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Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
David Gerard writes "Security researcher Peter Gutmann has released A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection, a detailed explanation of just what the protected-content paths in Windows Vista mean to you the consumer: increased hardware cost and even less OS robustness. 'This document analyses the cost involved in Vista's content protection, and the collateral damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry ... The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.'"
Good job describing wild guesses as 'analysis' and getting Slashdot to bite.
Vista has an install base smaller than BeOS at the present time, so your N is likely too small to be meaningful in any way.
Yay for science!
Our company did last year, cities of Vienna and Munich did, French parliament did, it should work out very nicely for you too. Our former XP users love KDE.
No need to put yourself through pains when you can improve security, save money and achieve a good deal of vendor independence all at the same time. Why support the Microsoft monopoly by paying ridiculous prices for bug ridden software with DRM restrictions, when you can run Free software on the industry standard (and thus inexpensive) hardware?
Knowing everything I know now, I only regret that we did not migrate to GNU/Linux sooner.
It really doesn't matter. Before long each new Dell and every other new computer will be shipping with Vista. It could be the worst operating system ever, and within a few years everyone will be using it. There is virtually no way for Vista to fail, given the circumstances.
This so-called analysis was written by thinking of a conclusion first, then filling in the blanks. There are no citing of references to support his claims.
This is just simply a political blurb.
Every time I see an analysis of what DRM means to the consumer, I see all this crap about how it's going to make things more expensive and lower quality. And that's true - SOME things will be more expensive and lower quality.
But these analyses never stop to consider HOW MUCH will be more expensive and lower quality, or exactly what changes we're discussing. What will be lower quality and more expensive is the DRM-protected content. And DRM sucks. People will complain. Vendors will eventually listen.
At the moment, we have a lot of content providers who refuse to provide any content without DRM because they can't imagine making a profit otherwise. DRM gets them to provide something instead of nothing. Historically, unprotected content outperforms protected content; because you spend nothing trying to stop people from stealing it, you recover more revenue than you were losing to theft anyway. If we just let providers choose, they will eventually make the right choice. We can't force them to make the right choice NOW, because they won't make it. They'll provide zero content.
That's the false dilemma. Everyone seems to think the choice is protected content or unprotected content, but it's not - it's protected content or NO content. Fighting the protected content is not going to get you what you want. You have to let the providers make their stupid DRM plans and try them, so they'll see for themselves that it's stupid.
Microsoft cheerleader, blue flag waving, you got a problem with that?
Content Protection is a explicit opt-in from content providers.
Its not mandated by the OS.
Migrating a different OS doen't give you access to the protected content.
One can only pray that a swarm of wombats come together and destroys all the copies of Visa that have been produced.
Very interesting analysis. I thought Vista was supposed to make money. According to this Vista is going to bring 100,000 new jobs to the US.
davecb5620@gmail.com
The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.
If hysterical stuff like this is the best the anti-Microsoft forces can come up with (and this guy isn't the first one, just the latest in a long line of hysterical essays), it's pretty clear that Microsoft ain't that bad as a company, despite what some people want to believe. Maybe, just maybe, if you have to resort to that kind of rhetoric, maybe your position isn't that strong?
Disclaimer: I don't hate Microsoft. I am, however, frequently annoyed by their mediocrity, and unbelievably frustrated that someone doesn't have the balls to start a company dedicated to making an absolutely, positively 100%-compatible Windows clone based on a Unix-like operating system.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
But, but, but... what about the high cost of retraining everyone to use all these new weird applications that don't make as much sense as Windows applications!!!? What about the steep learning curve since Linux is just inherently harder to use!!!? What about the fact that when the user tries to hit some valid work related site that needs to access media like Powerpoint, Flash 9 and higher, Windows Media Video, and the like that they won't be able to or will have a reduced quality end-user experience compared to MS Windows??? I've seen the Xine plug-in for Firefox and it doesn't work right. Instead of embedding the content in the browser as it should it pops open a new window and only about 20% of the time does the content actually play!! What about the fact that unless you've got a few gurus on your staff, when there's a problem there's NO ONE to go to for support once the problem is out of your league? Forums? HAH! Yeah, you've got a down critical situation with your users and you're going to fart away valuable time on forums where you may or may not get an answer in a day? A week? A month? A year? Never? The only answer if to get Windows Vista because it was built for real work and not for geeks with no life. Got that?
