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Flash Memory with Copy Protection
Castar writes "Mercury News is reporting that SanDisk has created a new type of flash memory with copy-protection logic built in. From the article: "Today, much of a consumer's digital content is held hostage on a particular kind of device, such as an iPod or a PC, because that is the only way to prevent massive piracy. But with the SanDisk flash memory card, a consumer can move the digital content to another device. If the music company insists the data can only be copied five times, the memory card itself enforces that policy in the new device, be it a cell phone or music player." Rejoice that your data can be "liberated" from the confines of your PC or iPod!"
I was getting sick of all that freedom, good thing sandisk's taking care of that, so i don't have to
Today it's held hostage to your PC or iPod! Tommorrow, it's held hostage to your USB drive!
So, the only difference between this new flash and ordinary flash is that this one can do LESS ?
Step 1) Copy once
Step 2) Remove protection from your new copy
Step 3) No more DRM.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
What does `copied' mean? From the perspective of a storage device, the data being read and put on a CD, which is then duplicated a million times, is exactly the same as the data being read, decoded, passed through a DAC and fed into someone's ears. It seems that these constraints are either unenforceable or just plain silly.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
To quote Edward E. 'Doc' Smith:
Anything physical science can research and synthesize, physical science can analyze and duplicate
What they apparently don't get is that anything can be cracked, given enough time to research the protection scheme.
If I hadn't been modded down, you'd be reading this right now.
I feel so much more free now that I no longer can copy my own files. Thank you!
The industry seems bound and determined to put copy protection on everything, whether it be ringtones or MP3s. Flash memory makers are doing their best to help them, and OS makers are doing their best to take advantage of those features.
We speak of Freedom as if Linux could provide it, but the question is gradually becoming whether it is better to be the canary in a gilded cage or the crow eating garbage in the snow. Having an isolated "free" system that can't interact with other "non-free" systems is not really how we expected things to turn out, I bet.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Yes, although I thought SD memory had this kind of "feature" too, as did some of the enhanced memory sticks from sony.
But remember we consumers have been crying out for a way to move our music around freely and securely. Oh, wait a minute, I have that, its called scp.
This whole "Copy protection management" thing is getting ridiculous. What I want to know is how they can check for DRMed content without some kind of massive database.
..... oh wait :)
Speaking of which, what on earth is next? Will we be having DRM scanners next to virus scanners and spamassassin? Will W32.Boyband_somecrap be part of a new wave of definition file? Will we need to upgrade our servers to deal with the extra load on DRM scanning?
Oh who cares anyway? As long as it all makes money for somebody....
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Well, I imagine they'll be an licensed encryption key required. That'll be cracked in about ten minutes (probably by DVD Jon), but using hardware implementing his crack in the US will magically turn you into a felon.
Hooray for the DMCA.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Er, so if I copy a file from the memory card onto, say, an iPod, the memory card alters the way the iPod works? Huh? This makes no sense whatsoever.
One of these days, I wish there'd be an article about copy protection that protected the ability to copy.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Cheap and secure DRM -- looks like San Disk has done it.
There needs to be integration with the processor (e.g. processor starts up, decrypts and runs a boot program using a special key) -- but that's already been done. Secure storage makes those two things work better. Note: if your processor is old school and non-DRM, you just snoop the bus and get the secrets.
Looks like a real home run: this is the "right place" (from an economic standpoint) to put the DRM. It will be cheap and secure.
However, it then becomes a juicy target for attack: if they are selling these chips by the millions, and they are protecting IP worth billions, then it is time to break out the acid and electron microscopes, and figure out how to deactivate it. And then it is busted.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet.
The sooner people accept this, and build business models that take
this into account, the sooner people will start making money again.
- Bruce Schneier
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
That's the New Freedom(c). Get used to it. Flash drives that can't copy, cameras everywhere (London), not owning your own house (eminent domain), being held without charges indefinetely (patriot act). It's all part of the New Freedom (c). See everything is turned upside down. It's easy.
You can't have full copy protection until you get rid of the analog version. I wonder how long it will it be before the *AAs start burning books?
Some thoughts I am still mulling over:
a) Any device encumbered by DRM will fail if there are alternatives available on the market. If there are no alternatives the product might enjoy a limited success until the product becomes so successful that alternatives/clones/ripoffs become inevitable.
b) All forms of drm can be corrupted/broken/negated, and most will be broken within a matter of days or even hours.
c) Most new technology will be used in ways the inventors never imagined. Trying to restrict this behavior with DRM will surely kill your product.
This 'Gruvi' (what a horrible horrible name) probably falls under cat. A, and will disappear soon.
-- No Sig is a Good Sig
And the encryption stuff won't be available for linux.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
This press release is filled with double-talk and flat-out Orwellian nonsense. Like: Preventing people from backing up their data 'gives them more options'.
We get a bad feeling about all this because so much money and resources is going into developing a technology that no one who is actually buying the technology actually wants. The chip designer firm is working with the chip manufacturer who is negotiating with the global entertainment corporation who is linking with the agent who interfaces with the artist who toots up with the liaison of the technology company.
So who's missing here? How about the people who are actually putting out the money to actually pay for this stuff. One person buys an entertainment product and a little while later discovers that they can't do the simple and obvious things that they had come to expect that they could do with it; like backing it up or moving it to another medium like the car stereo. Suddenly the perceived value of this entertainment item drops to half or less of its previous value. So the consumer is only willing to pay $8 for the same CD that they were willing to previously buy at $16 when the CD or CD player has copy prevention technology built into it.
Now the entertainment corporation is raising the price to pay for the development of this new technology and also raising the price because the competition (from easy copies) is now restrained. So the perceived value (and price) is going down at the same time that the price for the entertainment product is shooting up. How exactly is this supposed to be good for the entertainment company or the artist? It must be that they fundamentally assume that because they are so cool and beautiful that the vast dork masses will buy the product regardless of how much it costs or difficult it is to use. This is what happens when entertainment people start talking business with computer people. The greed goes recursive and you end up with the worst mentalities of both industries in one package.
In the long run (10 years plus) this mentality will only act to reduce the importance and viability of the entertainment corporations. The board of directors will look to spin off the entertainment divisions in the way that everyone is now trying to dump their record companies. Maybe DRM is nothing more than a long term plan on the part of the technology companies to seriously depress the value of the entertainment companies so that ten years from now (when all the ultra-fast download-entertainment-directly-to-the-home technology is in place) they will be able to buy the entertainment companies for a tiny fraction of what they are worth now. Or maybe it's just the fantasy of immature greedheaded yuppies with too much access to other people's money.