling hardware. It would be unwise (from a business standpoint) for those hardware makers/sellers to ignore 33% of the server market (and that's just Linux, I don't know off hand where the BSDs stand). Maybe "shooting themselves in the foot" is a bit excessive. "Tripping over their own feet" is probably more accurate. As long as these conditions persist, open source software will run on future hardware.
Another thing to consider... market forces. When the used market for non-authenticating hardware goes through the roof (because consumers want cheap content with no strings attached), there will be hardware vendors that will continue to produce the stuff.
Bottom line is this: King George started taxing certain goods to death and the colonies had a revolution. If King Valenti does the same, we'll damn well have another. The United States government cannot withstand the force of 100 million pissed off American citizens, and that's less than half the country, mind you. The issue here is the duties people have to pay in order to participate in their own culture. In the 1770's it was taxes on tea and stamps. In the 2000's it will be royalties on music and movies.
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
As long as M$ allows Streaming Media to be recorded via ME's MovieMaker software there is something to be desired in this marriage.....
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
A "trusted path" is a computer-age "holy grail". It doesn't exist.
The greatest problem with "trusted path" is that the hardware is no longer under your control. The moment a "secure" computer leaves your shop, you have no guarantee whatsoever that the machine will remain "secure".
Software authentication and access control comes to naught when the hardware can be diddled.
The access controls in Unix-like O/Ses and even Windows NT (to a limited extent) should be enough to prevent virus-like software behaviour. How many people are prepared to put the effort in to making their system secure though?
Copy prevention mechanisms aren't going to stop viruses. They will, however, stop you from making backup copies of your Thesis or Dissertation the night before your machine gets struck by lightning.
It seems to me that this sort of thing has a great potential to backfire.
Many, many people start off with pirated warez, and later buy into stuff as their means increase. But with copy protection making pirating impossible, the warez will dry up.
This will cause people to look a lot more seriously at the free beer alternatives, and very likely grow the market segment of user of these programs. Later on these same people will be far less likely to buy into the non-free software world.
MOVE 'ZIG'.
you rorgot Totalitarianism-in-a-box
Yeah, but that right only includes preventing others from distributing it to ther people, and a computer can't tell the difference between a set of computers I own and use myself and a friends computer. What I do with my media is my own damn business, not the record/movie cartels'
That's the catch to all this: the industry is producing software and hardware that restrains users beyond what is legal or illegal. Although you may do certain stuff under fair use, you can't using their products. So in essence they are writing their own laws, and your computer is now the judge, jury, and executioner.
Actually, that's exactly what they're doing, on the driver level anyway. Unless the card uses crptographically signed drivers that make sure nothing else is recording, it won't play it's stuff. Of course, what's stopping you from plugging your line out into the line in of another computer is beyond me...
In the bad old days of the Soviet Union, it was illegal for "little people" to own or usecomputers, photocopiers, printing equipment, even typewriters without permission and close supervision because the Communist Party was afraid that people would distribute information harmful to Communism.
Now, it may again become illegal for "little people" to own or use computers, photocopiers, printing or recording equipment, even VCRs without permission and close supervision because the Corporations are afraid that people would distribute information harmful to Profits.
Now, who owns your computer? I paid good money for my computer, so I'd like to say I own my computer. Any data that is stored or processed on my property is done so at my sufferance, so I want absolute control over all of the data on my machine. Copy control measures rob me of control of my own computer. The organizations who make copy control schemes are denying me permission to use my own computer and sending the message "We own your computer."
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
You aren't paying attention. We're dealing with a cartel here! We're dealing with the united front of, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the hardware manufacturers. They're going to make it so you can't do anything with your computer that they don't permit you to do, and they're going to be able to pull it off because tooling up to manufacture hard drives and CPUs is obscenely expensive, and anybody who tries is going to be frozen out of the market.
Free markets, by definition, do not work in the presence of monopolies and oligopolies. These organizations are explicitly designed to thwart market forces and force the consumer to either buy what they want to sell, or do without, and to not permit anyone to manufacture or sell what the customer wants to buy. If this is your idea of a free market, I'd recommend more economics classes.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Obviously, these "Secure" computers are better than the others which must be "Insecure". Ironic to have the "Secure" label on Microsoft products, particularly as this makes the product even more fragile.
/*Microsoft Corp, IBM and Intel Corp,*/
:P
Great, so I'll homebuild an AMD machine and run Linux/BSD/etc.
Seriously, though, if we can run Celerons in SMP mode (something intel said we couldn't do), still make pirated copies of MS products (I give xp a day before the "cracks" come out), etc, who actually think that determined individuals won't be able to get around this in a matter of.. I give it less than a week?
It's THIS kind of "innovation and market control" that will open the doors to "alternative" OS's (I'm not so sure that Linux will be the desktop choice). I'm not going for XP mainly because it's none of MS's mfing business what I do with the OS I install on my system and I'm not going to call them when I do major system upgrades. To hell with em. I've been playing with Stormix and OpenBSD and I've found that other than games, they're more than adequate for what *I* do.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Abit CUSL2-C: $112
Pentium III 1GHz: $230
Kingston 512MB PC133 SDRAM: $424
IBM Deskstar 75GXP: $257
Creative Labs 48X CDROM: $23
HP 9140I CD-RW 8x4x32x: $145
The feeling you get when you can give the [RI|MP]AA a big FUCK YOU: Priceless
_______
Scott Jones
Newscast Director / ABC19 WKPT
FC Closer
This isn't about copy protection, it's about access control, or if you'd prefer, control of use.
The organizations that favor this want to force you to use technology that enforces whatever they say are the terms of use for some pile of octets. Sure, the most important thing to them is limiting retransmission, but they can't limit retransmission without making sure that no unexpected use is ever made of those octets.
Once the debate is framed in terms of "copyright protection", the argument is half over. Don't fall for it.
What a misnomer, by secure pc I'd think more encryption, more eh, security for my data not security for third parties.
Kinda like anti-security no? Giving third parties the ability to control what goes on on my drives.
-AZ-
Spread the word.
Like Winmodems and Windows printers.
Imagine an Outlook worm that "protects" your documents.
Maybe. How many TV's do you think people were forced to buy because Macrovision was put into videos?
Ive been through that twice. Buy a new video and funnily enough, the picture gets distorted on my old but perfectly fine TV. Not when I use the old VCR tho. So, I leave the video in for service and they cant figure out what was wrong. Neither could I.
Then a few years later I find out about Macrovision. Those ****ing retards cost me a ****load of money for buying a new TV.
Now, I would have bought that Macrovision enabled video when HELL froze over, had I known that it wouldnt work with my old TV.Or just told them to ****ing fix it, because the pile of crap did NOT work as advertized. Nowhere did it say it would not work with an older tv.
But thats just the thing. Theyre not gonna tell anyone. Joe Average Consumer isnt going to know about this kind of crap until it hits him solid in the wallet, _AFTER_ hes bought his new stuff.