[DISCLAIMER: The poster called 'eno2001' does not believe in what he stated above at all and is merely parodying the typical lies and misconceptions about GNU/Linux that come from the anti-Linux crowd. The poster called 'eno2001' expects many good responses to the false arguments presented above from the pro-Linux community. All anti-linux sentiments will be laughed at unless you're really good at what you do. The 'eno2001' has spoken.]
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Because pretty soon, you won't be able to watch any premium content without them.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Since when do "for profit" software companies care about cost to the consumer unless they can use it to sell more copies? Since MS is already going to sell billions of copies of Vista, what difference does it make to them?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
The article makes the claim that there are higher requirements for new media. They then state that if we do not meet these requirements, that we are stuck with low quality content... Why is this a problem? To play blue ray you have to have a blue ray player. To play DRM protected media you have to have authorized drivers. Yes DRM sucks, but who honestly thinks that it is unreasonable to require new hardware and new drivers for new technology. Don't have a HD card? cant play HD movies. Vista isn't the evil (or even bad choice) here. The problem is that the newest (and supposedly best) media is coming with DRM requirements. If Vista doesn't support those requirements, then it cant access the media. Giving it the ability to meet a specification isn't bad... it is good. You may not like the specification, but you have the option to use it or not. If Vista didn't support it, you wouldn't have that option at all. So, again, where is the problem here?
Every touted improvement in Vista exists to make Microsoft's life and the life of their media and hardware partners better and more enriched. It is not, I repeat, not for your benefit or enjoyment. Recently MS stated this would be last 'turn of the crank' for an OS like this. I agree. This is because the only logical step next would be to lease you the OS and the hardware, only, and bar you from doing anything on your own with it. Since that's not bound to fly, yet (let's see how they react to Google) then the alternative is to lock you into their content, at least.
True, but the degradation discussed is a requirement for non-encrypted content streams. My understanding is that if you connect your new Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player via their analog outputs, or to a non-encrypted digital channel, the output is downgraded to a lower resolution (with respect to that of the encrypted digital channel).
Vista: Go where we allow you to go, be all we think you should be...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
You didn't state a single thing you disagree with, not one. Your 'so called' critic didn't give one example of one thing you think is wrong.
Do the drivers require more processing power to drive the encryption? Well, yes they do.
What about drivers revoking some functionality?, well gee they do if it conflicts with one any right holders requirements.
Increased hardware costs? Lots.
Unnecessary CPU Resource Consumption, yep.
Unnecessary Device Resource Consumption, yep.
and on and on.
He simply listed the negative attributes of the DRM and reminds you that these nasties have a cost.
I think what Microsoft is doing right now is analogous to the old practice of offering a product at a higher cost initially just so you can then negotiate down to the price you really want.
... well why finish the sentence. "Most intelligent consumers" probably accounts for a very small percentage of the total consumer base.
You might claim it is apples and oranges. I think it's not. They design the product with more restrictive DRM knowing the consumer will not want ANY DRM. Then they 'listen' to the consumer by removing some, but not all of it. Thus arriving at a middle ground, but really closer to their originally planned position. This serves to possibly give them what they want while simultaneously making them look good in the eyes of the consumer.
Of course, most intelligent consumers decry
TLF
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Thats incorrect. Degradation is recommended by the HD standards only if the content provider has opted-in for content protection but the hardware used doesn't provide a complete protection path to the display.
So non-opted content will display with full fidelity regardless of whether a non-secured or secured mechanism is used to display the content.
Yes, he tends to be a bit outspoken at times. He's also a veteran contributor to the security field and tends to know exactly what he's talking about. So before dismissing what he has to say, you owe it to yourself to check his reasoning.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
In the article, he a section on the potential hazard of Vista disabling video resolution in medical imaging applications. Leaving aside any issues of playing CD's in a work computer, I can see one outcome of this. The first time a blown diagnosis can be blamed on this, the malpractice lawyers will be heading after Microsoft. It's something they've got to be salivating over: The ultimate deep pockets! (cue theme from Jaws)
Simply put, MS could have made their life a LOT easier if they had put in support for a new product class - the Media Accelerator.
