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DVDs w/ Built in USB Ports for Copy Protection
An anonymous reader writes "Aladdin has come up with a new way of restricting the data stored on optical discs. It's 'XCD' format has a chip built directly into the disc and which fits into a USB port. So, a user needs to plug the disc into their computer to access a cryptophic key before being able to use the data stored on the disc (presumably in some sort of proprietary player)."
With USB memory keys now containing more data than a cd or dvd, why not just sell the program on the key itself and stop messing about with systems that might break peoples hardware?
The software could run, detect its host key is plugged in (hell, they could make a custom key with an encrypted read only block if they like your software can try to write to that area, and if it managed it it knows its fake...).
The data can be protected by cryptographic magic and the shareholders are happy.
Whilst this won't stop all forms of hacking, it will certainly stop the normal folks from having a go and ensures that the hardware isn't broken by putting unbalanced pointy edged crap into the dvd drive.
I'm not even considering how you would get this "key" into a computer with cramped usb slots.
The only thing a key that looks like the one described should ever be needed is for a petrol station toilet key.
liqbase
Obviously you've never worked in government procurement. [ducks] Seriously the product is bought usually isn't the best. It's the cheapest or the product whose company has the most influence.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
My company invested in the Aladdin dongle technology for one of our main software suites. It created a major support nightmare when the dongle failed, didn't release the proper license, didn't read the dongle during application launch, etc etc etc.
It lasted about a year, when our marketshare shrank to the point of near death did they finally realize that people liked the software, but couldn't overcome the licensing problems that came with it. In my opinion, we haven't recovered from it since...
Wouldn't be much easier to put the data in a RFID chip? That could be easily integrated in a reader, and from the point of view of the user the only difference would be that the "new-improved" DVD would simply only play in the "new-improved" DVD-Player. Enough of a hassel, certainly, but if they started selling all new DVD players with that RFID-reading technology some years _before_ they brought one DVD film with the protection, then they would certainly have a chance. Spceially if they do that with Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players. As the format is just-born, the people will just identify High-Definition-DVD with Copy-Protected-DVD.
Of course all that is moot, because you only need one person with a compliant DVD reader to extract the film data and compress it into a 4 Gb MPEG-4 film that will fit in a standard DVD, and then share it away.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Okay, judging from that crude diagram, they've left, at best, 33% of the radius of the disc's usable media surface intact (the dotted line, I presume). Let's do a little geometry, accounting for the unusable portion in the center of the disc at around .4r, and the usable portion extending to, let's say, .6r.
.16(PI * r^2)
.84(PI * r^2)
.36(PI * r^2) - .16(PI * r^2)
.20(PI * r^2)
.20/.84, i.e. about 24% the storage space of a normal DVD. Maybe a gig at best?
A normal disc:
PI * r^2 - PI * (.4r)^2
PI * r^2 -
The new magical disc:
PI * (.6r^2) - PI * (.4r^2)
So in other words, if my math is correct (and it's entirely possible that it's not), you'd be looking at
And I'm sure these guys will go so much trouble to balance these things properly! Even a well balanced commercial disc in a very high speed DVD drive creates an unnerving amount of noise and vibration. I shudder to think of what would happen with the center of mass potentially thrown way off center from the cuts and the electronics, and the tremendous amount of air turbulence you'd end up with from the shape of that thing. You'd be lucky if it didn't destroy itself and/or the drive within seconds if the motor tried to crank it up to full speed.
In short, there's no way in hell this will ever make it to market, for these reasons, and reasons others have already stated.
Yeah, but the "holy grail" of copy protection schemes is never going to be invented, because it's mathematically impossible. Not just supremely difficult (like factoring a multi-digit number) but actually impossible (like creating energy out of nowhere). If it can be rendered perceptible, it can be copied. Whatever tests it uses to check that it is being viewed legitimately, can be subverted. Even if the player contacts an outside agent for authorisation, the outside agent can be spoofed. Whatever process is employed to trick the copy-protection mechanism, it only needs to be done once. After that, an unlimited number of unprotected copies can be made.
The only thing that might work as an unbreakable copy-protection scheme is to have the decryption performed within the brain of the viewer, so there is never an unencrypted version of anything anywhere. And I can think of only one way to do this: you would have to give the user mind-enhancing drugs and "train" them, with a short film, to perform the decryption. The movie itself would be displayed encrypted, and only viewable by someone trained to decrypt it -- which ability they would naturally lose as the effects of the drug wore off. For future watchings, or party viewings, more pills would be required. (This would suit the studios, as every instance of viewing must be paid for -- someone who watches a movie at a friend's house represents a lost opportunity to sell a movie. This creates a new business model: give away "unwatchable" movies for free and charge for the pills that make them watchable.) If you combined the psychotropic with another substance which reacts with growth hormone to produce nausea or other undesirable effects, you might be able to get enforced age-restriction into the bargain.
One question nobody is answering: How much of the retail price of media is accounted for by copy-protection?
And another: What if original media were sold cheaply enough that it would not be economically viable to make pirate copies?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Picture if you will a 3.5" floppy disk with a small padlock through the write protection hole, with a label on the disk reading "My Diary".
But otherwise, yeah, a special clamp that interfaces with contacts for circuitry at the hub of the disk and ends in a USB plug would be better than this unbalanced monstrosity, and you don't lose disk capacity. After the initial introduction of disks with the device included, you then sell them without the device and offer it separately as a replacement part and for new adopters.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I use Steinberg products at work (Cubase, Wavelab), and they use a USB dongle too. The nice thing about it, is that I can install the program(s) on as many computers as I like, and as long as I have the dongle, I can use it on any computer I like - my home computer, my laptop, my work computer, our audio lab computer - it just means they can't be running at the same TIME. So in a way, I actually like the dongle feature. Beats the hell out of buying 4 copies even though I'm the ONLY one ever using it.