It was stated in the article that past inititives to control the media content of consumers had died a quick market death. The only way to implement wide scale protection of this sort would be to leave no other options for consumers. As long as there is one holdout, that company won't be able to manufacture hardware fast enough.
People aren't stupid, contrary to popular belief. Sell them two harddrives at the same price, specify that one will allow you to store mp3's and the other won't, guess which one they're going to buy?
Even complete systems will probably have to post some type of disclaimer after numerous irate customers return systems in droves because they're not "allowed" to store certain files on their harddisk or aren't allowed to burn those files to a CD. See how long the big name companies stick to the moral antipiracy stance when they're not selling any products.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Now imaging strong crypto (128, 256+ bits) that can't be brute forced, protected in all hardware (i.e. without keys you'll get garbage, or nothing at all).
Except that security systems are about far more that simply how strong any specific encryption system is on paper.
It's the complete system which matters. Putting a good lock on a safe is a waste of time if there are removable hinge pins on the outside.
As a content protection mechanism if just can't work so long content is needed to be unencrypted at any point
Don't forget the 80486SX - it actually required an extra step in production to cripple an otherwise good 80486 - and it sold for less!
Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
March 26th 1011 ... I must restate my hyposthesis....
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it at the ISP, you have to get it before it
leaves the computer.
Which is exactly what they're working on.
Why not? I don't hear lots of multimedia being played in the server room.
Yeah, and the same company that brought you that ultra-cool dual deck VCR (more than like Go Video, right?), has brought out a combo VCR and DVD player - and hawk them at Blockbuster! Now, you might be wondering why they would build such a thing, since presumably you would rent the DVD at Blockbuster, take it home, and make a copy of the DVD on a tape (which would be against copyright law), right? Nope - can't do that, they note in some fine print on a flyer (but _not_ on the box itself!).
/. - point them to the 2600 case, point them to whereever they can get information - print it and post it if you have to. Don't rent/buy tapes, don't buy music, don't see movies, don't take your kid to Disneyland, and a slew of others I can't even begin to name (the level that these companies have wormed their way into the collective fabric of the world is INSANE - I mean, your damn diskwasher might be made by a wholly owned subsidiary of a subsidiary of one of these companies!).
That is all cool by me - but what if you wanted to make a tape copy of a brand new DVD you bought that you like watching a lot - in theory, fair use, right? Nope - this deck won't allow you! Want to tape an excerpt to show in the drama class you teach at the high school? Nope - can't do that either. Fair use be damned!
But does that stop consumers? No - just like it didn't stop you from buying and attempting to use the VCR you paid for (hopefully in a fair use fashion - but what you do on your own time is YOUR business, not mine). So what is a citizen (not a consumer - get that out of your head NOW - NOW DAMNIT! YOU ARE A CITIZEN - AN INDIVIDUAL WITH RIGHTS, RIGHTS THAT TRANCEND MERE CONSUMERISM!) to do?
Stop any and all contact with those corps and groups who deny your fair use rights, who deny your CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED RIGHTS! Tell anyone who will listen about what is happening - educate the public! Hell, tell anyone, and if they refuse to listen, say it a little louder. If they tell you to shut up, tell them that is what the corps (with a little help from OUR own government!) are slowly doing to them. If even a trickle gets through, it will help.
Point them to
Sometimes I think I should go live in the woods - but what good would that do me - and what good would it do others. So participate - and get the word out, vote for those who seem with you, and let them know why you voted for them, when you can...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Sure it can...
OpenDVD
LiViD
I work in the software industry too, and as far as I'm concerned, you're full of shit.
Software piracy costs me money if (and ONLY if) a person with a pirated copy would otherwise have purchased the product.
Let's look at the historical example of MicroSquish BASIC, shall we? We've all seen BG's impassioned "letter to hobbyists", in which he took your short-sighted position. The truth of the matter is, piracy MADE MicroSquish. A lot of the people who pirated Gates & Allen's BASIC, went to MicroSquish when they needed BASIC for the new machines they were building.
Another thing to consider, is that today's pirate can be tomorrow's customer. If you want to make money on your product, then make it as popular as you can with the Warez D00dz. If your app is the one they like, then when they graduate from college and start buying for their employers, whose app do you think they'll go with? Maybe, the one they already KNOW?
Sure, you can insist that you must be paid each and every time someone copies your app. Or, you can take a longer term view, and realize that if MicroSquish had managed to get a lid on piracy in 1976, they wouldn't even be around today.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Am I really the only one that finds suggestions that legislation might be coming from (the American) congress to force this sort of protection really offensive? It's the sort of arrogant narrow-mindedness that leads to Norwegians being arrested because the US doesn't like something they've done, regardless of whether other countries are being really rather more enlightened. It won't need legislation from Congress, but by a (non-existent) world government, because as long as it's legal anywhere, products should hopefully be around to support it, at least outside the US.
Wow, I was about to post nearly this exact commentary on that inane quote. "We're going to cripple our products' functionality, which will increase demand"...umm, yeah, sounds like a plan.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Joe consumer won't pay pc or near pc prices for something with far less functionality than a real pc.
n in gs.html
3com bailing on its device:
http://www.3com.com/news/releases/pr01/q301_ear
ostiguy
Good article.. But, we cannot continue to use their words: 'piracy' or 'theft' versus 'copyright infringement' or 'unauthorized duplication'. 'digital rights management' versus 'digital control'. Is it 'theft' to play and 'share' your favorite song with a friend.
These are important distinctions. Don't use their words. As Orwell pointed out in 1984. If you can control the language people use to communicate, you have won the battle for their minds. Copyright holders have already taken control of the language. We already have a copyright Newspeak; I refuse to use it. So should you.
When you say 'other sorts of digital rights management.' that sounds mild, but replace that with 'other sorts of digital control', and people gain a fuller understanding of the consequences.
Then, the tagline of the MPAA/RIAA can read: `We are for the DMCA because it lets us enforce new forms of digital control to prevent copyright infringement.' versus `We are for the DMCA because it lets us enforce new forms of digital rights management to prevent thieving pirates'.
Ya sure, they think they're gonna control us, the geeks, hackers, engineers, and just plain strange people. Well, they can bite my ass. I have control over what's on my machine, not Intel, Microshit, or even IBM. Who do they think they are? Some giant corporations that can control peoples lives... Oh, uh, wait a sec here. Nevermind
Dive Gear
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
I disagree. There is some validity to what the industries are saying inasmuch as piracy affect production. Take a look at the HK movie industry. It was going to hell not because of the PRC, but rather the cheap pirated VCDs you could buy for $5 on the street outside the movie theater. People quit going to the theater when a cheap, "good enough" alternative was provided. Production budgets fell which led to poor movies which just continued the spiral.
Sure, there were also other factors, but are they any different from what Hollywood faces?
*counting on being marked a troll*
Laws like the DMCA expand the definition of copyright from "permission to copy" to "permission to view"--even when no copy is made.
