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Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection

Posted by Zonk on from the content-was-never-so-protected dept.

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.'"

1 of 294 comments (clear)

  1. Re:it doesn't matter! by kyliaar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not true.

    We don't have to look too far into the past to see that not every Microsoft OS product has been a raging success. *cough* *cough* Windows ME

    Happy Windows ME users were few and far between in my experience. Not having native USB support as well as having a host of stability issues that were hard to debug, etc. few people upgraded to it or quickly upgraded away from it when XP became wildly available.

    I realize that the document linked to is written with what seems to be an almost inflammatory bias, it does sound that the Vista Content Protection is a move in the wrong direction for the content publishing industry and lawyers rather than the consumers.

    Not even Microsoft is immune to the forces of the market. They do have dominance in a field where migrations away from a product are often expensive and time consuming but, at the very least, if they produce a crap product, people will not upgrade to it.

    People making new purchases are much freer to choose from a competitor that may not have the same problems.