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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.'"
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.
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.
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. . . .
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.
Your statements are correct... but you have also failed to mention that if you dont have Vista... NONE of this is an option. The requirements are NOT set by the OS. They are set by the makers of the Blu-Ray disk. Sure if you can get a non-DRM blue ray disc, then none of this matters. However, the fact that Vista ALLOWS you to make this choice (good or bad) is a BENEFIT.
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
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.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
I dont think anyone is really afraid of that. All evidence suggests its just w2k/XP all again. Those wore also supposed to be the holy grail of computing but showed to be just minor improvements in some areas and degradation in others. I love DRM because it will drive people towards free systems. Afraid isnt the right word, rather a smug smile. The FSF etc should just ignore DRM and let Windows Vista users smack into the wall in a couple of years time. In the meen time extensive work should be done in improving OSS instead. Why spend any time trying to educate Windows users about DRM? They will find out soon enough, just tell them Linux is without theese restrictions instead.
HTTP/1.1 400
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
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.
Just in case you are not aware... Blu-Ray is a sony format. They also make consumer electronics... you know the things used to play these discs. You dont have to have Vista to play a Blu-Ray disc. You just have to have it to play the disc on a computer... Remember, this is all about NEW formats. If you want to change, you have to accept thier rules. If you dont like the rules, just stick with what you have. Vista has no affect on this. It is all about the MEDIA, not the OS.
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
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.
What's not funny at all is to think about what China could do in a really near future. For instance, selling millions of EDV players for peanuts. Hiring 2nd zone occidental actors or singers to reenact classic films or make near copies of popular music styles. Our western entertainement industry is headind toward a major crisis, and I fear a shift of economic power in the next 15 years, because he who owns factories owns the business, ultimately.