The MPAA is using the DMCA to go after DeCSS because it nullifies their precious region encoding (read control of playback)... not to protect themselves from the evil pirates.
Just like CSS, watch for other "digital rights management" to increasinging control playback so they can empty your wallets with pay-per-view; and have the government protect their *entitlement* to that business model.
Lawrence Lessig in his excellent book "Code and other laws of Cyberspace" says that, if we aren't careful, the internet will become a technology of control, not of freedom.
As anyone who runs a web server knows, it's easy enough to track and log everything. The always-on internet opens up the possiblity of things like CPRM; Microsoft's plans for required registration before Office XP will work, and other sorts of digital rights management. DivX may have failed, but it failed because it didn't have a good enough value proposition, and it was a little ahead of its time. Once more houses have broadband connections, what's the big deal to the average consumer if your DVD player needs to be hooked up to the internet to play DVD's?
The idea that there will always be open alternatives to closed software or hardware isn't guaranteed. Lessig really hit the nail on the head in his book and predated a lot of this controversy. Will there be enough advocates to fund and continue producing open chipsets? You can look at the history of DAT to see a way things might play out.
There is a interview with him here that goes into more detail. (the streaming links didn't work for me, but the mp3 download did.)
I wonder if all this posturing on the big corporation side will lead to more polarization and zealotry. You'll have the totally proprietary and controlling microsoft camp, and the totally free and open Open Source camp. It'll be interesting to see.
- Twid
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
How does the copy protection work?
What if I ZIP up the file?
What if I ARJ it? Rename it? Updated the tags? Don't use their file format?
What if I write my own encryption/un-encryption file copying program?
What if I buy the hard driver/motherboard/CD-R driver that doesn't enforce their protection?
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
Creating copy-proof hardware just isn't going to work. Granted, region locking DVD players / drives could have worked if no companyhad released multi region readers or put region information into an easily accessible EEPROM.
Copy protected hard disk drives would have to know when the information being accessed is copyrighted. This could be done with a one byte flag per sector, but would require the OS to keep the data on the disk coherent.
(Can you imagine booting windows - Sorry, the file win32.dll is copyrighted - access denied).
Alternatively, copyright data could be attached on a per-file basis. i.e. The disk must know something about the file system. With the number of existing file system formats and taking into account new ones being created after disks are produced, the HDD would have to have some means of disabling the copyright flags.
Therefore, if stored data can't be protected, it must be done through an algorithm. The key fact that most companies so far forget is that: "There's always someone smarter than you."
In previous cases, the smarter people tend to be labelled "hackers". No matter how hard they try, companies will not be able to hide the algorithms they use to access the data.
What if they encrypt the algorithm? the decryption key / method must be unencrypted. it just slows the process down.
I don't think that the majority of people that want to protect copyrighted data will ever come to the conclusion that their efforts are futile. They'll just keep banging their heads against the wall.
Hehe. One would logically assuem so, but how do you plan on delivering open source content when Windows XP refuses to run anything that isn't signed by someone with a certificate signed by micirosoft (or anyone who has a copy of MS' certficate, which isn't as exclusive a group as it used to be).
The encryption is useless from a security standpoint, because the keys are stored locally. It may take hardware monitoring devices to get it out, but you can bet that large government agencies like the FBI, the NSA, and, of course, the COS, will have the ability to read whatever you have.
I'm so glad that brain dead liberals are willing to sacrifice their freedom if it happens to force their views on someone else. It makes me doubly confident that my plan to take over the world will encounter no resistance.
One word:
End to end cryptography.
I expect that the next few years will see
an increase in virtual networks, possibly
gnutella style, possible IP-Sec style,
but in any case a network that is not
part of the rest of the web/world unless
you know an access point.
Preferably this will include serious end
to end cryptography, so whoever wants to
share somebody elses intellectual property
can do so only with like-minded people.
The short summary would be: You can't block
it at the ISP, you have to get it before it
leaves the computer.
/RS
Let's see where these 3 companies are coming from and their reasons for this...
IBM: looking to regain control of the non-processor componants and design of PCs. They tried this with PS/2's Microchannel and failed. No manufacturer was willing to license Microchannel when ISA was free and a lot more hardware available for it. Very few will be willing to license this.
Intel: seeing their market share being eroded by AMD and the clone chipsets. If they get a new "standard" CPU and chipset design, they can relive the "Intel Inside" glory days of early-mid 90s.
Microsoft: market dominance is their name, looking do dominate yet another one is their game. They got a dominance on consumer and corporate OSes and are looking to make even more money licensing this to Hollywood.
Result: pretty much the same as the DIVX fiasco, except with 3 companies pusing it instead of 1. Except for the PC companies that are just repackaging Intel parts in their boxes (Gateway, Dell) and IBM, forget about this going anywhere. Go buy youself some AMD stock.
Bullshit. The billions of dollars a year in business they do now without those protections I'm sure is incentive enough. What they want is to be able to charge you for every time you listen to a song (Be it on the radio, a CD you purchased or in compressed digital format) and every movie you watch (Be it on the big screen, commercial free cable, or commercial supported network TV.) They also want to completely control the distribution medium so that amateur artists can't threaten their business.
Even if they did stop creating any new works tomorrow, someone would take in that slack. There's simply too much money at stake for a void to appear in that industry. Even if piracy were 100 times more of a problem than it is today, there will still be a lot of money to be made in the entertainment business.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Any move to improving antipiracy measures is a good thing. I work in the software industry. People *purchasing* our companies product keeps a roof over my head. People who pirate software, or knowingly use pirated software get no love from me, they are just a bunch of slimy theives.
--
--
Nothing to see here. Mooooove along...
You're right. Unfortunately, that's not the way these "copy protection" measures work. They are just a big pain in the ass and restrict you from actually doing things with your computer.
-----
"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
"...as personal computer sales are flattening, hardware makers are doing what they can to help jump-start the market for media content that might persuade consumers to buy more high-end machines."
They finished talking about how every single attempt at building in copy control for media content has failed miserably because nobody bought into the products. Then hardware makers say "computer sales are going down, so let's build in copy protection." Hello? They think copy protection is going to increase sales? Force people to buy higher end machines? Do they even realize what they're saying?
Of course, it just occured to me that perhaps this is an interesting trick. They build in copy protection for their lower end machines, and then provide high-end machines without copy-protection for much higher prices(despite the fact that it would actually cost less to leave it out). They can cite economies of scale to justify the higher price since most people wouldn't even know what they were getting into by buying a cheaper machine. Not that the hardware companies have to justify anything anyway.
In the end, I guess the only thing that matters is if they can get every single hardware maker into building these measures in. If they don't, then people will just flock to whoever is left
-----
"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
"The Microsoft solution also has advantages from their point of view in that it allows online licence management, pay to play systems and on-the-fly updating of "revocation lists". These update your client on compromised certificates." I dunno i just think its ironic they list the ability to revoke certificates as one of Wicrosofts strong points, what with the verisign fiasco and all.
