Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

3G phones: Send Anywhere, But Not Anything

Posted by timothy on from the euphemism-nation dept.

glengyron writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting the success of an Australian company in developing Digital Rights Management for the next generation of mobile phones. Imagine if you could only forward email once, or not at all: these are the kind of restrictions being built into the next generaion of mobile phones. Read the article here. ODRL? Orwellian Digital Rights Language."

42 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Disney has something to teach RIAA by anagama · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the article:

    "If we don't provide consumers with our product in a timely manner, pirates will," Eisner said.

    This after Eisner was quoted as saying Disney will not let "the threat of piracy keep it from aggressively pursuing business strategies based on new digital technologies, even if that meant rethinking its current business models."

    Someone should forward this to our friends in the music industry.

    --
    What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
    1. Re:Disney has something to teach RIAA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Subject: FW:Disney has something to teach RIAA
      To: everyone@riaa.org

      *Error*
      This message was not approved to be forwarded.

      *ODRL v1.1*

    2. Re:Disney has something to teach RIAA by robbyjo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not only with timely manner, but also with an affordable price. That's the most important part for the music industry to learn.

      --

      --
      Error 500: Internal sig error
  2. Hey, disney supports it! by lily+alairia · · Score: 5, Funny

    If Disney supports it, you better believe that I will. It must be secure and built with the customer's best interest at heart.I'm sure it will be ultra secure, and not rely on things like the DMCA to protect a poor security model, and support all conceivable forms of fair use.

  3. forward by coreyb · · Score: 3, Funny

    I for one would be glad if forwarding were harder. I really could do without getting pseudo-religious right-wing pro-bomb-the-hell-out-of-country-X email from my grandparents that's more header than text.

  4. Actually... by ELCarlsson · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Imagine if you could only forward email once" Then I wouldn't have to deal with all those damn annoying chain e-mails.

    1. Re:Actually... by Pyrosophy · · Score: 5, Funny



      I don't know, think of all the money Microsoft would save not having to send checks to everyone who has forwarded their email.

    2. Re:Actually... by NewbieProgrammerMan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If I RTFA correctly, they are using ORDL instead of the MS XrML standard because they only have so much bandwith available. I can imagine that aggressively preventing ad inifinitum forwarding would be almost necessary in that situation. I'd hate to not be able to call or check my email because Bubba wanted to forward that cool 1k email (with 15k of headers) to all 50 of his friends so they can get their check from Microsoft.

      --
      [b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
  5. yawn, information wants to be free . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Can we just have an "information wants to be free" section and put about half the stories away there? I get the damn point already.

  6. proper definition of "DRM" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Can we please stop defining it DRM as digital rights management, and start referring to it under the more proper name of digital restriction(s) management?

    I got this new definition from Robert Thompson.

    1. Re:proper definition of "DRM" by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's both... by applying restrictions, DRM manages content rights. "Rights" in this case means the rights that the content provider bestows on you, it has nothing to do with any legal right you may have.

      The rest of the world refers to DRM as Digital Rights Management. Spending your energy to try and get people to assign a different meaning is like trying to get people to use words like "womyn" and "freedom fries". It's wasted energy

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  7. yeah australia is one of the big players in the... by Kolenkow · · Score: 2, Insightful

    3G buisness... I don't think I'll worry too much about something as stupid as that... as if any 3g-network provider would build a system that didn't generate traffic... they want traffic, that's where they make their money...

    --
    Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even if you take into account Hofstadter's Law
  8. Take it a step further by eap · · Score: 3, Funny

    I wish someone would offer a mobile phone package that had no messaging capability at all. Imagine how great it would be to not get bothered constantly. I would pay extra for such a service.

    1. Re:Take it a step further by Lord_Slepnir · · Score: 2, Funny

      I have a phone like that. It has no call making ability, no call receiving ability, and no messenging of any kind. At first my freinds laughted at me, asking how much I payed for that brick, but they're just jealous that theirs are so small that they can fit between the seats of thier couch and weigh less than 10 pounds. The name of it is "Brick" and it only comes in a dark red color, but it's worth that small sacrifice for the privacy.

  9. Holy crap! by Flamerule · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Did anyone else notice this?
    PR's four engineers built the Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) language in about two years before version 1 was commercially adopted by Nokia and others in preference to Microsoft's XrML standard, in part due to political reasons, says chief scientist Renato Iannella. [emphasis added]
    A (semi-)major news outlet ran a story with DRM defined as Digital Restrictions Management, with "Restrictions" replacing the original "Rights". That is extremely fucking cool.

    At least, I've never seen this before. Is it just me?

