Sun Spearheads Open DRM

Steve from Hexus writes "If DRM is the future of controlling our media files, then perhaps the open source community can at the very least ensure that the dominant delivery system is an open standard. Hexus.net reports that Sun is spearheading a new open DRM project, which their lab workers and the open source community can contribute to. More information on project DReaM can be found at the Open Media Commons website." Tough call - DRM is coming (Or is already here), one way or another, and is better to work on creating something done right, or to object to it on moral grounds?

Comments

Will F/OSS support make it work?

[jgaynor]

"is better to work on creating something done right, or to object to it on moral grounds?"

Open-source developer support or not, I don't think it matters.

It will be better if we do it...

[ianturton]

In general I'm against DRM, but I know that many busineses depend on them and are not going to change thier ways any time soon.

Currently the geographic community is working with in the OGC to develop DRM for geographic products. The plan is to get in early and define a standard to prevent cosy vendor mapping agency tie-ins.

So if we all get behind an open source open standard method of DRM then may be we can avoid the problems which are dogging DRM in the music industry.

Ian

DRM is faulty by it's nature

[tofus]

[..]is better to work on creating something done right?

You cannot create a 'right' implementation of DRM; cryptography-theorie predicts that every method of DRM can eventually be circumvented without too much effort.

It has to do with Alice, Bob and Carol; Normally Alice is the tranmitter, Bob the recipient and Carol the malicious hacker. With DRM, Bob and Carol are one and the same person.

Re:Does it work?

[Wesley Felter]

Trusted computing allows enforceable open-source DRM (in theory).

Re:"Open DRM"?

[Anonymous Coward]

What arse-hats modded you insightful? You're talking about completely different things. Yes, DRM is definitely about restricting access. Yes, this is most likely a bad thing.

However, this does not say anything or reflect in any way on the source. It's an open source method to prevent access to binary data. Everyone is able to do it in a free manner. Granted it doesnt come close to the true ideals of open source, but in a technical way it's well and truly there.

There are an arseload of benefits to open source DRM though,

• If you're a content provider then you'd be happy that it actually works (as far as these things can>
• If you're not a Windows or MacOS user you now have cross platform DRM
• You know what's being sent where, hence you dont need to trust that MS Media Player ensures your privacy
• Not locked to some paranoid corporation's proprietary data formats

That said, I'm pretty sure I dont like the idea for reasons I cant quite articulate...

Re:Shouldn't corporations be required to use DRM?

[ndtechnologies]

That should be more of a job for an encryption than DRM, although I can see the point you are making.

Re: Possibilities of Open DRM

[dnoyeb]

At the end of it all someone/something has to hold the root certificate/key. The current direction is for that to be the BIOS.

Kind of like a built in 'dongle.' Its an impossible task. In all likelyhood they will just end up passing laws and trying to put people into Jail because you can not give somebody an encryption system that will be encryptin and decrypting things, and expect that they can't decipher it.

Re:"Open DRM"?

[TheUser0x58]

Of course Open Source can make this work. Consider key-based encryption techniques. (RSA, AES, DSA, etc.) The whole point of key-based cryptography is that you can make the algorithms well-known and well-documented ("open" in a limited sense), but safely encrypt your information by using keys that are difficult for attackers to acquire. DRM can work in more or less the exact same way. remember the mantra obscurity!=security.

now, whether or not DRM in general can "work"... thats a completely different story. I would argue that client-side authentication techniques (like DRM) will always have holes in it, and you could even do stuff like dump the buffer in your sound card or record from the line out, or even the speaker wires, or the speakers themselves...