Imagine a card that had a couple of SATA interfaces, a video pass through input, and an audio pass through input. The card would have its own OS/firmware, and it'd be easy to control from an external software API.
Unprotected input would flow into it, but only it could generate video/audio for protected media. It'd automatically substitute its own video/audio for protected stuff.
This way, if you didn't care about "protected media", your computer and OS wouldn't be encumbered. If you did, you'd pop a couple of hundred for the Media Accelerator, and go from there.
Of course, this would have benefited the rest of the non-MS industry, too. Guess it is a bad idea.
jh
I wish I was lucky as you. Seems like everyone I know that has a computer, but isn't technically savvy in any way, has Windows. Oh wait, that's how that works......
Yep I think I think this is a true Microsoft "innivation", nothing has been as so well enginiered for user experience and consumer acceptrance since the u-buy it then pay to watch it DVD and the self-destruct DVd.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
High Cost without correspondingly high benefit = bad.
Lets take a feature that has a high cost but high benefit: networking.
Imagine a standalone Vista computer, maybe a non-networked game, a standalone information kiosk, or a standalone home workstation that doesn't have LAN or Internet access. Assume nobody ever sticks in an infected CD or other piece of media.
You can strip out:
network stack
firewall and other "essential" network-safe software
network-only applications
If all users are trusted, you can strip out the concept of users altogether and have everyone run as a default user with full administrative rights.
The resulting system would be much smaller in memory and somewhat smaller on disk. It would also be easier to manage, as the only real management would be application addition and removal, data backups, and some customization and personalization.
Does this sound like Windows 3.1 without networking installed? I think that worked nicely on an 80486 machine with 2MB RAM and tens of MB of disk space. A vista equivalent running the eye candy and a cool FPS game would probably need 1-2GHz (0.5-1.0 without the game), a good video card, 256MB RAM + however much RAM the game needed, and 0.5-1.0GB of disk space + space for the game.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Yes the big argument for staying with windows is having a system you can either produce documents or code for that works with "everybody else's" computer. I guess it's easier if your lab or company is very small.
If we're not ever allowed to view the high quality media in it's full glory because all outputs have to be degraded or disabled, what's the point of distributing high quality media in the first place?
I just don't get it.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Content protection in Vista will not hurt Microsoft or their sales. Two reasons for this. Consumers are not educated enough to understand digital restrictions management. They will interpret it as “just how it works” and deal with it one way or another. Claiming these impedences to copying will damage Vista is similar to claiming that content scrambling of movies will damage the DVD market. The second reason comes from established expectations. People appear used to dealing with technology not working how they want it to or think it should. Crashing computers and malware are just part of life. Pretty soon, the inability to copy files will become subject to the same perception. That is, not being able to copy media will be seen as a technical limitation or just another failing on the part of the industry. People will buy it all the same because the water is being brough to a boil slowly and we all seem to have such ridiculously short-term memories.
Why bother.
And what I think it comes down to particularly with Vista is that people are worried that is actually is going to turn out to be a really good OS. I haven't used it all that extensively but I have been doing application compatibility testing on it at work and so far it looks good. Revolutionary? No, but a worthwhile improvement. That seems to have a lot of people running scared.
No, you're not.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Thanks for the clarification. What are the odds a content provider won't opt-in for protection? In any case, I can't really make any justification for Vista (or high-def DVD) at this point -- especially if this article is accurate.
My guess is that the tighter DRM proponents squeeze, the more things will slip through their fingers -- to paraphrase someone I heard somewhere, sometime ago...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I have 8 co-workers and not one of them uses windows. It just isn't relevant. Why would you think that I'm not being serious?
oh, my mom uses windows. I guess she's in the target slashdot audience.
"I'd rather have my freedom than their content."
Apparently the people at piratebay want content AND freedom. It would be interesting to see what tune they'd play if they had no content and lots of freedom, or no freedom and DRMed content. Shame that "test" will never come about. The results would rate an insightful, even here.
Windows is not relevant for you. For which I congratulate you. I have used Mac's at home since OS 8 and I now work with mostly Mac's at my job. But we certainly have lots of Windows machines. In all of my previous jobs it was pretty much all Windows. It is still the standard OS for most businesses and consumers. So, I apologize for being a bit flip in my first response. But I can assure you, people still use Windows.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Employees at his company, of the cities of Vienna and Munich, and of the French Parliament don't need to be viewing protected content at work.