Independant artists won't have these restrictions on their music ... They'll distribute in MP3 / OGG formats ... In a few years when broadband is avaliable to more people, the same thing might happen with independant movies ... alot of DVD players can play VCDs ... pay a couple bucks to download a movie, burn it to VCD, watch it on your tv.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Anyone wanna start a company that DOES allow the copying of copyrighted files?
:(
Probably illegal under the DMCA
no
There is really no reason for customers to accept this. Copyright protection offers customers no benefit at all over devices with no copyright protection. The reason DVDs worked, even without the ability to copy them, is because they offered more than VHS did. If DVDs were the same quality and size as a VHS tape no one would have even consider them an option. This also applies to SMDI vs MP3. SMDI adds no new or exciting features to the existing MP3 format, sound quality is not better, nor is file size. For these new copy-protection enabled devices to work they must contain an entirely new technology that could not be accomplished with existing technology.
Besides, trying to use a cracked version of Autodesk products usually doesn't work. From a warez mailing list:
"Off the top of my head, 3D Studio Version 3.0 came out ages ago, people wrote crack after bad crack for it, and finally a group came out with a "100% fully working crack" which seemed to work perfectly. Months later, people using the cracked version of 3ds3 noticed that their files were getting missed up - things would shift over just a slight bit.. Not noticable between one version and the next, but completely ruining their work if they'd been working on a project for any length of time. If I remember correctly, they didn't even notice it until 3-4 months after the crack was released, at which point it was too late for those effected:) Also, the software was "old" by that point, so I don't think anyone ever bothered writing a good crack for it."
The original protection system for 3D Studio was very clever. The key idea is that it's possible to implement copy protection in a way such that no one can ever be sure a cracked version will work reliably. This destroys the commercial value of cracked versions.
But this doesn't work for entertainment content, because it only has to play adequately. Ongoing use isn't an issue.
I tried to read the story, but for some reason my browser wouldn't cache it to disk for viewing.
Remember -- big part of computer owners are broke and famished students. There was no way in hell I could afford a 3dmax package when I was a sophomore, so naturally I had to download it off of many warez sites, togeter with many other useful items (note to FBI officer reading Slashdot: since I'm running GNU/Linux, I do not own any stolen software for over three years now).
If there appears software that only runs on *protected PC's*, that means there will be a lot of demand for operating systems and software which DOESN'T require or use "copyright-enforcing", meaning more people will jump to alternative solutions, students and other poor people doing so 'en masse'. This will also NOT sit well with freedom-minded people out there and we can count on them joining the alternative/open OS movement as well.
So, the outcome would be -- a lot of 'young blood' will be entering life with GNU/Linux, BeOS, or some other platform experience, not at all attached to Wintel like we see it happening today, when a lot of students exiting college are incapable of un-learning their Where-is-my-start-button trained responses.
And that, my friend, is a beatiful thing!
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
This is about free market conditions, and the invisible hand of the free market, and yadayadayada. Only buy hardware from people who don't support this shit. The economy will take care of the rest.
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
This is a good point. Notice the articles only vaguely mentioned "giants like IBM, M$, and Intel" and didn't specifically name any other companies (that I saw, anyway). My guess is that there are few, if any, other companies going along with this crap.
Just as AMD has little to gain from adopting any Intel-developed "copy-protection" schemes, Seagate, W-D, Maxtor, et. al. have little to gain from adopting IBM's copy-protection schemes for hard drives. And lord knows nobody has anything to gain from anything Microsoft does (other than Microsoft and their investors).
There are slimy ways to go about ensuring the adoption of things like this, of course, so maybe a complete "que sera sera" attitude is not exactly approriate, but nevertheless, I don't see trouble just yet.
--- I've been in school *way* too long....
Let them. Call their bluff. "Okay, go ahead. Quit making music and movies. Well? I'm waiting." Watch it not happen.
More likely the threat they'll hold over everyone's heads is that without appropriate copyright protection and the DMCA to back it up legally, they won't be able to make money, and there will be a huge depression because the entertainment industry collapsed. (well, they probably won't put it in quite such dramatic terms, but that's the gist of it). This is what got DMCA passed, and this is their mantra. It's bullshit, of course, but congressmen are too stupid to realize this (we'd be better off without the goddamn entertainment industry, anyway).
And anyway, we're not talking about the entertainment industry, we're talkin about the computer industry. RIAA and MPAA have little to say about this (though it may seem like they would, at first). This primarily concerns software copying, not music or movies.
--- I've been in school *way* too long....
Let's just see how long these "anti-piracy" hardware last in the market before they are hacked or taken off the market. :)
The copy control technology they want is a two part system: software and hardware. It's the same as with DVD's. If the software doesn't send the right bus key, the hardware refuses to talk *at all* And that's only the first layer of course. The content itself is also encrypted. Point being is that this system only works with closes source software! You can't have an Open Source implementation because then the authentication and decryption keys are out in the open and that defeats the purpose.
Some people argue that this doesn't matter because we can just use non-protected data on our free OS'es. But what happens to people who want to dual-boot? They won't be able to access ANYTHING on their non-free OS partitions using Open Source software. Furthermore, what happens when more and more media gets distributed using copy control technology? Anyone using an Open Source OS will be entirely unable to view it. Think of the Sorenson Quicktime codecs.. but then imagine that for ALL data.
OK, so we have even more multimedia limitation. But take this further. This technology could be applied to accessing web pages as well! Or advertisements or images.. Imagine this: You're browsing in your free OS of choice and you go to access some page that uses copy controls. Suddenly, you get a kernel panic due to a memory I/O failure. Your copy control enabled memory has just refused to write a block of data.. (say an image from the web page) because it detected the encrypted header of the data you tried to access and it was not in authentication mode.
Because this copy control technology requires low level hardware / operating system communication at the most fundamental level (disk, memory, system busses), it could effectively make it nearly impossible to use an Open Source operating system on any new hardware. At very least, it would necessitate a large infusion of 3rd party closed source object code into our previously free OS kernels. (Not to mention all system utilities involved with file management, etc.) And don't think this is just MS. This is not just about another Windows proprietary format. This is about an industry wide standard from consumer electronics to PC's.
I warn you. This is not DIVX: The Sequel. This is not a single retail chain pushing for a flimsy standard. And this is not just another market experiment by MS. This is something that nearly all of corporate America wants right now and given enough time, they're going to get it. If you want to do something, support the EFF and write to your appropriate legislators to let them know what is happening and how your freedoms are being taken away.
People that compare the current situation to a capitalist free market are wrong - it is a merchantilist market where gov't protects the corps. A lot like the economic side of fascism.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
They have already bought their law and bought at least a judge or 2.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
The industry is obviously and demonstrably powerful enough to create legislation when the "invisible hand" of the market doesn't do what they want.
Your comment that "it's not like the government is trying to force hardware manufacturers to do this" seems to ignore this obvious trend. Have you forgotten the V-Chip which the FCC now REQUIRES in all TV's larger than 13"?
