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.'"

Comments

Playing Idiot's Advocate

[eno2001]

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.]

Re:Playing Idiot's Advocate

[causality]

(Equally, the pro-Linux crowd is not above lies, misconceptions, and FUD themselves.)

Except that the "pro-Linux crowd" does not generally have a financial incentive motivating them to engage in FUD. Microsoft routinely engages in astroturfing, both with its shills and by sponsoring "independent" groups who are paid to have a certain opinion (if their product were truly so great, then why the need for deception?).

However poorly they may perform the task of advocating Linux, to most members of the "pro-Linux crowd" the goal is to obtain what they believe to be a superior computing experience, both in terms of technical capability and user freedom. Whereas Microsoft would happily market an operating system that could run no 3rd party applications and popped up a dialog that said "Fuck You for Using Windows" every thirty seconds so long as people were still willing to pay for it. One is a fairly grassroots movement in which users are expressing their true feelings about a subject, while the other has its roots in a top-down corporate environment designed for the sole purpose of making money in a market where the vast majority of customers are extremely ignorant about the technical merits of the product.

There is such a thing as purity of motive, and it counts for a lot.

Incidentally, because this was mentioned in the GP, I will say that Linux (and *nix in general) is not at all difficult to use. It is more difficult to learn than Windows, but the effort required to understand how the system works is a one-time investment, after which you find yourself with a rather straightforward operating system in which it is a simple matter to perform most tasks -- my personal opinion is that this is because unlike Windows, Linux does not assume that the user is an idiot. It also does not assume that the user intends to use the same machine for months or years without ever learning more about it than what was learned during the first week of use (although perhaps I repeat myself; to me one symptom that someone is an idiot is that they do not value or even hate learning). In comparison, Windows is easier to learn how to use, but learning more and more about how the system works does not provide the user with fewer annoying explanation and confirmation dialogs to click through, nor does it make the "power user" options less buried in the user interface, to name just two examples of the tedium involved.

well duh

[ILuvRamen]

The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history

Hmmm, let's run through that cost analysis again. It took a lot longer to develop Vista and now nobody's going to buy it because of the restrictions. *gets outs his calculator* yup, that leaves em pretty far in the red. But thank God they don't have to worry about losing money from pirates for at least a few weeks until people find ways around everything.

Re:This is absurd.

[Dachannien]

We can't force them to make the right choice NOW, because they won't make it. They'll provide zero content.

Not true. The content cabal claimed that without a broadcast flag, their government-mandated efforts to switch to digital broadcast HDTV would be tantamount to suicide, and they threatened to obstruct the production of content in HD until such a flag was passed. Here we are, three years after the FCC first tried to implement the broadcast flag by providential decree, and we have a bevy of digital broadcast high-definition programming with no broadcast flag.

The reason the content cabal will never provide "zero content" is because there's too much money to be made even without DRM. The only reason they want DRM is because it provides them with additional control over the content that they sell to us that goes beyond copyright and piracy prevention. It's the same reason they have things like User Operation Prohibited and Region Codes in the DVD spec. Neither of those forms of DRM have anything to do with preventing piracy. UOP is used to force-feed advertising (and the ubiquitously-ignored FBI warning) to the paying customer, and region codes are used to exploit worldwide market arbitrage.

They are fighting tooth and nail today to get DRM everywhere they can, because they know that once the technological dust settles and the standards that we'll be using for the next 20 years mature, if it doesn't have DRM in it, it never will in any meaningful sense.

Re:This is absurd.

[iamacat]

We can't force them to make the right choice NOW, because they won't make it. They'll provide zero content.

Totally fine with me. I'll give them zero money and find other forms of entertainment, like going to a local theater. This is capitalism, why should I beg anyone to sell me stuff that intentionally self-destructs?

Re:Migrate to not Vista

[fahrbot-bot]

Degradation is recommended by the HD standards only if the content provider has opted-in for content protection...

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...

Mancur Olson again

[Budenny]

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....

Re:This is absurd.

[CDarklock]

Yes, but it's a useful and convenient fiction, so I use it. Feel free to use whatever tortured linguistic construct you like to represent corporate rights as opposed to individual rights, I'll just pretend that a corporation has the same rights as an individual.