  10. imagine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Imagine if you could only forward email once, or not at all


    I don't have to imagine it -- I've used Lotus Notes. They've had that feature at least 2 versions ~6 years. It's an important feature in the corporate world. get over it.

  11. This could be a Good Thing by Xeger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The introduction of cameras and multimedia SMS in the 3G market has given rise to privacy concerns, as we have seen in recent Slashdot coverage.

    Consider for a moment that when people could be taking pictures of you with their cell phones at any time and at any place, some basic rights management within this very limited domain of cell phones and messaging might be extremely beneficial.

    Let's say I take a quick snap of myself and my new girlfriend, and send it off to my pal across town so he can see how much fun we're having. Do I want that image to reach my parents? Do I want my ex girlfriend to see it? How about my co-workers and enemies? I'd rather not, thanks.

    By giving the sender some basic control over where the content goes once it leaves his phone, we would be enhancing the sender's privacy. And, of course, all such "DRM" technologies must be taken with a grain of salt, because you and I and any other techie worth his weight in 3.5" floppies knows that any copy-protection scheme is breakable. The DRM technologies introduced to date have been far from confidence-inspiring. So DRM within this domain is more of a basic privacy tool than an Orwellian move to own your cell phone.

    As for my preferred intepretation of the DRM moniker -- I've always been fond of "Digital Rights Removal Mechanism."

    1. Re:This could be a Good Thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why would you send an image you don't want people to see, to a friend you don't think you can trust?

    2. Re:This could be a Good Thing by kien · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Consider for a moment that when people could be taking pictures of you with their cell phones at any time and at any place, some basic rights management within this very limited domain of cell phones and messaging might be extremely beneficial.

      I agree. But they could also be abused and, honestly, do _WE_ really need them?

      Let's say I take a quick snap of myself and my new girlfriend, and send it off to my pal across town so he can see how much fun we're having. Do I want that image to reach my parents? Do I want my ex girlfriend to see it? How about my co-workers and enemies? I'd rather not, thanks.

      This is one scenario where laws and DRM are not needed. If you send a snapshot to a friend and ask them not to forward it to anyone and they do it anyway...that's not a bloody friend and you would be wise to avoid sending them anything sensitive again. :) Now, if you just sent the snap to your mate without any request to keep it close, I think by most laws you would have no expectation of privacy and if they sent that photo on to an enemy or anyone else you'd be up a creek but (of course) IANAL so YMMV. :)

      So DRM within this domain is more of a basic privacy tool than an Orwellian move to own your cell phone.

      In a perfect world, I'd be thrilled to agree. But in the world I live in, large bodies of people whose job it is to make money have a nasty habit of adopting an "embrace and extend" attitude towards technologies that could potentially benefit most of us. Maybe I'm overly cynical or paranoid or maybe I just read /. too much.....or maybe there really are deep-pocketed interests in the world that want to control every aspect of your life.

      I hope I didn't come off sarcastic because I don't mean to be. You make a great argument for the legitimacy of this technology and I agree with it. I just worry about the potential vectors for abuse by those who don't have the best interests of their customers in mind.

      --K.
      --
      Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
    3. Re:This could be a Good Thing by mosch · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Let's say I take a quick snap of myself and my new girlfriend, and send it off to my pal across town so he can see how much fun we're having. Do I want that image to reach my parents? Do I want my ex girlfriend to see it? How about my co-workers and enemies? I'd rather not, thanks.
      I've got a really good solution to this problem. It's called 'trust your goddamned friends'.
    4. Re:This could be a Good Thing by Xeger · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I wish I could make a blanket reply to all of these posts, because many of them make a good case against my argument. I've chosen to respond to yours because it has the most addressable points, the most coherency and the highest score (leading more people to read it, hopefully).

      The most vocal rebuttal thus far has been If your friend is willing to forward private material, then he's no friend at all. Along the same lines is If you don't want your friend to forward private photos, then tell him as much. In a black-and-white world, both of these statements would be perfectly valid. But even my best friends have been known to suffer momentary lapses of judgement. And there are numerous other cases where I might send something to my friend, and it would be unclear to him whether he's allowed to forward it or not. I only raised the spectre of the ex-girlfriend because it seemed to be a case where I most unambiguously did not my content forwarded. And I'd rather have a way to concretely enforce that restriction with a moderate level of confidence, than rely on my friend's reading and obeying whatever written instructions I attached to the photo. If I had truly sensitive information, you wouldn't catch me sending it via such an insecure medium in the first place. Without end-to-end encryption, I'm disinclined to put any of my secrets on the wire: spoken, written or otherwise.