A classic, absolutely classic instance of the thesis which Olson demonstrated in lots of case studies.
All special interest groups will find it in their interests to impose on society costs hundreds, thousands, millions of times greater than the benefits they receive.
In the present case, Big Content, to protect its rents, is imposing measures which will end up costing the US and the West enormously more than any benefits to Big Content.
But they don't care, of course, because even if we are all worse off, they are a little better off.
And so, you discover if you examine economic history, that revolutionary convulsions every 50 years or so benefit economic performance, by abolishing encrusted priveliges of various groups. And this is why 19c France in constant turmoil outgrew 19c stable Britain. And why the post civil war South did so well in the 20c... And why Germany grew so fast in the fifties.
And why the US is falling into paralysis today....
Think - up to this date os'es were mainly the basic framework to run programs on them. Even in that state, phletora of exploits, hacks, a million ways to hamper or exploit usage of a computer have surfaced in the last 15 years.
Now they are putting strong elements integral to os that are able to block, modify, permit or limit usage of some elements of os, software, 3rd party software, and even hardware. They are this way decreasing the workload of hackers/exploiters - now they just need to find a way to exploit the mechanism already present there.
Its no guessing that this will make using computers with vista both a pain in the ass, but also a security risk.
Read radical news here
With the launch of Vista, the optometrist market has taken a sudden lurch in profitability as users begin to experience "fuzzy" video on their 50" screens. They then schedule a visit to the eye doctor to see if they might be going blind, only to discover that is not their vision but their TV that no longer works.
When Microsoft was challenged about the problem, executives stated that "We regret that users feel they are having problems viewing the full quality of the content they have acquired, but as we feel this is only an issue for the pirated content and hacked hardware market, we do not see this as our problem. We are happy to work with honest users so that they can enjoy the full value of their Windows experience."
I sort of wish a consumer interests group would make like the Mozilla guys and place a big, preferably whole-page, ad in a major newspaper to debunk this stuff once and for all. Pointing out to consumers, in clear and simple langauge, the real limitations the coming generation of DRM technology will impose on their everyday activities, and pointing out to business leaders the immense risks incurred by basing your IT infrastructure on systems that another business can turn off on a whim, should be enough to sink Vista before it even gets off the ground.
Hell, if Apple had any sense, they'd see the huge market opportunity here: get into bed with the big name sound and video manufacturers, and then undercut Vista with an indisputable ad run about how Vista deliberately degrades your content but on MacOS it looks so much sharper, and so on. Make a selling point of not having DRM, backed by listing "fair uses" in law that Microsoft is deliberately undermining. Get a couple of soundbites from the CEOs of nVidia and AMD/ATI about how they want to support the best possible products for users, and today that means non-Microsoft. What are Microsoft going to do, revoke every nVidia and ATI driver as being unauthorised? Gimme a break.
Seriously, the content providers have to have channels, and Microsoft has to have the big hardware vendors universally behind it for this to work. If the public turns around and tells them to screw themselves on degraded quality, they aren't going to stop supplying stuff, they're just going to stop supplying degraded quality stuff no-one will pay for. It's not in anyone's interests for Microsoft to control the dominant PC-based media distribution channel alone, and if someone starts standing up and saying (quite truthfully, I suspect) that all this heavyweight copy-protection is counter-productive and they can help content suppliers to make more money by not screwing the users, well... As my father once told me, it's hard to beat an honest man in an argument.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The funny thing is that I really wanted to use windows. Their development tools are good but I cannot use them because they just don't support the languages we use which are fortran, perl and shell scripting.
The important factor is the percent of illegal video users in the world who, because of the new restrictions, will start paying for legal video.
Probably some pirated DVD users in the world wouldnt pay the cost of legal video even if it meant not watching movies at all. Many more wont even afford a vista PC. Surely most dont care about the difference between high-def and ordinary DVD quality.
So theres many reasons these restrictions wont increase video sales.