...He comes from the future.
This article says many of the same things, but from another perspective.
Like sex? Read and write about it! Indecent Blogging
[insert evil laughter here]
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I wonder how this will work in the UK.
We have the data protection act which states that for £10 you are allowed access to all digital data owned by a company about you. This includes CCTV footage [e.g. you can request tapes that you know you are on].
With protected storage you could probably demand the data from the protected drive under the Data Protection Act - £10 fee every time you want an decrypted backup of your data, all done remotely by someone else.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
Of course, what's stopping you from plugging your line out into the line in of another computer is beyond me...
Reducing us to analogue dubbing with the resulting loss in quality is the whole point - it's discouraged, but it's a decades old technology that they are well used to. If they can reduce our computers to old fashioned lossy dubbing, they have triumphed utterly over everything we seek to protect.
Surely this should be obvious? This whole mess is about digital copying. No-one gives a shit about people using computers the way they once used cassette decks, the fight is about things like the elimination of scarcity, the ability to have a maximal quality copy for the car without buying a second CD, that sort of thing.
I know this is faar down the line in replies, but I hope someone reads this :)
If M$ or anyone else thinks that a "secure" PC will fly with consumers, it means they will bundle it with some advantages not possible on the not "secure" conunterparts.
It is vital that these "advantages" be made avaliable in Linux and regular Windows for free, so this project doesn't sell a single unit.
Janimal
Maybe things are different over there but here the important part of copy protection to most consumers, namely region protection isn't working at all, (most) people make "region free" a minimum standard, and that works.
Ok it won't copy easily but people figured out how to break it (not to mention the bit-by-bit copy), and the industry would just LOVE to make a DVD2 with CSS 2.0 but they don't dare, because DVDs are an established standard, maybe moreso because it *is* broken. You can see the same in the console marked. The sales rise once people figured out how to pirate games.
I think encryptioned PCs will sell - once a way to break it has been found.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
First off, I heard the DVD protection was rather weak (80 and 40 bits keys?) not to mention simple once understood (7 lines of perl code wasn't it?). And that took time - one companys screw-up lead to DeCSS and from there it went - but it took time.
Now imaging strong crypto (128, 256+ bits) that can't be brute forced, protected in all hardware (i.e. without keys you'll get garbage, or nothing at all). And if you require Internet connection you might not need to have the same key (or set of keys, like DeCSS), each user could get his individual keys. Using public/private keys it might never be copied without reverse engineering the hardware or hacking the companys server.
The industry is capable of making things much much worse than a RPC2 DVD drive...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Dog is my co-pilot.
for sure ... and as long as there are microphones and recording devices their initiatives aren't worth the paper they're printed on!
.. I will not buy more than 1 license .. I'll use StarOffice .. ... I'll use Linux and help make free software better thanks. ... I'll build an ADC and connect it to my parallel port and write my own damn sw.
:P, but you get my point. Unless they do something truly exotic like requiring me to have an implant to listen to sh*tty music .. rofl .. not likely. :P
...
But I don't want all of these un-necessary measures put into my computer (at the hardware level as well) just because some punks copy CD's they buy and share with some people. The recording industry as a whole isn't suffering since (?honest ) people like to buy the CD's and support good artists, even if they originally did download the MP3's
I want my computer to run the s/w that I have. And the more restrictive licensing goofy assed mechanisms there are the less likely I am to buy them.
Why can I not install Office on both my home computers
Why can I not upgrade my hardware without the consent of MS. Oh that's not an approved drive (0r) I've already installed that sw key onto different hardware and I must be pirating since no-one ever upgrades hardware
What do you mean I can't record sound using my SB-Live b/c the sound doesn't have proper digital encoding XYZ
Yeah well I already use StarOffice and Linux as well
cheers
can have protected access to their copyrighted files? Is this for any copyrighted material? Does it follow my countries local laws on copyright? Are the business rules field updateable? Can I copyright my own material and have it protected under the same mechanism?
.. let's pretend it's only for the US .. and how long would that really last! Hmm .. why is it that sometimes American policies end up being more communist than communist countries. Ahh yes ... they're doing it for your own good .. Goon on ya mate!
One thing that strikes me is this will be very American Centric, following American rules! What about Germany where (and correct me if I'm wrong) it's allowable to copy stuff. RIAA, MPAA, Micro$oft and Intel are trying to enforce US legal policy on machines / OS's that are international.
Okay fine
It's a monopoly when the same people that make all the drives sell the licenses to create the media.
I just don't get why anyone cares about kissing the asses of the RIAA and the MPAA. I didn't buy a computer to view DVD's or to listen to MP3's. Let these industries make their own media and don't license any drives that work in general purpose computers.
Charlie Rose interviewed Michael Eisner, head of Disney (do I remember his name right?) a few days ago. Disney is very pleased, he said, with the response from Congress to its educating them regarding the need for legislation to compel hardware makers "not to continue to virtually encourage piracy." He also explained how hardware makers, in his view, will be cutting their own throats if they don't provide equipment "compatible" with Disney's need to protect its ownership of its broadband content, which he predicted will overwhelm all other uses of the Internet in the near future, if hardware makers will only be sensible, and thus drive hardware sales as nothing else can. He also thinks firms like Disney are necessary to "consolidate" the work of creative people. Scarey mo'fo'. Charlie was treating him like diety.
So how do we make Eisner wrong? How do we be sure that there's always strong demand for open hardware? Hell, how do we keep it legal? How do we make sure that every CTO tells his CEO that the networks of every sector outside of entertainment (and many within) absolutely depend on open hardware availability? How do we provide means for independent creative types with their low cost digital equipment to present better animation through open Web broadcasts than Disney can ever do on proprietary hardware (because Disney is creatively terminally lame, because the original Disney cartoon crew was a small, lean group itself)? Hell, how do we get the hardware companies see that they can make more money by sponsoring independent artists (and maybe even take charitable writeoffs) than by shifting to closed devices?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Its hard for me to imagine a copy-prevention scheme that will work. Whatever reassurances the hardware needs that an operation is permissible have to be provided by the operating system. And while we may have to buy there hardware, we can write our own OSs. They can build whatever protections they want, but they have to trust the OS, and an OS can always lie.
My handle breaks slashcode, what does your handle do?
Well as the article said:
A key problem is that partial measures aren't particularly useful. Security locks are foolproof only when all brands of stereos, computers and MP3 players use the same antipiracy technology, leaving consumers little choice but to accept it. When products with no protections have been left on the market, consumers have purchased those instead. This consumer trend has been evident for years. Circuit City's Divx DVD player, designed to control the use of digital videos, died a quick market death. Sony's Vaio Music Clip was the only music player to add early versions of the SDMI's proposals, but the technology was removed after negative reviews and slow sales
In Other words, it only works when you build a cartel, or when you have a monopoly. MS is marketing the advantadges of being a monopoly to its clients, because then you can limit trade and deliver a product that meets the expectations of absolute control.
