European DRM News

burgburgburg writes "Two new fronts opening in the battles over digital rights management. First: news.com is reporting how French authorities are investigating EMI France and music retailer Fnac over anticopying technology included on CDs that allegedly renders them unplayable on some systems. The investigation began after the Bureau of Competition's antifraud unit (DDCCRF) received complaints from a consumer group known as UFC-Que Choisir. Second: BusinessWeek reports that the EC is investigating Microsoft to make sure that they don't illegally dominate the field of digital rights management. Regulators have told Microsoft and its partner Time Warner that they are looking into their plan to acquire the company ContentGuard, which makes DRM software because of concerns that it will create or strengthen Microsoft dominance of the field."

Comments

Kudos to Europe

[ahsile]

For having the balls to stand up to the industry bigwigs.

Re:Kudos to Europe

[gmanic]

And that's what I like about the "old world" and I'm glad to be back here - even if some other things go terribly wrong - still better than fully-openly-industry-funded-government

Although, might not be that much better...

Re:Kudos to Europe

[Ignignot]

If you think that European governments are any less influenced by corporations than the American government you are mistaken. They're just funded by different corporations. Also, Europe's monopoly laws are slightly different, so you will have companies prosecuted in the United States that are doing perfectly legal things in Europe, and vice verca. This doesn't mean that one is less influenced by industries. It just means that they're different environments for companies.

Re:Kudos to Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

but on this side of the ocean (in the USA er UCA) we find a monopoly doing illegel things, we just let them off the hook.

has any corp in europe been found to be a monopoly and then let off the hook?

welcome to the United Corperations of America, did you get the memo, and have you been a productive worker today?

Re:Kudos to Europe

[Blue Stone]

Stand up to industry bigwigs?

In case you've forgotten, we have the EUCD over here just as you have the DMCA overe there - the effective privatisation of copyright law (Corps now write their own rules - trying to circumvent those rules brings in the law).

Our governments are just as 0wnz0red by media corporations as America's, I'm afraid.

Re:Kudos to Europe

[William Baric]

Of course, european governments are incluences by corporations but the difference is most european people think the real ennemy is not their government but big corporations. So when their governments side to much with corporations they tend to vote the other way.

Also, it you take France for example, democracy is not a two-party system. Which means a government is in fact a coalition and that is far more difficult to buy.

Well....

[thewldisntenuff]

Article 2 is interesting....Here's a quote -

"Regulators put Microsoft and partner Time Warner on notice that it intends to investigate their plans to jointly acquire Bethesda (Md.)-based ContentGuard, which makes digital-rights-management (DRM) software to prevent music and movie piracy.

Call me crazy, but wouldn't each content company want their own DRM software? I mean, if you've got one lock, and a whole hell of a lot of people trying to open it, once it is open, you're screwed. Furthermore, content companies wouldn't want to pay a MS tax on each piece of content that is protected with MS-DRM. They'd be better off with their own DRM scheme......A monopoly in the DRM arena seems stupid at best - but am I wrong?

-thewldisntenuff

Re:Well....

[Otter]

They'd be better off with their own DRM scheme......A monopoly in the DRM arena seems stupid at best - but am I wrong?

The whole thing is completely speculative, anyway. There is no significant DRM market, no dominant player and at the moment, Microsoft doesn't even own anything. I'm inclined to agree with you that the content providers would be better off with a standard than with giving Microsoft control over them but, at the moment, this is just EU regulators grandstanding.

Re:Well....

[Gooba42]

Keep in mind that with DMCA-like legislation in place it's illegal to even tamper with the lock, not to mention if you break open the lock *and* steal the goodies inside.

Just fidgeting with the DRM stuff is a crime even if you're just curious and even if you're not successful.

Re:Well....

[SpecBear]

The "one lock" method has been used repeatedly by the content industry. Think Macrovision and CSS. It has the disadvantage you stated (crack one, crack 'em all) but has the advantage of providing consistency and influence over people who make content players.

If there are six big content providers each with their own system, and one of their DRM systems screws up on one the players, the manufacturer of the player will say "The DRM is screwy and we don't support it. Bitch at the content provider." If there are six big providers who all use the same system, and it doesn't work on one player, then the player is broken and it will be "fixed" to work with the DRM.

Remember, DRM isn't about stopping piracy. It's about controlling how the everyday user consumes content and allowing the content providers to build a revenue structure as they see fit without having to worry about users circumventing it through things like (time|space|format) shifting.

Re:Well....