SOOOoo...this system makes it's way out into the marketplace, and soon after, content providers are providing "high quality" deliveries via wire or disc, and for the most part, the systems slowly go through an upgrade process to conforming hardware, finally letting the "high" in quality reach the user. Balloons fall, confetti flies and whistles and claps abound - you are running a "trusted system"
In a country far far away, a series of specifications, hardware manufacturers and technology folks band together to build the impossible: To make a machine decrypt the "high quality" content and push it to a jack. Nothing more, nothing less. They use a non-MS embedded OS and cook their scheme into an IC and viola! We have an unencumbered HD-DVD/BluRay player.
The market for this is illegal - in certain countries. But no matter, since once tapped on the above device, said port burns a new HD-DVD/BluRay disc, without licensing scheme. Some Volks-haXXor posts code to read port, strip tags from the raw stream, and pump back into a disc. Cheers from the masses, "it's been hacked!". Said streams make their way onto existing distribution mechanisms (torrent,p2p,the corner cart downtown) and you've got (wait for it) THE STATUS QUO.
Currently, only the tech-enlightened really got through the ever-lowering hurdles to download copyrighted content. Scare tactics and ethics keep most people in the DVD isle of the buy-it stores. I'm sure that will stay the same.
So, we'll simply have the MS bundled-systems with their crazy bugs, people complaining and conforming media for high quality. On the flip side will be folks not so much skipping the DRM in Windows, but getting non-DRM content to begin with. Windows has simply gone the way of the yes-man for DRM enforcement, leaving you with two choices: Lower audio/video resolution or playing only proper discs. Guess what you do with your big collection of "improper" discs: Play them on Linux. It could reinforce the sentiment that "Linux is for hackers, aka criminals" but I doubt that'll fly for long.
MS, like the media players before, will have to allow for "personal" content to be played at "high quality" eventually, since consumers are also media generators. Like now with audio, if you can get source content out of the DRM shackles, making it look personal, the entire SYSTEM from disc to monitor is bypassed quietly.
I'm prepared for a long period of relative component stagnation, while all this DRM for Vista gets sorted out. I doubt the legacy cards and peripherals will go away anytime soon.
"If Vista doesn't support those requirements, then it cant access the media."
So if vista doesn't support those requirements, then who will?
Do you really think Hollywood (et al) will sit on content saying "Nope. Not selling it. Not enough copy protection".
That's never happened, and never will. They don't make content to lock in a vault. The only reason Hollywood cares about about content is because it makes profit. If content sits in a film can, it cannot make a profit.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
1. There is a well-worn and completely false assumption that Microsoft is somehow -still- subject to competitive market forces. They are not. Not tomorrow, not 10 years from now. Just like the telephone company, they are not going anywhere. They will not be unseated. There's no one "coming up fast." No Apple, no Linux, no one.
2. A windows-equipped PC taxes all computer consumers. How is that possible? Windows is sold at a monopolist's high price and this reduces the volume of computer hardware sold. So we all pay more because fewer computers are being sold.
There is simply no historical or economic evidence that things will be different with Microsoft than it was for any other monopolist.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Nice reading comprehension you've got there.
Protected content is DRMed movies and music. We're not talking about encrypted financial documents.
This so-called analysis was written by thinking of a conclusion first, then filling in the blanks. There are no citing of references to support his claims.
Google has an html version of Vista Content Crippling Spec. and points to an obfuscated version I don't care to download. More can be fond here.
The author's opinion and interpretation of the document look solid to me. There really are "tilt bits" and other concepts I checked are there. It goes a long way to explaining Vista's reported bugs, bloat and lack of drivers for existing equipment. None of it changes the bottom line, M$ is the only thing that's going to fall down the "analog hole".
Debating the details is pointless because the results are already in. The specifics of the "secure path" implementations can only provide amusement. Everyone said it was going to fail and it has already in Windows Media Center and other equipment critics have panned and no one is buying. Vista has much the same in store, it's not going to work and people are not going to buy it.
People are going to avoid Vista and are going to be very pissed as M$ "updates" remove functionality from XP, which will never be allowed to view "premium" content.
The only winners will be content providers that avoid the whole mess. Movie and music publishers who provide DRM free media are going make a lot of money while the majors continue to insult and sue their shrinking fan base.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
As someone who does a lot of video and audio editing, I guess my next 'PC' will have to be a Mac. There's absolutely no way I'm going near an operating system that will randomly reduce the quality of the audio and video output; how the hell am I supposed to tell whether the audio is crap because I'm feeding it crap or crap because of some retarded Microsoftism?