      Also -- the truth of the matter is that I'm a homosexual. If someone sent a picture of me and my boyfriend to my ex-girlfriend I'd probably be relieved, because it might send her the message she seems so dense about receiving. But that's neither here nor there; I just felt like injecting some reality into an otherwise hypothetical discussion.

      Regarding the potential negative impact of ODRL: going from previous experience, we can be sure than the deep-pocketed acolytes of the embrace-and-extend god will use their multiply hyphenated power to turn this technology against us. They don't want to control every aspect of our lives; for the most part they're just after our money, and they want control over any aspect of our lives where money is involved.

      But let's take a step back and examine the domain once again. We buy cell phones that speak to only one network provider and use trivial encryption; we have no guarantee of privacy to begin with. Those of us unfortunate enough to be living in the United States of Ashcroft know with absolute certainty that everything we say, write or do with our cell phones is recorded and scanned for keywords as a matter of course.

      The scant content that is available to those of us lucky enough to have a 3G phone is either already heavily protected or it's utter tripe that isn't worth stealing in the first place. Network connectivity and a central authority are both inherent to the platform, and we can be reasonably certain that any content made available to us will take advantage of that fact, and strictly enforce the licensing terms. Our cell phones are not a free or open platform to begin with.

      This point was driven home when I called my provider (Verizon) to enquire about becoming a BREW developer -- BREW is a sort of cut-rate alternative to Java for cell phones -- and was told that the entry fee into the program was US$3,000 not including development tools or software licenses, and that all software must be digitally signed by Verizon before it would run on any phone.

      By standardizing DRM description language, we at least are guaranteed a few sanity checks: if I want to give my ringtone to my friend who's using Cingular because I don't want it anymore, at least both of our networks speak the same DRM language. And if I do want to download some premium content, I will find that more is available to me because producers have greater confidence in the system. And if the same DRM technology enhances my control over my own content, then it's all the better.

    5. Re:This could be a Good Thing by kien · · Score: 2, Interesting
      A most insightful reply, and informative as well. I believe that we agree on most of these issues on an ideological level, but I think you're more pragmatic than I am...which is fine. And maybe our social backgrounds and/or beliefs are different...which is probably even better.

      But even my best friends have been known to suffer momentary lapses of judgement. And there are numerous other cases where I might send something to my friend, and it would be unclear to him whether he's allowed to forward it or not. I only raised the spectre of the ex-girlfriend because it seemed to be a case where I most unambiguously did not my content forwarded. And I'd rather have a way to concretely enforce that restriction with a moderate level of confidence, than rely on my friend's reading and obeying whatever written instructions I attached to the photo.

      The real issue surrounding DRM is control and I think you make that point very clearly with these statements. The "battle lines" seem to be drawn around trust versus control. I believe that those are the two sides of the balance when it comes to online justice. As an idealist, I favor trust and as a pragmatist you favor control (although I think you favor a balanced control...not utter control). Finding the balance between these two extremes is probably the best thing we can do for the future. (Of course, it doesn't help the debate when Intel's definition of DRM is described as "Trusted Computing".)

      Also -- the truth of the matter is that I'm a homosexual.

      I'm a heterosexual Christian with a Southern Baptist upbringing and yet here we are having an intelligent, civil discussion about technology. I fear we might be creating a Slashdot Paradox. :)

      We buy cell phones that speak to only one network provider and use trivial encryption; we have no guarantee of privacy to begin with. Those of us unfortunate enough to be living in the United States of Ashcroft know with absolute certainty that everything we say, write or do with our cell phones is recorded and scanned for keywords as a matter of course.

      "United States of Ashcroft"...ROFL! How appropriate given today's environment. I happen to work for a large telecom company and I can tell you that your privacy is equally violated with wireline phones. I have the ability to listen to every call placed in the USAshcroft. I also have a documented procedure to allow governmental agencies to listen to your calls. I don't have the time, interest, or ethical deficiency to listen to calls for fun and neither do my coworkers. And I have not been asked to perform an emergency call trace for the government in over 4 years.

      So yes, of course you are correct that the centralized nature of cell phone service today obliviates any expectation of privacy.

      Network connectivity and a central authority are both inherent to the platform, and we can be reasonably certain that any content made available to us will take advantage of that fact, and strictly enforce the licensing terms. Our cell phones are not a free or open platform to begin with.

      And again, I totally agree with only one qualification...that's the case TODAY. At one time, only IBM offered the PC and customers were locked into them. At one time, mainframe vendors were incompatible. History tends to favor the end-to-end philosophy (the PC, the Web, GNU/Linux) where the control is decentralized.

