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SVP : More Video Anti-Copying Technology
rkroetch writes "NDS, STMicroelectronics and Thomson have announced they will develop a new anti-piracy technology called SVP (Secure Video Processor). This will require a special SVP processor in the box to play the encrypted video signal. All those licensing fees for our DVD-ROMs for nothing?"
Why they always have to call it piracy. Why not something like, "Copyright Control Device/Software".
Oh well, I suppose I do understand why. I just don't like it.
...but people don't believe me when I say that we currently have the technology to create a total lockdown of digital content.
Sure, the analog hole is still there, but we don't want to be limited by that, do we?
Stop the world; I need to get off.
so, how long till a SVP VM is written that will make the actual chip obsolete ;)
"It's better to be a pirate then join the Navy"
From the article...
NDS, 78 percent owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, has developed the anti-piracy software component for SVP. Beginning next year, Thomson will embed SVP-enabled chips developed by STMicro into its video playback devices and set-top boxes.
American satellite TV operator DIRECTV, a News Corp affiliate, is the first to use the new technology, the companies said.
Now, let's think about this for a second. Even though DirecTV has about millions units in circulation now, the actual decryption part of the operation is done in the form of a single smart card that is very easy to swap out. Therefore, DirecTV doesn't have to make everybody get new boxes to apply this tech, they just have to send out new cards.
I am curious as to how they will manage encryption with this, and if it will be yet another encryption through obfuscation.
It seems the smartest approach is to publish and patent the encryption scheme, but make it so time consuming, that you will need hardware to do the decryption properly. That way any one who tries to get around the protection scheme and not pay royalties will be easily sueable.
The upside for non-mainstream OS users, is that it will most likely mean non-OS dependent solutions (maybe).
Of course programmable logic chips could potentially be a threat, but not a major one, as most people don't have that type of hardware.
That's because people who are technologically adept and who have sufficient resources are quite rare. Only someone who can hack the hardware would be able to grab the original digital content from a properly-designed black box.
I suspect that hardware like this will, in time (if not immediately), be used to enforce pay-per-view or something like that for permanent media. From the info page:
Yep, sounds like pay-per-view to me.
It really is only a matter of time before everything that's available falls under the control of something like this...
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
The new technology is fine with me. As long as its presence is clearly marked on the DVD box, so that I don't accidentally purchase such a protected DVD.
Okay, how about: "I don't buy from people who try to squeeze out every last bit of producer surplus, forgetting that customer goodwill generates repeat sales and word-of-mouth advertising"?
i won't buy anything like that. i doubt you will see anything new with drm for tv outside of the next 10 years. nothing is going to replace the dvd players. it would take some device that can play with even better resolution like the dvd did with repsect to vhs. the only reason people purchased dvd players is because they are very cheap, and the resolution is considerably better than vhs. for a new device to take off, they will have to make it cheap and so much better. i doubt that anything which is superior to dvd will come out at a cheap enough price that people will buy it in large enough quantities to make a differance. plus, if there is any company that could dominate such a protocol, it would be microsoft. unless they get involved, any other company will not be able to get widespread enough approval from the industry.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Not if you use a sane encryption scheme. With your logic, all our encrypted data will be hackable in a couple years, and thus not very useful. The biggest difficulty is getting cheap hardware that can do the decrypt quickly.
Back in the 80's, a lot of people were hyping copy-protection schemes for software. It was basically snake-oil; none of it did any good, and any software which used it soon died because copy-protection doesn't help the consumer.
Now, here in the 00's, we have the reincarnated version of this. The ONLY people who care about it are the Media conglomerates. Again, not the consumers.
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
So, my big question is this. Does anybody have any actual numbers on how much money has been dumped into these snake-oil schemes?
A fool and his money are indeed soon parted. It really beats me why spends their time developing this stuff, let alone funding it. Clearly it is self-delusion.
Well, so now we have to pay for a new "license" to possess a device that can playback other "licensed" media we bought from the store. For all the licensing, we still need to pay for the license in this damned player to play something we rightfully own.
Is it just me? Or is everyone starting to get sick from the word "license"?
So what are we getting here, is a "license" something that I can eat? Or is it something I can use to wipe my ass like toilet paper? Or can a "license" protect me from the elements?
None! It is really just a pay-and-pay world nowadays. We have to bear all these extra costs just to be able to spend money and view their products?
I'd say all consumers should unite and show them what consumerism is all about by giving them such a big backlash they will never get to forget it.
Screw it, it is not like the stuff they make are so worth it anyway. I can't stand the (RIA|MPA|BS)A making such a big fuss over their pathetic ingenuity and creativity.
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
If I contracted with an architect for an original design, and the rights to the design, then, damn right I would be demanding royalties on production and sale of a copy. If I were really pissed off I might sue for demolition.
Hint..
Used Scanning Electron Microscope on ebay - $4,000
Googling for the works of Markus Kuhn - free
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/sc99-tamper.pdf
Watching free TV just for the challange - Priceless
You're focusing on points in his post that are rather minor. The main thrust of what he said is rather insightful (and I would mod it as such, if I had modpoints) -- simply, that in today's "Information Age", corporations can't fuck the consumer and assume that there's nothing he's going to be able to do about it, simply because he (in all likelyhood) isn't technologically adept enough to fix it.