If this is true, then it's going to kill Windows as an operating system for content creation. Apple must be laughing.
I think what Microsoft is doing right now is analogous to the old practice of offering a product at a higher cost initially just so you can then negotiate down to the price you really want.
So, are you telling me that they will take all the "tilt bits" out of third party drivers if no one buys Vista for a while? Or maybe you think that they will undo the core of the operating system they just spent six years developing. Nope, not happening.
The absolute best they can do is play it off like ME by issuing another OS in one or two years, but that would be an even bigger screw to the hardware world than "Plays for Sure." M$ is throwing what little credibility they had left right into the trash.
Vista is so bad that this is going to be the year of Linux.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Protected content is DRMed movies and music. We're not talking about encrypted financial documents.
Why not?
If you've got a system with DRM capability built right in, and your company has a reason to restrict access to those, why WOULDN'T you utilize the access-restriction capability you already bought and paid for?
Most cheaper productions won't, because Sony will charge a fortune to get a DMR license. (You see, the DRM-provider gets $$ from everybody.)
The government can't save you.
Micro$oft converges with Big Content, resulting in wide-spread destruction and billions of dollars in losses. I'm switching to a Mac, and running my Windows only apps in a vm...
Two reasons: Because the DRM technology you've already bought and paid for is specifically designed to protect audio and video files, nothing else; and second, because the you haven't bought and paid for any access-restriction capability. The content providers use the access-restriction functions. The client side of DRM is solely responsible for making sure that you aren't restricted from accessing something you've purchased (in the way you're permitted to access it by the content provider.)
[Z?]
Actually, the odds are pretty good for current HD media, because the publishers want more market penetration before they tighten the noose.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You know, this point is apparently harder to understand than you realize. After all, even some people who aren't affiliated with the publishing industry still support DRM, because they mistakenly think it'll help them "protect" their own data. They fail to understand that that doesn't require DRM, but works perfectly well with plain encryption (in which the owner knows the key).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
How about... because DRM has nothing to do with file encryption? DRM is about trusted hardware and the movie and music industries wanting to ensure that their content will not play on a system which could be used to pirate it. There's only one level of protection, play or don't play.
Security and encryption of sensitive files has completely different goals and totally different technology.
You get to talk to frequently talk to lovely ladies in India and swap very long strings of digits with them. Isn't re-activation fun? And if it is a stressful day at work, just hold the phone up to your ear while you rest and tell anyone that bothers you that you are on hold with Microsoft - you should be able to get away with an hour at a time before anyone gets suspicious. What fun! Every disaster recovery plan gets to add a few hours to acoount for waiting on hold to get new activation numbers for each rebuilt system.
"Once again, apparently the least intelligent/aware/self-responsible segment of the population apparently holds the fate of the rest of us in their hands."
Uh, huh. Somehow I doubt a geek run world would be any better.
... is Apple + Parallels + XP Pro (i.e. Internet + Games + Warez). With the new version of Parallels that's going to support 3D accelleration, I can't see how Vista will ever get adopted by power users with lots of money to blow on apple hardware.
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
1) The consumer does not matter. No, he doesn't. It doesn't matter if the new 'features' of an operating system are actually against the consumer, because the consumer is never going to be aware of this fact and the consumer is going to buy this operating system automatically. It just comes with the computer.
2) As informed as you can be, your opinion doesn't matter. You are part of a market minority and eventually "everybody else" will upgrade, you can actually claim things like "everybody stay with XP!" or "Everybody move to Linux" both of those are truly fantasies that will never be true.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
I don't think that MS gives a crap about movie piracy. Does anybody really think that this is the only way they could have gotten licenses for that DRM-ware?
Their goal is a lot simpler than that--they want an excuse to bully video card companies into not releasing Linux drivers. If your card works with the competition's OS, then it won't work with ours.
> I am, however, frequently annoyed by their mediocrity, and unbelievably frustrated that someone doesn't have the balls to start a company dedicated to making an absolutely, positively 100%-compatible Windows clone based on a Unix-like operating system.
:( Those in Europe or anywhere else being screwed over by these legal exports have my sincere apologies for this mess.