[st1d]

Very true, but there's a gamble there as well. For instance, if MS and T-W were to come up with one system, and other groups came up with their own, there would be the temptation to break the other guy's system, to drive artists to your "better" DRM system (DMCA items aside). Especially if MS has desktop dominance and an interest in promoting one system over another, seeing as they're the only folks that know how their OS interacts with the software.

DRM is actually a beautiful catch-22 for MS. They can cash out any way you build it, because all they need to do is break/leak competing software, and competitors are screwed. (And as history shows, MS has no problem doing this when the situation calls.) So, MS builds a system, IP's it to death, and gets to call the shots on who gets to do what. Even if someone were to do the same for another OS (not that OSS folks are real big on the DRM idea), they're risking MS's ire.

So, in one smooth "righteous" move, MS automatically sweeps up the competition. Thanks to the DMCA and other fine laws, reverse engineering and so on means that no other OS users will be able to listen to music on their PCs. Then, while sales fall, those laws will get tightened even more , until using another OS is all but illegal.

It kind of reminds me of school. Someone would screw things up for everybody else, because the boneheads in charge (in this case, congress), can't see that they need to deal with the real problem (putzes that load 500 CDs onto the internet). Instead, they want to "protect" everybody, so we all have to sit back and allow our computers to be loaded down with stuff to protect us from what we MIGHT be tempted to do.

Meanwhile, the majority of people respond with, "Baaa. I just want to listen to music. Baaa!" People often can't believe that the Inquisition happened without more people standing up against it, yet we're watching it unfold right in front of her eyes. Gotta love how history repeats itself.

Region oding..

[t_allardyce]

When is someone going to investigate region coding? its anti-competative and has absolutely nothing to do with copy protection.

Re:Region oding..

[lfourrier]

http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do? reference=SPEECH/01/275&format=HTML&aged=1&languag e=EN&guiLanguage=en
too lazy to put the correct link...

important facts:
date: 11/06/2001 (not iso, so don't know if june or november)

subject: speech from Mario Monti, European Commissioner for Competition Policy

extract: Another area where the Commission is giving direct follow-up to the concerns of individual consumers is that of Digital Video Disc pricing. We have received a significant number of complaints from private citizens on this matter. In each case, the complaint is virtually the same namely, that DVD prices are significantly higher in the EU than in the USA.

Whilst the prices of many products are higher in the EU than in the US, the major film production companies in agreement with the major equipment manufacturers have introduced a worldwide regional coding system for DVDs. Under this system, a DVD sold in one of the world's six regions cannot be played on a DVD player sold in another region. The thrust of the complaints that we have been receiving is that such a system allows the film production companies to charge higher DVD prices in the EU because EU consumers are artificially prevented from purchasing DVDs from overseas.

As a direct result of these complaints, we have initiated contacts with the major film production companies. We will examine closely what they have to say. Whilst I naturally recognise the legitimate protection which is conferred by intellectual property rights, it is important that, if the complaints are confirmed on the facts, we do not permit a system which provides greater protection than the intellectual property rights themselves, where such a system could be used as a smoke-screen to allow firms to maintain artificially high prices or to deny choice to consumers.

My services have had contacts on this issue with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which has also sought clarifications from the major film production companies. I have noted with great interest the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's conclusion that the regional coding system imposes a 'severe restriction of choice' on consumers. The Commission will need to determine whether there are similarly negative effects in the EU which could fall within the scope of the competition rules.

concrete actions : none to my knowledge as of 3 years later

Re:Region oding..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah man! This region coding thing is ridiculous! Imagine requiring hardware companies to put region coding on PCs so that software written in India doesn't execute here. Because otherwise it would be much cheaper to buy software from India.

Oh...wait a minute!...

Its just a fund rasier

[nurb432]

They will threaten to investigate, and the companies will pony up with protection money.. then all will be back to normal in the pursuit in the reduction of the citizens freedoms..

Its the way of the government...

Re:Its just a fund rasier

[freedom_india]

Nope. Not EU. Theu ACTUALLY investigate and FINE them. The company is prohibited from repeating the same mistake on penalty of criminal action against its management. Take SCO in Germany for example.

DRM

[danknight]

If they ever perfect DRM people will just make an analog copy and take the one time (small) quality hit. I'm not even going to talk about bit-for-bit copys that the real pirates use. It's really just a way to lock in the consumer.

Re:DRM

[ahsile]

I'm not sure it ever will be perfected. As quick as the publishers put copy-protection on, people are breaking through it. And, there are a lot more of us out there trying to break the lock, then are trying to keep it closed.

