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Is Interoperable DRM Really Less Secure?

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the throwing-away-the-key dept.

Crouch and hold writes "Are closed DRM schemes like FairPlay more secure than interoperable ones? Based on the number of cracks, it doesn't look like it. 'When it comes to DRM, what history actually teaches us is that one approach is no more secure than the other in practice, as they relate to the keeping of secrets. Windows Media DRM has had fewer security breaches than Apple's FairPlay, yet WM DRM is licensed out the wazoo: there are more than a dozen companies with WM DRM licenses.'"

1 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Re:+5 informative by Eustace+Tilley · · Score: 4, Informative

    You have been answered twice already, but I cannot resist telling you again.

    Cryptography is used so that a message from A can be read by B but not by C. With DRM, B and C are the same person.

    The message from A (the publisher) must be readable by B (the consumer) but not by C (the consumer).

    I hope you understand now why DRM is a concept flawed in its fundament.

    DRM would be useful. So would a perpetual motion machine. It is wishful thinking to believe that the sheer utility of a function means it is capable of being produced.