:-)
I wish! Do you have ANY idea what that requires? Okay, so Novell is sorta working in that direction (although they're going to have trouble from both sides), and there's Wine, but we both know that neither of them are going to be able to get past all of the following roadblocks:
A) Non-standard standards. Microsoft doesn't implement any standard correctly. They ARE the de facto "standard" and many bits of hardware / drivers do ugly, nasty just-so things to work with Windows. Even Microsoft can't manage 100% backwards compatibility. Thus, even where things should be standard, they aren't. Worse, half the time the code is the standard, as with Word. My theory of the excessive bloat of Office is that each new version effectively includes most of the code of prior versions for compatibility purposes. And it still doesn't work right. Yes, the OpenOffice folks have done great work. The Samba people have done great work. The Wine people have done great work. But I don't think we can call them 100% (even if their work is probably a better copy than the originals in many respects).
B) Software patents. As others have pointed out, the way these things are described, they patent every way to get from point A to point B. It's not like a machine, where you can rework a few gears or something, when they patent stupid crap like double-clicking you CAN'T do what Microsoft does any more, whether it was obvious or not. Perhaps its only the US that's screwed in this regard for now, but lobbyists are at work even now trying to bring these laws to "parity" (i.e. screw over all the other countries, too). It is my sincere hope that they learn from our mistakes rather than repeating them
C) Dirty tricks. If you've read any of the anti-trust trials against Microsoft and read any of the Microsoft emails they were forced to produce in discovery, you might have some idea about how they treat competition. Currently, they're working to divide the Free Software community, working to cause legal problems and hurdles for the software (see point B) including "innocuous" terms like forbidding sub-licensing (prevents a user from transferring the software to others, allows Microsoft to kill such software by cutting off the source at any later time), patent "protection" (again, creates non-transferable legal rights... making it so that the software can be later discontinued), and probably other tricks I don't know of yet.
In other words, Microsoft's manipulation of the market remains as the primary reason no one can yet manage this, although people still are working on ways to supplant them. Of course it's unreasonable to expect them to go quietly and to just give up the monopoly position they fought so hard to get, but it does pretty well prevent anyone from being able to realize that dream of yours.
After all, if we could do that *perfectly*, well... I suspect we'd have managed quite a few more migrations by now than we have already. Even if we had to claim that it was a "new version of Windows" to get our users to use it
Do you know multiple people some of whom learned Windows first and some of whom learned Linux first so that you can objectively state which is inherently easier to learn? I do. And the evidence I have seen is in Linux's favor when no predisposition to Windows is involved.
But neither I nor you can discern the truth about the matter until a sufficient body of people have learned each way and we can compare the ease of their progress. Just because it may be hard for you to adapt your biased skills to Linux doesn't mean it's inherently more difficult to learn Linux outright.
My father-in-law and now some of his older friends are set up with Ubuntu and they have a way easier time than their friends who use Windows. And all of these people are new to computers. I set up my FIL with Ubuntu initially and gave him some lessons over VNC. He has now installed Ubuntu on several people's computers at a retirement home in Portland all on his own. And even being a nontechincal guy he was able to get them on a better foot than they were using Windows. So there. Ubuntu is easier for your grandma when you're not there to clean out her spyware. And old people love the Beryl Cube effect.
While Windows development starts over with a complete rewrite every couple of years, open source will just keep steadily building on itself and get better and better and better with each passing year. It's quite fun to watch (and even more fun to participate in).
Well, I'll be laughing my ass off when the first worm or trojan comes along that plays a small sample of protected content in a continuous loop, just to piss people off. Maybe even one you can't see or hear. But the effect will be there nevertheless - devices being switched off, quality degradation, the full package.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Parent replied:
That's incorrect if you're using digital connections (e.g. DVI, HDMI) and commercial BluRay/HD DVD discs (almost all of which use AACS). If you try to play almost any commercial disc using a digital connection and you don't have HDCP protecting every step of the playback process, then it probably won't play at all. However, it probably will play back in full resolution over analog connections (e.g. VGA, component) because most commercial discs have not implemented ICT yet. When ICT is implemented, then the image (over analog connection) will be degredated to a lower resolution. Did that make sense?
To clarify, the rules are different for digital and analog connections. The rules are also different for AACS and ICT.
