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Intel Claims No DRM
pallmall1 writes "The Inquirer has an official statement from Intel claiming the Computerworld Today Australia story from May 27th was incorrect, and the Pentium D and the 945 chipsets do not have unannounced DRM technology embedded in them. The statement says Intel products support or will support several copy protection schemes such as Macrovision, DTCP-IP, COPP, HDCP, CGMS-A, and others. The statement concludes: 'While Intel continues to work with the industry to support other content protection technologies, we have not added any unannounced DRM technologies in either the Pentium D processor or the Intel 945 Express Chipset family.' The Intel Chip with DRM story has been previously reported on Slashdot. Update: 06/05 20:12 GMT by Z : Fixed the Macrovision link.
Doesn't having DRM on board just mean that the user can successfully play DRM'ed IP they purchase? Is there anything in this DRM scheme that prevents construction of arbitrary device drivers that divert the un-DRM'ed content on it's way to the speakers/screen?
Also, I think everybody should look at this roadmap. If you look at the chips for the upcoming socket M2, and also the X2 processors that will be shipping in the coming weeks, they are all supposed to have the Presidio "security technology." Isn't that a euphamism for the same thing we're accusing Intel of putting in their chips? I would like it if somebody would get to the bottom of this.
This entire slashdot news post is misleading.
Intel's press release is based on the fact on that Computerworld's article claims that Intel is adding unnounced DRM features to their new line of Pentiums. If anyone actually read the article, it does not say ANYWHERE anything about unannounced DRM features. In fact, I would say that the Computerworld article and the Intel press release are saying basically the same thing, with their respective biases present. Honestly, the only thing newsworthy here is that Intel announced the specific DRM implementations in their chipsets.
Lastly, an opinion... DRM is not something I really would like to see implemented on the CPU-level. I don't think "THE MAN" should be controlling what I can or can't do with media that exists on my computer.
Karma police, arrest this man, he talks in maths....
Actually corporations would be the first to balk. If a virus writer gets his hands on the DRM-layer keys, he could whipe out all the hard drives on all the computers in a corporation, make the hardware prevent installation of any media, and use the corporate computers as a distributed spam bot. Alternately, the same technology that can be used to format hard drives remotely (without the knowledge of sysadmins) can be used to plant copyright infringing files on computers. If those files are kiddie porn, someone is going to be seriously in trouble. If the sysadmin is able to log the time when the porn was added and how it got there, the company may escape procecution, but if now, some's head is going to roll. Of course, it works both ways, if the RIAA accuses you of having copyrighted material, you can always claim that the RIAA put it there after you proved to them that "Madonna - Rain.mpg" was a shot of "La Madonna in Italy taken during the rainy period". The RIAA simply put it there because they didn't want to get counter-sued by you.
This is very dangerous technology. After DeCSS, you'd think that the media corps would have realized that keys can be cracked. After Nimda, you'd think that people would have learned how dangerious unpatchable systems (like the Intel system) would be.
I realize some people on slashdot just hate drm, but there are others who think it is a perfectly valid system, as long as any of my rights are not affected.
Problem is that your rights most likely will be affected. See "The Right to Read" by Richard Stallman.
If hardware DRM implemntation is to be the defacto standard in future hardware, then fuck the industry. I've got a 2.8Ghz P4 HT chip and I'm not about to sell it anytime soon. I've got more CPU cycles then I know what to deal with. (for now I suppose) Once DRM enabled chips hit the market, I can see a future where the resale value of current hardware would be exceptionally high.
Life is not for the lazy.
Mr. Stallman's science fiction short story isn't the only depiction of what could happen in a full "Trusted" Computing paradigm. I linked to it as an accessible description of the consequences of Treacherous Computing. Here are some more factual descriptions: #1 #2 #3. Please read them and compare TCG's platform as described to what could enable the situation depicted in the story.
This is "informative"? Care to cite a source for all this wisdom you're disseminating? I've heard nothing about special chips in any of the numerous Longhorn press releases (which keep getting re-issued as the ship date marches further and further forward). Microsoft's own page on Trustworthy Computing says they have no illusions that achieving "trustworthiness" will be a quick or easy thing, though it does say the initiative includes things as innovative as (whoah) integrating anti-spam and antivirus features into Outlook. Methinks you've got the tinfoil wrapped a little too tightly around your head.
Breakfast served all day!
[Longhorn] will run with a reduced graphics interface and various other portions of the system will not work at all on non-Trusted hardware
Do you have a citation for this?
I can see how some media features might be disabled on non-Trusted systems (this is even true of W2K/XP), but it seems to be a bit of stretch to think MS would gimp the touted graphical features because of unrelated missing hardware.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
I say this. A calm rage fills me.
We need all this DRM stuff put in everything. We need the industries to stop listening to the consumers. We need the world to wake up one morning and suddenly ask,
"What's wrong with my computer?"
I got into this game when I was three years old - 29 as of April - and I've watched it and "played" in it with child-like wonderment up until 1992, then I was even more enthused when I saw my first TV-tuner card at the Brisbane RNA Computer Show.
Since then I haven't really seen any "new" tech, just maturing tech. DRM will be the new tech, and I'm hoping it pushes home computer use back to 1980 levels.
Why?
Because the only way that the industry is going to listen to us, the people buying their products, is when they suddenly find themselves without a revenue stream.