So the only solution to this IS Open Source. But the in-fighting that takes place from time to time gets hideous. It is almost as bad as what you see if you ever watch the UFO fringe groups. There they "eat their own young". Each little group proclaims that they have the truth, and a pox on anyone else that claims otherwise. (Then again, they get into conspiracy theories that make MS look like a candidate for SaintHood)
You have the highly financed and organized Anti-Piracy Alliance vs the hoards of Open Source programmers. Remember that the American indian was the best Light calvary in the world in their day, better than the horse soldiers they fought. The problem was that they they were all small groups who only fought when they were bothered in their neck of the woods. The soldiers could operate with a much wider plan.
Open Source needs to become sufficiently widespread that when these other products hit the market, that the APA shoots itself in the foot, and breaks the monopoly with its own stupidity.
You could have a marketing campaign for something like the "Computer Freedom Seal of Approval". "These computers maintain your rights to use the software on it as you see fit. Only buy computers with this label. Other computers restrict your rights and your freedoms. Fight back today!
Then again, what are the odds that hoards of anarchistic individualists could every organize together to a common goal? They tend to shoot even at those folks who could be their friends, never mind their enemies.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I'm serious, and on-topic.
If you read Schneier's "Secrets and Lies", he talks about the need for a trusted path within a computer, which can be used to implement access control. That is, people who are supposed to be able to see files can see them, and nobody else can -- in such a way that trojans, viruses, and the like cannot violate.
If we have technology to enforce access control on media files built into every new computer that comes off the line, then it will be that much easier to improve the security of those computers. By adding more authentication and access control, it will actually become easier to lock down a computer and protect its data.
As far as I see it, losing the ability to copy protected works without limit also comes with the protection from the unlimited copying or alteration of critical system files. This could be a good thing. And even if the DMCA gets thrown out and the RIAA told to fsck themselves, the technology that everybody is getting upset over right now will still be there, and may be of very great value.
So are software prices going to go down after the introduction of this perfect Anti-piracy scheme? I had the understanding that the reason why software prices were do high was the cost of the pirates that were stealing their software and in some sort of bass-ackwards math, costing the company money, past development. Obviously the prices of cd's would have to fall too. If either of those things ever happened, I would suck rancid tuna juice out of my own ass.
They didn't, but nobody asked them and they got it anyway. Because it fitted the interest of "content providers" and because it got legislators on board, hardware makers joined in.
In this case hardware/software makers are joining because they have an interest. And legislators will join in also. So consumers will have to gobble it as usual. remember that the life of the average computer is three years. When Joe Consumer buys his new 7GHz computer with 800Tb harddrive, the only hardware available will implement copy protection, unless you believe that Joe Consumer will build himself a beowulf cluster just to escape AOL Time Warner
I suppose there is more awareness now and the organizational power of open source will allow a larger area of resistence. But unless something dramatic happens to block it, or the cartel somehow manages to shoot itself in the foot, that resistence will be an off-off-bradway show as usual.
I hope one day enough people will figure out that a constitution without a democratic representative government is just a piece of paper with funny glyphs.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
So what happens when all the new machines being sold have CPRM built into the hardware and/or Micro$ofts "secure" OS? Do "legacy" boxes, or those running Linux or *BSD become "circumvention devices" under the DMCA? Be afraid........
I'm surprised, really surprised, that no one has brought up the observation that the law enforcement people will be VERY PISSED when they are unable to copy evidence from your computer.
How's that again, Satch?
When copy control becomes ubiquitious, as the entertainment content providers would like to become, you can create files with the copy controls in place. The only option the G-man would have is to take the device. Not too easy to do when the search is supposed to be stealth. Today, your average lawman could make a copy of the file to floppy, or ZIP, or whatever, and walk away with the victim none the wiser.
Put it in context with existing requests by the FBI and other law agencies: (1) undetectable wiretaps of phone, fax, Internet; (2) growth of "no-knock" warrants; and (3) advances in possession-releated statutes. What the FBI can't get through the front door of legislation they are trying to get through the back door of international treaty.
So what is Congress to do about this? Any back door will be utilized by unscrupulous people -- witness what happened to Clinton's favorite child, Clipper. Trying to prohibit ordinary people from owning equipment that can generate protected files just means that casual use is stopped, just as prohibitions on gun ownership in some cities of the US and some countries of the world stops only the honest people.
Ubiquitious copy-protection hardware. Good for ALL criminals. Those that claim alligience to The Godfather and those that claim alligience to the RIAA...
Look at the word copyright:
copy + right
By definition the person who holds the copyright has the right to decide who and how their work may be copied. They own it. It is their right to decide what is done with it.
Fairuse = use of copyrighted materials that is fair by a third party. Bye Bye fair use. Nice knowing ya.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
is guarantueed as long as legislation does not forbid it, by simple supply and demand. It might be expensive, but always there.
The implications of legislation to forbid it would be so humongous that I dont foresee the multinationals to try and force that through for a couple of decades. If nothing drastic happens in the meantime though I could see it happen in that timeframe, unfortunately.
Unless m$ removes raw paths to audio/video output entirely we can just use the "open" stuff we have today or which we develop ourselfes, and I dont see them closing those down just yet (would make game development fun, for all extents and purposes for all applications which needed to output self composed audio and video development would have to be done just like on consoles... with NDA'd development kits and the likes).
Even then the only way to truly prevent privacy would be to have robust watermarks and build watermark detection directly into every audio and video path, that would be the only way to enforce it so even people who dont use m$ shit could avoid it.
Some parts of the industry might want to push us there... but unless audio/video reproduction devices without "copyright protection" become illegal its not going to happen IMO.
The Macrovision thing is a somewhat different thing, though. Macrovision was applied to the software, not the hardware. I don't know what you are talking about. Macrovision manipulates the AGC, which is a physical voltage level. You can't get much more hardware than that.
-
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
What's to stop you from either recording your sound card output with a program like TotalRecorder or hooking your Line Out to Line In and recording that way? In the Register article it says that sound is "encrypted right up until the point where the sound card is actually playing it" which seems to me that the sound output would be unencrypted.
And I highly doubt they would or could require some sort of special encrypted sound card to play back your audio. I can just see it now: the WM CCA (Windows Media Copy Control Association) handing out licenses to sound card manufacturers to make "authorized" sound cards that played the encrypted content, and had no outputs other than the (encrypted) speaker output. Of course you would have to buy special authorized speakers as well, also controlled by the WM CCA, that could decode encrypted audio output.
Unfortunately this isn't as far-fetched as I'd hope.
Of course they are in it for the fees, just not the fees incurred in the copyright protection schemes that they are working on. Instead, they want to incurr MANY MANY fees by large corporations who now trust them and their open-source linux solutions. Its really just a quid-pro-quo.