For example, in the old days, copying from one tape to another was restricted and there were silly copy protection schemes for VHS, which were trivial to circumvent if you knew what you were doing. In this case, the "good enough" mantra was key: the corps knew that only 1% of the population "knew what they were doing", but 99% of their consumer base would be powerless to circumvent the system.
But in today's world, the technically adept %1 can distribute their rips, information on how to rip, etc, etc, to the average consumer.
Stuff like the broadcast flag, DRM, etc, these things annoy the hell out of even the non-technically adept. Whereas before they would grin and bear it, now they look up how to get around it on the web (where people like us post easy, step by step instructions), or they go to Kazaa or Grokster or whatever, and download a copy the technically adept have conveniently made for them.
The world isn't the same as it used to be. Security through obscurity is not even remotely "good enough", even in the short term, anymore. Because we live in a world of distributed information. And the average joe who may not have the skills to hack hardware will obtain what he wants from those that can. For free.
This Verilog module (may or may not compile, I didn't try) produces the serialized key, bit by bit. The trickiest part is where the 'state' register is initialized. This can be done in many different ways, and the synthesis tool can do many optimizations; you don't even know -where- the bits of the register will be physically present on the chip (unless you have the complete design in your hands and run Chip Viewer.)
This all means that it is -very- difficult to reverse engineer the design, especially if you don't just want to copy it "as is" but want to understand how it works.
If anything, you'd be better off making a machine (seriously parallel processing!) where a you throw very many keys at a large number of SVPs under test. You can do that much easier than the microscope and the rest. If the chip is fast enough, and if you have several hundred chips, then you can even hope to crack the key before you expire yourself :-)
they stole television from Farnsworth,patented technology that they took from the color consortium,sold their consumer division to thomsen in the 90's and moved the jobs from Indianapolis to Mexico and other offshore places,
Now they are back in the "video" business making encryption chips.
What's New?
... All those previews at the beginning of the DVD that you cannot skip past: "This Operation is Prohibited By The Disc."
After all, the player is the hardware and the disc is the software.
They are merely increasing their commercial intrusions; there are more "previews" on recent releases than I used to see.
It's gotten so I am afraid to invest any more than $9.95 in a DVD, because higher priced DVD's usually are more recent titles, hence have a greater chance of showing advertisements for other current releases.
Norm
The issue of copying music isn't IF you can copy it, it's HOW WELL you can do it. No matter what you do to protect your media content, it has to be playable on your standard TV, stereo, or whatnot. I mean, I can easily copy any movie you give me with a camcorder, right? :)
;)
The industry would be better off figuring out how they should be selling their products instead of how to gouge the general public. Ventures like this have always proven to end in failure, and always make things more inconvenient for the people who actually pay for it (usually the less technically-savy too)!
Isn't it funny how you can copy an Aerosmith CD and steal from Sony Music, with your Sony CD burner and CD-R and support Sony Electronics? Who really loses?
The loosers will be commercial free to air players. A short term boost in cable offerings will devalue existing free to air licences. Murdoch can buy the others out, once the legislation goes through after the election to abolish media holding restrictions.
The obvious intention is to marry the scrambler to PVR players, then get the law changed to say if you have a PVR, it must carry the chip. After the market rejected region protected players, it is extreme optimism that they should want any other crippled junk.
What these buffoons miss, is that the outputs are NOT end-to-end, and technology , even programmable ASIC's, don't cut the mustard, and get cracked over time.
The proliferation of WiFi, means rolling codes are widely broadcast, and a wireless USB dongle is only a few bucks.
Ok, let them spend a shitload pushing out new cards. Shave the chip, a touch of lithium nicobate, and a few probes on the bus and its all over.
Nothing is foolproof, there are no guarantees, plus if you make cable scrambling harder, there will be more DVD swapping between friends. Every DVD PVR recoding watched is 3 hours of unwatched commercials.
Coming soon: Commercial skipping is a crime.
Attacking 'fair use' on the other hand is, if anything, going to lower the demand curve- we are talking about reducing the marginal utility of the widgets here.
Yep. And I'd just like to add that any attempt to offer a crippled product almost always drops this particular consumer's demand curve to zero.
I vote with my dollars. I simply refuse to buy DRM crippled crap.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
You want your precious "intellectual property" to remain unique and artificially scarce? Then keep it a secret! Information, once unleashed, naturally spreads from mind to mind like a virus; the vast majority of people are OK with this natural state of ideas because at a gut level it just FEELS RIGHT and it promotes progress.
You want to get paid for the fruits of your labor in the face of the new reality of millions of 'dirty, envious, spoiled pirates'? Then get paid UPFRONT for the scarce (and often not-so-scarce) act of original creation, just as a plumber gets paid for a job well-done, rather than getting royalty payments for an artful and propietary pipe fitting his grandfather did in 1930 that no other plumber could dare build on...
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Power to the Peaceful