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: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....