Oh, wait, that's the legal reality. Hmm.

WRT the point that they all take your freedoms away, this is only true as long as it isn't more profitable to give you those freedoms. Corporations don't have ideals and dreams. They have revenue, period. (Which is where the legal reality is not EMPIRICAL reality. Human beings have a moral compass and the ability to feel guilt. Corporations don't.) So as long as it doesn't cost the corporation money to abuse you with DRM bullshit, they will do it.

So essentially you have to pirate. Boycotts don't do it; if you don't buy the movie at all from anyone, nobody knows you want it. You have to demonstrate that you represent a demand that they could not supply. I don't like piracy, and I don't want to encourage it, but unfortunately it is the only thing that communicates the problem accurately: we want the product, just not from you.

Re:This is hardly an analysis

[Master of Transhuman]

Excellent point about the non-premium content. Corporations (except those in the media industry itself) in particular mostly won't care about any of these Vista "features" - but they will end up paying extra in their budgets for new PCs for decades to come. But it's unlikely any CIO is thinking about it in those terms - which means Vista is, in a sense, a "Trojan Horse". As TFA points out, basically it's intent is to establish Microsoft as an even bigger "technological monopoly" (supported by the "legal monopoly" means of DMCA legislation) who can dictate terms to BOTH the hardware manufacturers AND the content owners - and by extension, to corporate busineess and the consumers - while at the same time shutting down the open source software industry.

And we can the Bush administration's lack of enforcement of the Microsoft monopoly decision for enabling this.

OTOH, I have faith that the entire thing WILL collapse at some point - just like the Iraq and Afghanistan adventures collapsed - rendering Microsoft a shadow of its former self, damaging the content companies big time, and eventually paving the way for a reaction which will really boost FOSS and open standards on commodity hardware and the Net.

Re:Higher Requirements for New Media

[Technician]

Yes DRM sucks, but who honestly thinks that it is unreasonable to require new hardware and new drivers for new technology.

Raising hand.. Of all the media players I have, I have no wish to replace it all. I buy compatible content and leave the other stuff on the shelf. What ever happened to the consumer is right?

I have a DVD player that can play MP3's. I have a CD player that can play MP3's. My car is the same. Winamp works just fine on the Windows PC's with MP3's. Banshee works just fine on Linux with MP3's. I just bought a flash player. I noticed there are 4 incompatible DRM formats and there is not a single portable player that will play more than one of the DRM formats. All the DRM formats are incompatible with everything except a Windows PC. (I don't have an apple.)

My decision to buy a flash player was based on not the ability to play DRM in any format, but cost, ability to play MP3's, the ability to drad and drop, the ability to expand with a card slot, and the recording abilities for both FM and Voice. I picked up a flash player for under $40 and it does not support any DRM format which is fine with me. What is not fine with me is the limited selection of legal MP3's online.

For those who need to know, the player is a Coby model MP-C751. Drag and drop from any PC. Plays MP3's and unprotected WMA files. Has FM tuner built in. Records from mic and FM as MP3's.

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?

If you play premium content, outputs get turned off or severly degraded. This is applied globaly, not just the premium content. Expect your VOIP or video game to go to crap if you browse a website with premium content.

Re:This is a false choice

[SupermanX]

As far as I am aware, Vista is the ONLY OS available (soon) that will play Blu-Ray or HD DVD's. However the reality is that the computer is NOT the main delivery system for this type of media. In fact, it is a minority compared to DVD players, and will most likely be but a small % of the market for HD or Blu-Ray players. The reality is that more people watch video on Televisions, and dedicated devices, than do on computers (despite a bias on slashdot). Microsoft has gone the extra step to allow people to acess Blu-Ray and HD video content on a computer using Vista... but they didnt set the requirements. Just because it is simpler to meet the standards with a VCR like device, than with a computer, does not mean that Vista is going to fail, because people dont want to buy the new hardware for thier machine. There is NO additional cost for this feature... only the option to use it if you have the requirements. The fact that you can actually view the media, but at a degraded quality, back to 'normal' shows that in fact, this is just a benefit... not an expense.