AACS (Advanced Access Content System) is the encryption system that's currently used by almost all commercial BluRay/HD DVD discs and requires HDCP everywhere (video ouput/input, driver, playback software) to playback (at any resolution) over digital outputs (e.g. DVI, HDMI). The disc probably won't playback at all over a digital connection that isn't fully protected by HDCP. Here's a link with a good explanation: The Authoritative BD FAQ: VIII. Device Connections
ICT (Image Constraint Token) is the DRM system that currently is not used by commercial discs but, when it is implemented, will degrade the resolution if analog connections are used.
You're much more likely to run into DRM problems on a computer/LCD than on a set top box/digital television. All BluRay/HD DVD set top boxes (except XBox 360) have all the DRM requirements built-in and all digital televisions have (at minimum) high-def analog inputs. On the other hand, most high-end computer/LCD setups today are connected with a DVI connection that doesn't have HDCP in either the video card or LCD. These computers (with incomplete HDCP implementations) won't play the movie at all using a digital connection (it will just display an error message). These same computers can playback HD content over a VGA connection (if ICT hasn't been implemented), but that would require changing the LCD connection from good digital to inferior analog. Who would want to do that just for watching HD movies?
More AACS/ICT/HDCP explanations:
HD Video Playback: H.264 Blu-ray on the PC
Review: Sony BWU-100A Blu-ray Recordable Drive
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
"What are the odds a content provider won't opt-in for protection?"
e n
If the content provider does opt-in for "protection", then they will miss out on all the customers who have older HD displays that don't take HDCP signals. (This is because the packaging has to clearly state the "protection" is activated.) Therefore, the "protection" will not be activated on HD-DVD and BluRay releases until 2012. (See URL.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_Constraint_Tok
My dad claims that they will simply *never* use the functionality. I disagree and have been trying to convince him of the need to buy compatible hardware or miss out on the HD bandwagon.
Well, Vista might sell due to the windows tax, but there is no way "premium content" is ever going to popular.
People will quickly learn that "premium content" means that their machine will be screwed up and that there are tons of things that Just Don't Work(tm) with premium content, so they will quickly stop buying it and start pirating the content in stead.
Am I the only one who has noticed that MS is taking a lot of clues from 1984?
War is peace, slavery is freedom, broken is premium; notice how it just fits in?
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
Well, ok it's an acronym, but anyway, AACS is built on real crypto tech, not some dinky homebrew like CSS was.
AACS will probably never be 100% broken like CSS, but we might get very close by attacking players and extracting the player keys.
With a player key you can decrypt all HD-DVDs released up until the time when the Motion Picture Ass of America gets learn of your cracked player key.
The funny part is that if you distribute decrypted title keys in stead of the player key itself it's going to close to impossible for the content dictators to figure out what player key you have.
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
I would like to see AMD/ATI create a whole new line of video cards with the Linux/UNIX/MAC OS's in mind.
All that wasted DRM processing should be returned to the user for what he/she paid for - fast processing.
If gamers were to get a better experience on Linux you can sure bet they will start moving in that direction! Seeing a 'runs faster on Linux' logo on games and software would be a very sore point for Microsoft.
Personally I think the release of Vista further opens doors for Linux. Vista's cost, licensing scheme and compatibility with older hardware are all sore points for the OS and its maker.
I see unique opportunities for hardware vendors to work with the Linux/GNU community to create better, faster, more feature packed systems which are not a slave to DRM and Microsoft.
Seems to me Microsoft regards content providers as its actual customers, not the buyers of PCs or MS software. I get this impression since Windows seems to be more and more geared toward the interests of the content providers.
Usage: km/h for speed (kilometers per hour); kph for very slow impulses (kilopond hours).
because he who owns factories owns the business, ultimately.
Maybe not. If the service industry can supply jobs and steady salaries to people, maybe it's a enough replacement.
I don't know of course
Cheers
Ben
- Broadcast emails with embedded "premium content", as an image or whatever
- Every Recipient's Vista turns off its hi-res graphics, sound etc.
- Recipients have to pay for instructions to undo the self-inflicted damage
- Profit!
IANAL but I can spell "class action suit". I suspect this plan might even be legal if the sender owns the "premium content".Reduce, reuse, cycle