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Intel Adds DRM to New Chips
Badluck writes "Microsoft and the entertainment industry's holy grail of controlling copyright through the motherboard has moved a step closer with Intel Corp. now embedding digital rights management within in its latest dual-core processor Pentium D and accompanying 945 chipset.
Officially launched worldwide on the May 26, the new offerings come DRM -enabled and will, at least in theory, allow copyright holders to prevent unauthorized copying and distribution of copyrighted materials from the motherboard rather than through the operating system as is currently the case..." The Inquirer has the story as well.
AMD++
A underperforming overpriced DRM-enabled furnace! I so want one...
Maybe this will be in the next gen consoles as well? It seems about the right time to reveal technology going in them and "forget" to mention this. Could outright kill mod chipping and pirated games.
I like muppets.
What if the systems have to be retrocompatible ? The re must be a flag to detect if the processor is a 945, and if not, software decoding happens. By making the system believe the processor is pre-945, there must be a way to circumvent the protection (does not work of course if a 945 is required, but this will need another three to five years).
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
from TFA: Additionally, AMT also features what Intel calls "IDE redirection" which will allow administrators to remotely enable, disable or format or configure individual drives and reload operating systems and software from remote locations, again independent of operating systems. Both AMT and IDE control are enabled by a new network interface controller.
lots of fun to be had with this I think..
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
How many more times will slashdot get it wrong?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
It's actually quite interesting.
They're not only talking about on-chip DRM, they're also talking about a "feature" called Active Management Technology in their new chipsets.
By the sounds of it, it's a firmware-level mini-OS that allows an administrator (or presumably anyone with the password, or the appropriate exploit) to, and I quote:
"remotely enable, disable or format or configure individual drives and reload operating systems and software from remote locations, again independent of operating systems
Frankly, that worries me quite a bit more than the DRM.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
If they announce that they are, I'm going to buy the fastest non-DRM-infested available chip they have and then I'm done with all this bullshit.
Maybe buy a little cabin and become a fisherman. Fuck the technology industry. The "content moguls" have fucking ruined it for everyone with their whining control-freakery.
I hope they dig their own graves with this one.
Copyrights are much more complex than mere assertion by an object that it cannot be copied. When my Dell CPU says I can't backup an object, or copy it for use in a different location of my own, or for criticism, satire, or other fair use, or streaming (which the Library of Congress Copyright Office says is not a "copy"), how do I protect my rights? Send the Dell back, fight for a refund? Who's going to compensate me for their wrongful infringement of my rights? For my lost time, opportunites, labor, value expected but denied? And what about in countries other than the US, where copyright laws are different, often much more complex, and sometimes nonexistent?
It's a mistake for hardware engineers to generate law-enforcement in mass-consumer products. At most, optional hardware support for user opt-in, to make compliance easy enough that most people agree, should be available. Copyright violation is a problem for the justice system, with its presumptions of innocence until guilt is proven, due process, and human interpreters of whether acts were crimes or not.
This DRM CPU tech should go down in flames, like Intel's mandatory CPU serial#. Intel's got a lot more problems just rolling out CPUs that do what we want, like faster Pentium4s. They shouldn't be wasting developer time, eating die space, and complexifying throughput with half-bright consumer traps like this. Of course, AMD (and others) have the opportunity to speed past Intel, and give customers what we want. Not just spin their wheels trying to woo back Microsoft, as it looks to other CPU platforms. Because we'll all leave Intel hanging when a CPU comes along that serves us better.
--
make install -not war
Well, this strategy may backfire on US companies, when the Chinese, sick of having US DRM imposed on them, form a huge market willing and able to buy DRMless parts. At that point there'll be fabs set up in China or other IP-unfriendly countries churning out unburdened CPUs - and they'll probably be pin-compatible with US company parts. Then they'll get plenty of revenue importing them INTO the US - until the US outlaws 'em, at which point they'll make for lucrative smuggling opportunities.
Okay. So Slashdot's all upset about this.
Slashdot doesn't matter.
The thing we really need to be asking here is, how can the general public be made aware of this? And moreover, be made aware of it in a way that they understand, something like new computers with these specific Intel chips are set up so that software companies, like Microsoft, can take control of your computer and stop you from doing things they don't like."
A bunch of slashdotters doing a boycott won't really have any impact. But a few tens of thousands of average consumers walking into Best Buy with furrowed brows and saying they want to buy some kind of new computer, but they don't want it if they have this new "Intel D-Ram" thing (if this can be made to happen), is eventually going to hit corporate consciousness, maybe make Intel think about the issue, and maybe even convince AMD that this for once is not a buzzword it's best not to bet on.
Unfortunately consumers probably won't realize why DRM support in hardware is a bad thing for them until the DRM hardware becomes commonplace, and viruses and malware start taking advantage of the DRM hardware to do really, really nasty things. And eventually, they will. DRM hardware exists, once you strip away the PR, to give software vendors control of the hardware in place of the actual hardware owner; in the long run this is a proposition which is going to be as attractive to Gator as it will be to Real.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Not at all: you're making some assumptions that ignore the reality of this situation.
... it's about owning the channels of distribution, in an effort to continue excluding significant competition. Keep in mind that the history of the entertainment industry is one of monopolism, ongoing abuse of the legal system and utter disregard for anyone but themselves. Just ask any of the thousands of musicians still waiting to get paid. Go read the text of the DMCA and the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act. Then tell me that their actions are reasonable and just.
... "buy") written to their own specifications? No, "pirates" aren't the problem. Oligopolistic, criminal cartels and weak-minded Congressman are the problem.
This isn't about the content or the presumed lost sales due to P2P activity
So please, do not excuse the unenlightened, treasonous behavior of the media moguls or confuse them with ordinary business leaders just trying to make a buck: they have caused substantial damage to the legal system of the United States and have injured a lot of people using threats and intimidation. In fact, these "moguls" deserve to go to prison for a very long time. If we were still living in a just society that would have happened decades ago.
But there is another aspect to this that I think bears repeating. Why should a small group of companies and two "industry trade groups" be permitted to rewrite core aspects of United States Copyright Law to the detriment of all citizens? Why should a small group of corporations whose combined income is an insigificant fraction of the GDP of the nation be permitted to buy laws (and that's the correct term
By the logic of your argument, any obsolescent industry that is under fire from new technology and new ways of doing business should be able to go to Congress and purchase a quick fix. The entertainment cartels have always had emotional problems when dealing with new technologies (well, I think the folks that run them just have issues, period) and this is no different. The fact that those very same technologies have invariably made them even more money continually escapes them. They have tried repeatedly to use the power of the Federal Government to suppress innovative new products (cassettes, video tape, CD-R, DAT, you name it they tried to stop it.) Frankly, I'm getting more than a little sick of these whiny control freaks trying to keep the best of consumer technology away from us. Really, in the overall scheme of things, commercial entertainment just isn't all that important. If I had to pick some aspect of American culture that was worth preserving to the detriment of all others that would not be it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.