When Little Johnny and Sally Doe can't play their music on their computer... When Grandma Josephine can't watch movies sent to her by her grandchildren... When Joe Sixpack can't rip a music CD and play a copy elsewhere... When opening the Internet is suddenly nothing but Access Denied errors... When the average coder finds he has to pay to distribute his own software... When using a computer is as "arcane" and "difficult" to use as old PDP mainframes... When DRM kills anything on the computer that involves the greater sense of community that the Internet has helped foster... We will leave.
People will only use computers when they have to. The console industry will rise, and the Personal Computer will disappear, replaced by millions of gadgets that either do the job they're required to do, or be discarded by consumers who will perceive them as broken.
We need the DRM to be put into everything it can. We need it be as invasive and putrid as possible. We need hundreds of thousands of salesmen telling customers "No, it's not broken, you just can't do that any more because...". We need millions of personal computer users to get so frustrated that they junk their computers.
We need the IT industry to collapse and nearly disappear thanks to "protecting the consumer". It's the only way they'll wake up and smell what they're shovelling.
I don't want the industry to disappear, but we need it to happen. Those of us who can see what's going on are only a minority. We need the vast majority to once again ignore computers and treat them as a business only, difficult to use device.
There's no piracy excuse for when suddenly no-one is making money selling hardware.
So I say goodbye IT. It was fun while it lasted, starting with playing my first game on that funky little blue paddle box gadget that plugged in to my parents old black and white tv, and perhaps finishing on this Athlon XP with it's LCD display and surround sound...
Goodbye Commodore Vic 20 and 64 fun times, relived on MAME. Goodbye x86 and PowerPC, I never did get around to learning ASM for either of you. Goodbye ease-of-use, user-friendly, plug-and-pray, P2P, HTTP, FTP. Goodbye Mr Computer Salesman, with your mystical devices of sound and vision.
Goodbye.
His name is Robert Paulsen...
I don't understand why someone cannot simply fool DRM-ized software into thinking it's running on a DRM platform through emulation. Meaning why can't someone just implement the Pentium D's DRM chips in software?
I don't understand the answer to this, and perhaps somebody more knowledgable can explain it to me.
Why are the electronics and software people so keen to add DRM? It's an added expense in research and development (especially if they're after secure DRM, which would presumably require much more development). Unlike the television analogy, the general public is the customer in all of these cases - they're paying for the computer, processor, and/or Windows.
Are these companies getting kickbacks or something? It seems to me that the logical thing to do if you were a lobbiest for the electronics industry is to tell the PDTAA (Public Domain Theft Associations of America) to go shove it, and tell the manufacturers you represent to boycott DRM so their customers don't raise a big stink when they realize their new purchase is crippled.
Perhaps because they feel there are too many people out there (insert preferred "misappropriating" reference here) their content?
Shareware authors, who used to release fully functional versions of their applications, no longer do so, even though that change in tactics may have reduced their income (IANASWA). I don't think the shareware authors got together and collectively decided to do that just to make life more difficult for the honest people who actually pay for what they get.
You now have to put money in the box to get a newspaper, whereas before, you could just take one and then deposit your money. That additional machinery contributes to the extra cost of your newspaper. See "I don't think" above.
You, as a law-abiding driver, will occasionally have to experience the unnerving effects of a DUI roadblock. Those roadblocks cost you and me tax dollars. See either "I don't think" above.
Keep swiping newspapers, keep failing to send your shareware payments, and keep driving drunk, and all of us will keep paying the price. That last sentence is not directed at you personally, since I don't know you from Alfred E. Neuman.
Perhaps because they feel there are too many people out there...misappropriating...their content?
That makes perfect sense if you sell CDs and DVDs, but not if you sell computers. Take Dell. They don't create intellectual property, they create tools to use it. Their products are valuable because of their versatility, and voluntarily integrating DRM serves to reduce that versatility.
Shareware authors, who used to release fully functional versions of their applications, no longer do so, even though that change in tactics may have reduced their income (IANASWA).
I would argue that the best software sold under the shareware concept is still uncrippled, except possibly for a nag screen. At the moment, I have no shareware installed except for mIRC and WinRAR. Both are uncrippled except for nag screens, and I've purchased both of them. WinZip is another great example of this.
I would argue that the cream-of-the-crop shareware has morphed not into crippleware or adware, but an evolution of the shareware concept I'm going to call "personalware." Examples of this genre are Ad-Aware, ZoneAlarm, Sygate Personal Firewall, AVG Free, and much more. Each of these programs comes with a license that says "feel free to download and install me, but for personal use only. If you're a business, pony up." You can tell that these programs are polished and that a lot of work went into them. The missing features in these free versions are so minor that most businesses could do without them, if they were so inclined to cheat. The companies behind these products seem to be in good shape, if the fact that their web sites are still up is any indication.
You now have to put money in the box to get a newspaper, whereas before, you could just take one and then deposit your money. That additional machinery contributes to the extra cost of your newspaper.
And yet, these boxes still have a relatively lightweight door that could be forced open without too much trouble, and a design that permits a dishonest person to easily take more than one copy. If we were to "DRM-ize" these boxes, they would be more like a soda machine: you put in your credit card and one copy of a newspaper (printed on special fast-fading paper to ensure you don't share it with somebody else) rolls out.
I'm kind of getting of track, so I'm going to stop here, but I just wanted to point out that in each of these instances, putting further restrictions on the product doesn't translate into more revenues.