Re:DRM

[Audacious]

The truth about copy protection is that there IS no copy protection.

The first rule of computer programming states:

1. You must start somewhere.

The first rule of computer hacking is:

1. Since you have to start somewhere, then that "somewhere" is where you start hacking.

To put that in English: In order for your program/music/movie/whatever to be readable you have to provide some mechanism so the information becomes usable by the computer. Whereever that location is - that is where you start from to pick apart what they are doing and how they are doing it. Thus:

A. If you encode the information into a machine's prom you just desolder the prom and dump the code (or use hooks to latch onto each of the pin's legs and watch what it does as it does it).

B. If you release software to be able to read a disk (CD/DVD/Floppy/etc...) then you just get a disassembler to regenerate the original code.

So no matter what you do - so long as you have to let the user have the hardware/software, then you've just made it available to a hacker who will break the code.

SO! Knowing this, what are the companies really doing? If only a tiny fraction of the entire population of the earth (8 Billion people) are working against you why are the rest of us being discriminated against? Wouldn't it be better to just not do any kind of protection at all and put your money towards finding those who are doing this and prosecuting them?

Seems to me that these idiots are doing both. Which is why I have stopped having anything to do with movies and music. Let them keep their movies and music. I'll just read books instead, play the games I've written (or that are given away for free) and have a great time without them! :-)

Re:DRM

[Audacious]

Ok, so let me get this straight:

1. If I ever have a power failure in my house or the battery dies in the computer the encryption key will explode. So I sue Intel over this in a class action suit and they have to fix everyone's cpu chip. Massive recalls, etc.... I can't see Intel doing that.

1a. Besides which - you can buy CPU chips by themselves and they don't have any power being applied to them. You think Intel would develop something that you can only plug in once? Not likely. Man! Would Tom's Hardware have a fit!

2. If I install a watchdog on my computer, install a program which has this technology on it and it shows me how to access the information on the chip my CPU will somehow know and blow itself up. I don't think so. You give too much credit to the PR guys. Either the information can be accessed or it can't. If it can't - then no one else can either. Which makes this technology moot. Use common sense and logic. It is either:

A. You can access this information (albeit in a specific manner).

B. Or you can not access this information.

A program which watches what another program does (Anti-Virus Software anyone?) interrupts whatever the other program is doing to check it. A watchdog program is just doing the same thing. It intercepts whatever the other program is going to do BEFORE it does it, checks it out, and can send that information to a file or the screen. Thus, BEFORE any request goes to the CPU for whatever reason, those commands are intercepted and stored so someone could hack (fairly easily) the command used to access the key information. Once you can do that - the key becomes meaningless because you can then forge the key (captured on output from the CPU by the same program) and make a new disk with this.

Further, what a lot of hackers used to do (and probably still do) is just to find the JSR to the function which does the check and negate it by either putting in their own routine at the end of the program and JSR'ing to it so it can return the key or just NOP'ing it so it is never called. If the function is supposed to return TRUE or FALSE depending upon whether or not the key passed verification, then you just JSR to a function which pushes a TRUE value onto the stack and return.

JSR myFunction
.
.
.
myFunction:
lda a1,1;
push;
return;

What's so hard about that? Then you just load the program in, disassemble it, and do a global replace on that JSR CheckKey function.

After all, why try to disable something when you can just go around it? This is a lot like those dongle things. The people who sold the dongles would also include a set of functions which would check the dongle and the dongle would send back the "special" id. (Sound familiar?) The problem is the same with this Trusted Computing PR BS. Remember that rule #1 says:

"You have to start somewhere."

It is no different with them. Somewhere, somehow, you have to be able to access the key. You find that and the rest is as easy as eating a donut.

Re:DRM

[Alsee]

I was half-asleep when I wrote this, so forgive me if I'm unclear or repeat stuff. I think I botched the order of some things, there are crucial facts/explanations towards the end that justify earlier parts. Mainly that the Trust chip tracks the program's "identity". Bear with me till the end if somethings seem wrong or unsupported.

power failure in my house or the battery dies in the computer the encryption key will explode

I've read detailed specs on the external Trusted Platform Modules, not embedded in the CPU. Blackouts are not a problem because of the built in battery. It only takes a trickle of power to maintain that RAM when there's no external power and nothing is running, so the battery is expected to last a couple of years.