      By standardizing DRM description language, we at least are guaranteed a few sanity checks: if I want to give my ringtone to my friend who's using Cingular because I don't want it anymore, at least both of our networks speak the same DRM language. And if I do want to download some premium content, I will find that more is available to me because producers have greater confidence in the system. And if the same

      --
      Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
  12. restrictions != legal permission to forward by redcane · · Score: 3, Interesting

    >Iannella says users of devices such as Nokia's >3650 multimedia messaging service mobile phone >benefit by having explicit rights to forward >media once it has been consumed. Actually no, they might be able to have a copyright notice saying "You may forward this to one person" But they haven't given us that "right". They've restricted us to that right, even though it used to be at our discretion. Now you can't use the material for "fair use" in any way even though you should be able to! >"The advantage is that the terms and conditions >that they acquired the content under can be >managed by the handset. They need not worry >about an infringement that may occur. Therefore >they will legally be allowed to forward content >on. Of course you don't need to worry about an infringment occuring, because you no longer have that option. REstricting us from copying stuff doesn't legally allow us to forward content on, we must have already been legally allowed to, just now they're making sure we only forward it their way.... In fact even if we're legally allowed to forward it, we might not be able to now.... I *really* wish they'd stop pretending that DRM has *any* advantages for a content consumer...

  13. I can see it now... by nickgrieve · · Score: 4, Funny

    Alice receives a memo from Bob, tries to forward it to Charles and the phone denies her. Alice then calls Charles and tells him she just got a memo form Bob at head office, tried to send it on but her phone would not let her, she then relays the contents verbally. Alice then calls Bob and tells him to get on to the communications guy, these new phones are a pain in the arse, can she have her old one back please.

    1. Re:I can see it now... by Whyaduck · · Score: 5, Funny

      Alice receives a note from Bob skewering Charles' new toupee. Alice is a two faced shit, so she tries to forward it to Charles. Bob had set rights on the email so that it can't be forwarded, and it can only be read once. Alice can't send the email, doesn't realize that she can only read it once, but tells Charles about the message anyway. When Alice tries to show Charles the email when they're both in the office the next day she looks like an idiot because she can't show it to him. Charles fires Alice and gives Bob her job. Voila, digital rights management has benefits for content consumers (who are also, on occasion, content producers).

      --
      Hello, I must be going. I'm here to say I cannot stay, I must be going.
    2. Re:I can see it now... by nickgrieve · · Score: 3, Funny

      Alice gives Charles a blow job, gets promoted over Bobs head. :-)

    3. Re:I can see it now... by flanman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't think that this is the scenario that's envisioned with DRM. If you create content, then you OWN the content.

      What DRM wants to do is protect people who make their living creating content ( like music and images ) and allow them to make a living at what they do. If they choose to open up the content to the world, then that should be their choice.

      The challenge to telco's and content creators is to price this stuff and facilitate the distribution of the content so that you WANT to share it and you don't feel fiscally raped every time you do want to share it.

  14. Re:imagine by buyo-kun · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't mind companies making a feature I don't like.

    I mind a company cutting out ablities of a product and calling THAT a feature.

  15. GET THE NAME RIGHT! by arvindn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sorry for shouting, but its Digital restrictions management. ODRL is Orwellian Digital Restrictions Language. Please. If we don't get the name right, who will?

  16. Great idea!!! by Wench · · Score: 3, Funny

    Cuts out all the chain letters and those lame jokes you get 17 times over; the ones with the >>>>>>
    >>>>>>>>> markings...

    (Yah, so there might be some teeny weeny unwanted side effects. Whatever.)

    --
    No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.
  17. OpenIPMP by merriam · · Score: 2, Funny

    Similarly, I find myself involuntarily transposing OpenIPMP into a form that is easier to pronounce.

  18. What a phone is designed and good for by tyrione · · Score: 5, Insightful

    TALKING. All the rest is mental masturbation. Give me a Wireless phone that doesn't drop connections is all I ask. The companies should fix their backbones before they release pointless WOW factors that only 'sort of work' as billed.

  19. DRM is a good idea for this usage by BladeMelbourne · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Think about the following scenario.

    Girlfriend/wife/significant other sends you a 'hot' voice/video message for your eyes only.

    If her parents / colleagues / friends / family got a forwarded copy (possibly by accident) it could ruin her reputation, cause her to lose her job, etc.

    DRM would be effective in this scenario.

  20. Re:Hello...? by colinmeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The important distinction between what is legal and what is possible... As a musician, I can undertand the appeal of a DRM language that would allow me to specify, for instance, that a recording can be forwarded arbitrarily, but only listened to once at each site.