In other news, the open source operating system Linux gained popularity against Windows, as does x11amp, especially college users with high-speed net access provided by their college. Many experts say the remarkable increase in popularity is due to the fact that it, unlike Windows, supports many file formats besides the Windows Media Player format.
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Wasn't WMA hacked like one hour after introduced? I mean, itsn't it used in DivX;) ?
IANAL, but if a group of companies cooperates to create a system that reduces consumer choice, and each agrees in advance not to do anything that would break this system (even if a situation arises that would cause such an action to be to that particular company's advantage), isn't that pretty much a textbook case of an antitrust violation?
My lawyer friends say yes. (STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This second-hand synopsis of a bs session with some attorneys is not offered as competnet legal advice. If you need legal advice on this issue, consult an attorney. Why you'd need legal advice on antritrust is beyond me, but to disclaim is divine.) They also note that it won't happen for a couple reasons:
1. GW Bush is president. There won't be any significant antitrust actions for at least 4 years. Not a troll, just the facts.
2. No corporate victims. Sun, Apple, Netscape, you name it - they all lined up to declare Microsoft a child of Satan. Consumers don't give enough money or make enough noise to be the sole reason for an antritrust lawsuit.
The only scenario where we'd get an antritrust lawsuit here is if the system takes a couple years to get off the ground and about the same time we elect a left-wing Democrat as president who appoints a left-wing attorney general who needs a good victim to start his term off.
but that doesn't matter. Completely rampant piracy and a breakdown of copyright would probably change certain industries. The music business wouldn't change very much - artists make little/nothing now from CD sales, they make their money on concerts. RIAA's members, which mark up music by 4500%, will be consigned to graveyard of outmoded industries. We'll never hear another manufactured artist like Britney Spears - thank god. Other people will keep making great music (and writing great books) for the same reason they have for millenia - they enjoy it.
Movies are another issue - the product actually costs a considerable amount to create. Live theater, which was almost killed off by movies, may make a resurgence. Expensive blockbusters may die off - there won't be any movies like Battlefield Earth (yay!!!) or The Matrix (sad) but that's what new technology does - it changes things, for better and worse.
Thank you! I was thinking these very same things as I was reading the article. But there's one bit of Newspeak that you failed to point out, and it's one that really bugs me.
When exactly did the "citizens" of the United States become the "consumers"? (I know this article has implications for the whole world, but the linguistic trend is something I've seen in many other places and contexts. This is just the latest manifestation.)
When we let them refer to us as "consumers", then we are being put into a lower position, since consumers do not produce anything useful (they "consume" instead). A consumer is someone with few inherent rights, and should be grateful to receive whatever the mysterious and implied producers choose to give. Basically, they don't have to give anything (it's business, after all), so you don't have a right to anything.
A citizen, on the other hand is someone who has rights. There are certain freedoms and protections granted to every citizen, such as speech, assembly, and privacy. A citizen is also not just a passive recipient, but is an active participant in the process, since citizens are expected, and even have a duty to involve themselves in government, perhaps suggesting legislation to their representatives, or even becoming representatives themselves.
Yet somewhere along the way we changed from being a nation of citizens who owned corporations to a nation of good corporate citizens (another insidious phrase) who sell things to consumers.
The associations of the two words, consumer and citizen, are very divergent, and by saying the former instead of the latter we denigrate the majority population to whom we are refering.
Take back your rights and powers!
Consumers of Oceania! Newspeak is doubleplusbad. We become free of Newspeak. In Doublenewspeak we are Citizens!
Eris
On the whole, Computing Consumers are not stupid. I cannot say the same for the Corporate IP delusionals.
These products will end up in landfills worldwide, unopened, just like the majority of Circuit City's Divix boxes.
Sadly, the logical result of this failure will be that the Infotainment Nazis will focus their attention to the last remaining assaultable link in the IP hemmorage problem: the broadband ISP. They will reach out to their paid Senators and ask for the ISP Safe Harbor provisions of the DCMA be modified so they can force all ISPs to have Carnivore style filters installed on their networks.
It is now time to call for the end of copyright.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
C'mon - I'm not just repeating a mantra. I have no illusions that markets are completely and purely free. Of course they are not. But neither are they utterly controlled and directed by government or "corporate forces." My point is that in this case, market forces will probably produce the desired result.
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If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, forget 'em, because man, they're gone. -- Jack
The Macrovision thing is a somewhat different thing, though. Macrovision was applied to the software, not the hardware. You have no choice but to buy Macrovision-enabled software, because you can only get the video from one source (copyright). However, hardware is different. You can get hardware from more than one source, so no one should (in theory) be able to force you to buy copy-protection-enabled hardware.
Of course, if someone comes up with a way to make copy-protection-enabled software only play on copy-protection-enabled hardware, then you've got a problem (it was tried with dvd's and almost worked). But with the current generation of dvd's and cd's, that isn't completely possible.
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If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, forget 'em, because man, they're gone. -- Jack
I don't worry too much about this. It's not like the government is trying to force hardware manufacturers to do this. If Intel starts making chips that have copyright protection built-in, it only opens up a market to a chip manufacturer that won't. And hard drives? I find it unlikely that IBM, Seagate, Maxtor, Fujitsu, and all others would all uniformly adopt copy-protection technology in the competitive storage market, when that technology is a potential turn-off to the consumer.
After all, it's not the RIAA or MPAA that's buying the hardware, but consumers. As long as consumers are informed about what they are buying, they'll choose better. So the best defense is information. Don't allow these "improvements" to slip quietly in. When they do, make sure people know. And watch them gather dust on the shelf. The free market is the best way to send this to the DIVX Dustbin of History.
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If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, forget 'em, because man, they're gone. -- Jack
What is important is what Andre was/is fighting for in the ATA specs: the copyright protection must NOT BE MANDATORY, but always optional. If it becomes mandatory then it's game over, as any independent artist will not be able to distribute his productions (unless he pays royalties to hw manifacturers). If the DRM systems remains optional, then the market can evolve: if you look at MP3.COM, the artists there would be more than happy to see a "secure PC" around, since it'll incentive the distribution of their material. Right now everybody pirates on Napster, but when you must pay-per-play, or no piracy is possible, the "free" (as in FSF) music will become much more attractive to people. Those bands will become known and they'll be able to estabilish the new market paragidm (and that paradigm works, at least by looking at the $ made by some artists on MP3.COM).
(indidentally, a DRM becoming mandatory would kill linux, which is something I don't see IBM doing in the future).
Don't any other countries make movies and music anymore? Last I checked, the final A in RIAA stood for AMERICA.
Will the rest of the world stand by and let the United States tell us what we can and can't do?
Seeing as we weak Canadians will (unfortunately) do whatever the Americans do, I hope others might prevent it.
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
Why do technology companies care? The idea of building copy-protection technology into hardware is not a new one, nor has it proved highly successful in other initiatives. The Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), sponsored by the music, technology and consumer electronics industries, has been trying to find a universally acceptable way to do just that with limited success for two years.
ill-mannered crackers who cracked dongles will crack their stuff again.. poor harware guys..