Unfortunately there's *very* little information available of the CPU-embedded Trust chips. Micrographs of the new Intel Prescott CPU show about 20% of the chip used for a second internal Trust CPU, but they are not releasing any data. I guess I assumed they would have the battery deal too, but packaging a battery on a CPU does seem awkward. I can't say for sure how they plan to handle this.

install a program which has this technology on it and it shows me how to access the information on the chip my CPU will somehow know and blow itself up.

Such a program is not possible.
The chip is physically incapable of revealing the master encryption keys no matter what software you run. They are locked inside dedicated circuits with no instrictions or physical wiring to access, read, or directly use the master keys. For the most part the master keys are only used to encrypt/decrypt lower-level encryption keys and a handful of other operations. You send an instruction to the Trust circuitry to encrypt/decrypt something and *it* uses the master keys without revealing them to you or to the rest of the CPU.

As for encrypted music and other files, you can't read them either because you can never get at the lower level keys except with the original program. The Trust circutry watches the identy of the program that is allowed to read those DRM'd music files and it will only properly decrypt the music's encryption key for that *exact* program. If you run a different program or try to alter the approved DRM music player, the Trust circutry will see that is not the same software. The Trust circutry then returns a *different* key, and obviously you can't decrypt the music file with the wrong key.

Either the information can be accessed or it can't.

You cannot access the master key, you can only tell the Trust system to use it in certain restricted ways. The file encryption key can only be accessed *within* the CPU, and only by the approved and unmodified DRM program. The file itself can only be accessed using that key, and therefore only by that approved DRM program.

That program may then re-encrypt the video/sound inside the CPU and send it to the sound card/monitor. The sound card and monitor have their own chips and their own key, so you can't even access the data when it leaves the CPU. Only the sound card and monitor can decrypt it, and those keys never leave the sound card/monitor.

A program which watches what another program does (Anti-Virus Software anyone?) interrupts whatever the other program is doing to check it.

New hardware. When there's an interrupt the new program (the watchdog in this case) gets it's own key. The first program's data and CPU register values are unreadable under the new key. If the watchdog looks at RAM it sees encrypted garbage. If the watchdog looks at the cache, that's encrypted. If the watchdog tries to look at the old register vales, they are either not available or encrypted. And the first program's identity, it's key, is hidden in inaccessible circuitry. There is no instrution for the watchdog to read or copy the first progam's identity value/key. When the interrupt returns the old programs identity is restored. Note that since

Re:If people would just stop stealing...

[Dutchmaan]

...and if corporations would sell things for their real value people wouldn't feel compelled to steal because we would have pretty much everything we could ever want...

I agree with Phillips...

[Glock27]

Any CD that's copy protected shouldn't be called a CD. Simple enough...

Re:I agree with Phillips...

[Anonymous Coward]

The ones that break the redbook standard aren't called CDs (except by retailers). Look on the case, you won't find the Compact Disc logo on it.

If we chose not to buy it....

[Anonymous Luddite]

this wouldn't be around for very long. I doubt that's how it will work out, though. :-(

..."Contraband" by Velvet Revolver, a band newly formed by ex-members of Guns N' Roses and the former frontman of the Stone Temple Pilots, became a best seller in June despite heavy copy protection and a warning on the packaging.

(above excerpt from the USA today article.)

We need balance back in the system

[speedfreak_5]

How about this?

Set the copyright system back to the default 14+14 years. If the record companies decide to use DRM on their stuff, make it illegal for them to apply for the 2nd 14 years. That way people can make backups of their stuff unhindered by sh*tty copy protection, and they get to make a little more money.

-=OR=-

Let them keep their Life+70 terms and DRM. In turn file sharing must be legalized and royalty-free sampling and public performance made legal for everyone who buys a CD.

Oh...then its a good thing

[helmespc]

I ripped a copy to my hard drive before it rendered itself unplayable.

Previous judgement

[dago]

I don't have time to search, but the consumer union UFC/Que Choisir previously won against record companies selling copyprotected CDs...

I guess this is some followup to this judgment

Re:Previous judgement

[Anonymous Coward]

The judgement you are mentionning was about the fact that a "copy-protected" CD did not mention in any way this protection.

The judgement was not at all about the fact that this "protection" took away the possibility for the user to make legitimate copies for his own (family) usage (which, in France, is accepted by the law even if it's not considered a right in the strictest sense).

This investigation is all about fair use, and if it is won by the consumers (through UFC/Que Choisir) this may be a great victory :o)

Experience with Fnac

[spaceyhackerlady]

I recently bought a CD from Fnac - "Face A/Face B" by Axelle Red. It says right on it that it incorporates copy-protection technology, though it also carries the official CD logo.