    As an engineer, I understand that methods for enforcing this kind of contract are either overly intrusive or ineffective. Suggestions are welcome, except from the "we-listen-and-decide-how-much-it's-worth" crowd, since this crowd seems to decide - conveniently enough - that a recording is worth listening to only if it's free (the whole "I-wouldn't-buy-the-album-anyways" argument).

    I am intentionally playing devil's advocate here. Please offer me reassurance that the honor system can work in cyberspace, as it does at (for instance) traffic lights...

  21. Does this mean they can... by retardedtimmah · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Can they inhibit people from using these phones for pr0n0graphic uses now? I wish. I think that 3G phones will do very little except make the pr0n co's even more money and make sick stuff more prevalent in our society/generation :( makes me sad. PZ

    --
    Drugs have taught an entire generation of American children the metric system.
  22. Fwd:Fwd:Fwd:Fwd: by freeweed · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Interestingly enough, until this year I never found the need to use spam filtering. The couple every week or 2 wasn't a big deal.

    However, I at one point was getting several dozen a day of the usual chain letter/joke/picture Fwd:Fwd:Fwd (ad naseum). Putting a filter to delete anything with more than one Fwd: in it cut my junkmail down to virtually nothing. I used to complain that users were worse than spammers - some 'friends' were in the habit of sending me a dozen of these 'gems' at a time.

    Of course, in the past 12 months this has all changed. I'm now the lucky recipient of at least a dozen spam a day, and it's getting worse every week. 40% my ass, more like 80% in my case.

    --
    Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
  23. Ok, lets take one instance by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I could see why they might want something like this for lets say......images. Whats to stop someone from using someone elses phone (or if they're like Ice T they have 3, and yes i did see him have 3 phones open on a table in a restraunt in front of him), taking a picture of your screen with the image, and then sending that, with no DRM. Now, granted with that kinda reproduction, you'd most likely have some pretty big image degradation issues, but the principle is sound. Its the same idea as recording a DRM'd mp3 from an analog signal.

    --
    Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
  24. Re:imagine by ZeeTeeKiwi · · Score: 3, Interesting
    And when that restriction annoyed me I just hit 'Print Screen' and pasted it into a new message. There is NO point in this type of restriction.

    I can forsee the day when we will all be running a monitoring program which detects when a time/forwarding/other stupidly restricted deocument is being displayed and automatically snaps the image to a proof database.

    Even if palladium etc stops such an app running on the pc, a digital cam (or better, analog!) will still suffice.

  25. Mickey Mouse can't.. by AceM2 · · Score: 2, Funny

    but what about Gadget from Rescue Rangers? Come on.. You know you had a crush on her when you were a kid..

  26. They're not getting rid of e-mail forwarding by Ilan+Volow · · Score: 2, Funny

    They are actually adding a feature called "e-mail backwarding". It's like e-mail forwarding, only the complete opposite. Instead of being limited to sending the message to anyone, you now have the full ability to send the message to no one.

    Once you learn the quirky syntax of ODRL this will all make sense.

    --
    Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
  27. Re:I won't buy a DRM enabled phone. by joaer · · Score: 2, Interesting
    This is just crazy. I'll never buy, or use a DRM enabled phone. This is part of reason I won't get a Verizon phone, they won't allow you to download any applications to the phone unless its through them, and you pay a subscription for it.


    Unfortunately, in that case I believe you won't be able to buy or use a phone at all, at least not a 3G phone. Currently working for a major mobile phone vendor, I can assure you that DRM is a cruical part of the platform.

    When it comes to downloading applications, there is more to it than just DRM. Restrictions is set up to not allowing users to include them, foremost for safety reasons (at least from the vendor's point of view, operators might probably include some business aspects there as well). Imagine a trojan running wild calling expensive toll numbers without your knowledge. We are not just talking major embarrassment here, we are talking major phone bills, and potential network crash. Therefore, only apps checked and approved by the operator are allowed to be downloaded. One exception is java apps, since the virtual machine can be set up to restrict hazardous safety behavior.
  28. ODRL - Rights expression language by cesther · · Score: 4, Interesting
    ODRL is a XML based rights expression language. So it will allow you to express a license of rights that could be considered Orwellian.

    It could also be used in many positive and creative ways (an exercise left for the reader).

    But it is not an access control technology (DRM) in of itself.

    There is another XML based rights expression language being pushed by DRM vendor ContentGuard called XrML - which they own but 'freely' licence.

    The real question is: Can a rights expression language express unregulated uses?
    What should the defacto position on which an instance of expressed rights (in ORML or XrML) be?
    Can a rights expression language express that the content is no longer covered by copyright in the EU?

    Larry Lessig's Free Culture discusses the unregulated side of this issue.