We'll all just run Linux on AMD or Transmeta CPU's
:)
I am not sure but I think all of the companies that own that DVD format are Japanese companies. Correct me if I'm Wrong.
__________________
Just a guy with an opinion
If MS, IBM, Intel (Music industry, Goverment) is on one side, who is on the other side? Cyrix and RMS? Seriously, what are the other Hardware companies doing? Have any "independent" harddisc manufacturer made any statements about this?
This will really hurt the Technology industry more than help it. I know for a fact that people will be less likely to buy equipment and accessories if they can not use them in a fashion that they like. For example, I like the fact that, when I buy a hard drive, I know that I can use it in any way that I please, legit, or otherwise.
Trying is the First Step to Failing --Homer Simpson
Being overly restrictive (divx) will fail. Also, current computers work fine; I dont know any 'normal' person who is willing to pay for a GHz comp when the one they have does everything they want and more. They say comp sales are down; they can go much lower if you start taking away features!
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
"But thats just the thing. Theyre not gonna tell anyone. Joe Average Consumer isnt going to know about this kind of crap until it hits him solid in the wallet, _AFTER_ hes bought his new stuff."
Many 'normal people' ask their nerd friends about buying a new computer. Unless they sneak this in right before the next big wave of buyers(the timing of which is unpredictable) they are going to hear about it. People dont buy computers often like videotapes.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
There would be significant returns if the public was not informed. There would have to be a significant warning to avoid suit as well(not fine print; that doesnt work in cases involving bulk groups of people- see the AOL suit).
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
I did that with some of my (expensive) anime tapes that were wearing out. I have stacks of vcds now, but at least they were 'saved.' They aren't even sold in DVD or vcd(the ones I did anyway) so it isn't like I am leeching somebody by not upgrading through them.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
I mainly listen to J-Pop and watch Anime, so let them not make anything. I can survive off of japanese stuff downloaded over the internet or ordered through the mail just fine. :>
What I do care about is full use of my computer!
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
What will happen is: 1. Sheeple will say that one buggy OS is as bad as another, and NOT pay > $150 for an upgrade. The poor fools who do will go nuts and bug MS on how their OS wont install on their current system. 2.MS will never point it's finger at itself. The only way an OS like this can be distributed in mass is pre-installed on pre-assembled computers sold by people like Gateway. Gateway won't do that that because they will get flooded by returns and tech support calls (and possibly lawsuits if they aren't properly warned) when their computers dont play mp3s.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
drugs and guns are everywhere anyway, so i guess we have nothing to worry about :P
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
Imagine a gnutilla program that makes a big database file(that is unencrypted). As it downloads packets it assembles them in this never-encrypted file. Then other people can search files in this database and download through the gnutilla program, completely bypassing the system in which the hardware looks to see if there are copywright bits to prevent transmission of the file.
Now expand this idea, and make a pseudo-file system using this concept. Fun, huh?
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
If you can't copy the copyrighted files, you wouldn't be able to backup your partition. Doesn't sound very business-friendly to me.
"Who ever heard of a suitcase being dominated by minds from an alien star-system?" -- Philip K. Dick
If most PCs have this and can play content this way, hardare that doesn't support it could be considered having no substantial use other than to circumvent copyright protections, in violation of the DMCA.
So, yes, once this kind of hardware is widely available, the government may well end up forcing consumers to buy this stuff and hardware manufacturers to stop producing anything else.
First, I don't like the trash that the commercial media and content providers are putting out anyway. The less easy it is for people to get a copy of the latest Disney movie, the better as far as I'm concerned. And I don't think that these devices can be so closed that only commercial content can be delivered: you should still be able to deliver free content freely.
Second, the hardware support for this may end up being usable for securing our own data cryptographically. So far, people haven't encrypted their disks because it's too expensive and because of export controls. This kind of hardware may well put hardware-based cryptography on every desktop.
Upgrade time now looms - is there a website or something that identifies GOOD and EVIL equipment?
BTW, I am (was) one of those clueless consumers that have been referenced a couple times in this discussion. A couple years ago I bought a dual-deck VCR with a one-button copy feature. I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't copy some of the stuff I got from the video store. After reading /. I realized why, and I was pissed...
Anyone up for a "Digital Media Consumer's Alliance" website? (Well, I guess we'd want a different acronym :-))
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
IANAL, but if a group of companies cooperates to create a system that reduces consumer choice, and each agrees in advance not to do anything that would break this system (even if a situation arises that would cause such an action to be to that particular company's advantage), isn't that pretty much a textbook case of an antitrust violation?
In my experience, if you want to see your lawyer fidget, just mumble something in his presence about making a deal with another company (even one that's not a competitor). Most lawyers seem to regard antitrust issues as heavy wizardry.
Now that you're on the subject of being a true geek have you ever thought to look at the Geek Code? It's a neat little program to rate your standing as a geek. If you'd actually look at it you'd realize that true geeks want freedom, they support things that let them do what they want. (anarchism would be the extrememe of this) Giving into large companies who are trying to block your freedom is anti-geek if anything.
one thing i can tell you is you got to be free
How can you even think of comparing guns to copy protection? When was the last time you read about a high schooler killing his classmates because he was allowed to take his non-copy protection with him to school? These are so unrelated I'm surprised you can even think of them at the same time.
one thing i can tell you is you got to be free
The problem with the idea of a anti-anti-piracy seal of approval is it makes the Open Source community too easy a target for the RIAA and its brethren. It would be all too easy to write us off as a hoard of thieves... is this the image that we want for OpenSource?
An alternative might be to propose valid alternatives to the perceived threat that these copy-protection shemes pose. I have frequently told people that I would be happy to pay an artist directly for their music (for example)... and double their income while I'm at it. $2-3 for a new-release albumn? Who'd even bother pirating then?!? -- Coding is art, I'm a surrealist
Even if all hardware producers conspired to add such devices to all CD players, DVD players, hard-disks etc, I bet you could still buy indian "no-name" equivalents without the protection. There would be an immense market for it.
We know that software copy protection is worthless. There will always be a hack, as a guy on alt.security.pgp likes to say: you can't have security by obscurity. I have my doubts about hardware protection, too. Ripping will become harder, but far from impossible and as long as there is ripping music data files will be avaliable on the internet. It does not matter if there is some watermarking the data that my harddisk doesn't like. All such software elements of the protection can be easily disabled.
What amazes me is that the copyright industry has no qualms about trying the impossible over and over again.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
It is one thing for business to try this in the free market, but the real danger is if they enlist the help of government. I, for one, am writng my CongressBeings urging them to NEVER make hardware-based (or software-based for that matter) copy protection mandatory.
BobThePig
Copyright is one thing, but for these industries, and now the major players of the computer hardware industries to assume ahead of time that I am a thief is very much like putting me in jail because someday, somewhere, I might decide to steal something. This is bullshit pal, wake up and smell it.