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The Read-Once, Write-Never Web
grub points to this TechWeb story about a software tool (NetRecall) from a company called Athentica which they claim can selectively allow viewing, copying, and forwarding of online materials. The idea is to maintain control of content on a per-person or per-category basis -- something which could have good or bad applications, but which sounds difficult to implement effectively no matter what use it's put to. (Will the required plug-on also block all screenshot utilities? If not, exactly who is it intended to stop?) Of course, since circumventing even simple methods used to "protect" copyrighted materials is illegal under the DMCA, perhaps that doesn't much matter.
This article is not talking about protecting news articles from nytimes (though if it actually worked, that might be a possible application). They are talking about protecting trade secrets or classified information from potential espionage. That is an environment where people would go to extrodinary lengths to copy data without it being recorded.
Many years ago now, the DOD tried to push the Orange Book as a solution to this problem, and IMO, it was a dramatic failure. But in any case, any implementation requires a trusted client terminal, either a tamperproof PC or preferably a terminal in a secure facillity (where you can observe to make sure people don't take pictures, copy down notes, etc). They you just have to worry about people remembering everything well enough to copy it down later.
As content protection for copyrighted material (music, nytimes articles, pr0n), just making it "to painful" to reproduce might be good enough to prevent the majority of casual or unintentional copying. However, once again, people forget the primary attribute of the virtual world: "All marginal costs are zero". Once someone discovers how to circumvent the plugin, the process can be automated and provided as a patch and you will never have to worry about it again.
Screenshots only work if the OS doesn't clamp down on the ability to make them. And there aren't many OS manufacturers to convince to get your policy adopted by 90+% of consumers...
And don't expect those input/output jacks in your computer to remain sacrosanct for long if there's big bucks on the table. Go do a search on "Macrovision" to see what's already adopted in millions of VCR jacks for preventing that sort of thing. For bonus points, cross-reference Firewire. Sure you can take photographs of your screen or tape-record your speakers. But that's not the point.
It's all about barriers-to-entry. Or in this case barriers-to-copy, barriers-to-distribute, and barriers-to-publicize.
Remember the following simple table, bulletized since /. doesn't let me do HTML tables:
Barriers-to-copy: Copyright? Check. DMCA-no-reverse-engineering? Check. Increase the proportion of technology components protecting copying by requiring reverse engineering? Ongoing, minor consumer resistance at best sighted so far, marketing and upgrades will take care of the rest...
Barriers-to-distribute: Suing webserver owners? Check. Shutting down napster? Check. Shutting down gnutella/freenet? Umm, working on that but if all else fails street-fight with denial of service- pay someone to pollute popular servers with bad content.
Barriers-to-publicize: Contributory-copyright-infringement law? Check. Intimidate press by suing people who link to workarounds like 2600? Check. Shut down highly publicized services with said law like napster? Check. Fragment any potential successor networks so no one approach gets too much publicity? In progress (but if network effects overrides these efforts, must insure other barriers are up)
Checkmate. Game over man, game over.
"Freedom for one" is not "freedom for all". And freedom for only a repressive-law-disobeying techno-elite is no freedom at all. We are destined to lose it very soon if we don't organize to make our voices heard very big and very fast. Do something. I'd start with the EFF and your congressperson.
--LinuxParanoid, thinking about adding a new alias, RIAAParanoid...
"only the paranoid survive" ... and I don't think most Linux proponents are paranoid enough
Or, will it stop people from using a pencil, writing it down, and retyping it? As long as people can read it, we can copy it- even if it's without a computer.
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"But really, I think life is just a game of Mao Nomic." -Purplebob
Quick -- must forget-- the cops are coming.. aughh...
Time to dig out RMS's "The Right To Read" essay again. The scariest part is that I probably reread this essay once a year, and each time, we've crept closer and closer to it being reality.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There will always be a market for free content.
Otherwise you run into the situation of those certain stores. There are some stores in fancy areas of any city where you can shop at only if someone has told you where they are, and where if you have to ask, you can't afford it anyhow. It is shopping by appointment only. It is not just fashion, but includes antiques, and many other high price items.
Now this makes sense with exotic items. It even makes sense with things like porn.
But in the model of the corner grocery store, where you want to encourage traffic and lots of people, you can not suddenly put a lock on the door. What level of paranoia must you have to suddenly require an ID and a credit check to buy the equivalent of a can of Internet soup and a newspaper? I would go shop someplace else. I would move to another neighborhood.
An awful lot of sites going to the shopping by appointment only model are only selling soup, and they are cutting their own throats.
I can see the use of this software for the exclusive content set. Artists, etc. But in the long run, alot content will develop it's own alternate forums.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Sounds great at first but should someone want the information they don't neccessarily have to use tech methods to get it. Take a good old pen and paper and write down what you want, or take a picture of the screen with a digital camera.
What if the second party receiving the email chooses not to use the plugin then what? Are companies going to be willing to let business go because someone doesn't want to comply with using a certain product. Aside from that how is this plugin written, my guess is its a Windows based plugin which does little for Nix users.
Its sort of like this tool called Comet Cursor which allows you to highlight any word in a document and get all the information on that word even if they don't have a link posted on the document, only difference is, its blocking information.
Oh well I'll wait to see how people circumvent this, and laugh at the companies who dished out 30+ thousand dollars for this cheesy program.
360 degrees of Karma
When a company comes up with software like this, it's not intended to stop the savviest /. reader from doing whatever. It's designed to stop the 99% of people who wouldn't ever even think that a hack might exist to get around it. For examply, the reason Napster got popular is because people like my Grandma started swapping files. Napster started blocking and she stopped using it, and now it's basically dead. We all know there's way to get around the blocks, but that doesn't really matter. So, I guess my point is, if it's good enough to stop my Grandma, then it's good enough. :)
I suppose the headlined "read once, write never" memory is marginally better than the competing standard of Write Only Memory.
In all seriousness, do we really need to look at every one of these companies whose business is based on ignorance of the simple rule: "If I can see it or hear it, I can record it."?
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Hey, for the record, there are a lot of females over the age of 35 (myself included) who are quite capable of taking screen shots, printing to PDF and posting to the web!
Jeez, I was probably using FidoNet when some of you guys were thinking solid food was a neat idea...
Just because some of us are old enough to be a parent of many of you doesn't mean we're by definition tech-ignorant; people do pick this up later in life, too - my mother didn't get her first (PowerMac) computer until she was 60!
I've also done enough tech support to see there are just as many ignorant males as females-of all ages- out there...
Anyway, I don't mean to be strident; I just ask that y'all be a little more open-minded, please!
= )