The results:

Linux: plays.

Windows: loads their CD player without asking, crashes system.

Car CD player: plays.

Portable Discman-style CD player: doesn't play. Each track plays about 9 seconds in then gets stuck in a loop skipping back a couple of seconds.

"My name is L...Laura..."

Sorry. Friday afternoon. A bit punchy.

...laura

Re:Experience with Fnac

[ejaw5]

Windows: loads their CD player without asking, crashes system.

try holding shift before loading CD and hold until CD stops spining in drive.

People will buy anyways

[lothar97]

We've seen over the years that people will pay for any kind of crap, from pet rocks, to "Catwoman" movie, to the next manufactured boy band. If it's the "cool thing," people will jump over cliffs like lemmings to obtain it.

It would need to be a massively coordinated effort to get a huge band's copy protected CD boycotted. You'd need mass targeted media, such as MTV or P. Diddy, to lead the charge. I figured it would be bad for them to lead the fight, and I doubt most people would care.

What are we worried about?

[Fortran IV]

Let Microsoft get the monopoly! If MS is controlling DRM technology, then it's sure to be completely insecure and easily hacked.

Still, I'm glad I've hung onto all my old LP's.

Re:Analog copying

[dgatwood]

Never going to happen, for two reasons:

1. We will never see audiophiles agreeing to replace their multi-thousand dollar speakers.
2. There's no such thing as a digital speaker. They are, by their very nature, an analog device. An analog waveform causes the cone to move. Therefore, at the point where the signal enters the speaker's voice coil, it must, by necessity, be an analog signal. It takes a dollar's worth of hardware to adapt an 8 ohm impedance speaker signal into a line level input.

If you can change the laws of physics to make a digital speaker possible, you -still- haven't solved the problem. Buy a good microphone, put it in front of a good (hypothetical) digital speaker. Record. What? You've made microphones illegal somehow? Well, I guess the recording industry won't be making any more recordings, either....

The only way it would be possible to remove the analog hole would be to remove the human being from the mix---hardwire it into your brain somehow. I know I won't be the first to sign up if they try that.... Maybe it's just me....

(Mutters something about always mounting a scratch monkey.)

Palladium

[Steve Cowan]

I may be missing something here, but is there anything new on the evil Microsoft master plan known as 'Palladium'? Is this ultimately what's under investigation?

Seems to me that Palladium is the uber-DRM trump card that Microsoft has up its sleeve - just far enough off that it doesn't warrant "investigation" (yet), but still close enough that it makes me worry for the future of personal computing.

Re:If people would just stop stealing...

[Dutchmaan]

Quit rationalizing theft and just accept the fact that in a free-market system the price of something is set by the level of demand for that thing.

I think that was in relation to supply if I'm not mistaken...

What is the fair value when the supply is for all practical purpose instantaneous and infintely repeatable?

Gov't's motivation ... ?

[H_Fisher]

I haven't met anyone who bought a new DRM'd album (read: Velvet Revolver) and then couldn't play it in his/her home or car equipment. I've known several who tried to listen on the computer; as most of them have Autoplay turned off on principle they didn't have problems either. My only experience with an allegedly DRM'd album was Steely Dan's Everything Must Go which ripped without a hitch and made me think the whole thing was just hype.

So how big a problem is this at this moment? On most supposedly-DRM'd albums the protection doesn't work most of the time; most of the people who want to play the CD are able to do so. Not to be a tinfoil-hat theorist, but why should the government step in now unless it's to set a precedent of some sort? i.e. "Software DRM is obviously not working, so we need hardwired anti-copying chips mandatory in all systems by 2010..."

Re:If people would just stop stealing...

[Wile_E_Peyote]

I think that was in relation to supply if I'm not mistaken... What is the fair value when the supply is for all practical purpose instantaneous and infintely repeatable?

Only problem with that is...people still need to get paid. What you pay for a CD or Movie, doesn't just go to the artists. There are millions of workers living off of the money. Studio techs, salesmen, marketers(shudder), attorneys, IT workers, secretaries/clerks, warehouse workers, PHBs, etc... etc... etc...

If a company decides to sell something for a low price or starts losing tons of money to piracy, that lost revenue needs to be made up somewhere. It's not going to be the president of the company or the artist taking the paycut or losing their job. It's going to be Joe and his buddies, who drive forklifts and barely make enough to stay above the poverty line.

W.E.P.

Only in the EU!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, oh please, I wish a US legislator would say this someday:

we do not permit a system which provides greater protection than the intellectual property rights themselves

followed by, "... and we've given you enough protection. In fact, we're thinking of repealing some if you don't go out and do what you said you would!"

Does anyone remember the legislative reason for the DMCA? The reason was to encourage copyright holders to increase the availability of music and video online to accelerate the transition to broadband lines. What happened? The entertainment companies got their law, and then started hunting down copyright infringers on websites, while meanwhile Napster arose, and then decentralized P2P, and then, yes, broadband adoption did begin to accelerate - the predicted effects did occur, but not because the media companies advantaged themselves of the protection the new law offered, but conversely, because citizens saw fit to break the law to achieve the ends the media companies promised in hearings publically and in closed sessions supposedly that they would implement.

With the same tongue-embedded-firmly-in-cheek tone one asks "How many mice does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" I ask, "How many times can the media industry lie to a Congresscritter before Congress screams, 'NO!'?"

I say to the hell with the lot of them! Nuke 'em all; and let god sort them out.

The reason for DRM in Europe

[El Cabri]

Copy-protected audio CDs are much more present in Europe mostly because it is made of small, insulated markets where people are culturally much less litigious, and where the legal system often does not offer the possibility of class-action lawsuits.

Imagine launching a copy-protected CD on the US market and ending up with a 1 or 2 million people demanding damages.

This just shows how judicially insecure media companies feel on that subject.

Flogging a dead horse

[Audacious]

Ok. I've read your entire post and here is what I have to say in response: I am not sure, if you have never done assembly language programming, system's programming, and worked on trying to implement security measures before that I can explain to you why DRM will never work no matter how hard they try to make it work.

I am not trying to talk down to you. This is not to say I am better than you or greater than you or god-like in my knowledge. Nor am I trying to make you mad/glad/happy/sad or anything else. I'm just trying to say that DRM will never work. Oh - it may work for a while. Maybe a few months - but then there will come workarounds and such at the least. And I've read up on DRM also and find it to be an interesting twist on older technology. But I will stand by my saying it won't keep the hackers out. I do not care how much they tout it to be impregnable, super collossus, made of Kryptonite, or whatever - it won't do it.

Now, by your very post you show that you do not get how a computer basically works. Sort of like how I understand how a car works but if my car breaks down I'd probably have to call a tow truck because I really don't want to actually DO the work (if you know what I mean) and probably do not have the right tools anyway. So I have some knowledge of cars (enough to be dangerous) but not a deep down knowledge of cars like a mechanic has.

Having said that, let me lay out some ground rules to go by and then look back at what you posted. You will (hopefully) see what I mean.

1. All computers run machine language. Zeros and ones.
2. All computers perform basically the same operations.
3. All compilers reduce instructions given to them to machine language eventually (either directly or through a linker or whatever).
4. On machines which have multitasking abilities, the CPU could care less what is going on. It is told to do X, then Y, then Z. It just executes the instructions given to it. (ie: It does not think per se and only does what it is told to do. Hardwired or otherwise.) If two programs are running it is the OS and not the CPU which makes the decisions on who gets to run when.
5. In order for there to be any semblance of normallacy between computers - all programs execute the same code. That is to say that the reason a JPEG image doesn't execute a program is only because as a program it contains meaningless garbage. Real programs, in order for them to run on your computer, must contain similar code which the CPU can recognize and execute.
5a. Thus, and therefore, you are doomed. Because you can not run an encrypted program unless the CPU recognizes this blob of meaningless garbage to actually be executable code. (Which is an oxymoronic statement because if the CPU recognizes encrypted programs as executable then people would only run encrypted programs which would make the encrpytion useless since everyone would know it.) Ever tried running a ZIP file without a ZIP decoder installed and without the auto-execute program as part of the ZIP file? It won't. The CPU goes "I don't know what kind of garbage you are trying to feed me, but I can't run it," and you get an error message from the OS (not the CPU). Thus, and therefore, all programs must follow a given path in order to be recognized as executable.
6. A debugger is a program which monitors all traffic from another program. The CPU could care less what the debugger is doing. The debugger catches all input and output as well as all other executions a program may perform. A watchdog is nothing more than a debugger with a different function. This means that a watchdog can, and will, catch all I/O that a program generates as well as all executions.

Ok - hopefully you have gotten this far. Now we just need to go one step further.

IF - we can run a watchdog program and capture the i/o and commands executed (Which: Why would Intel, the CPU, the OS, or anyone else care if we are running a program which acts like a debugger but really is catching all