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AMD's New DRM
DefectiveByDesign writes "Remember how AMD said they'd make use of ATI's GPU technology to make better technology? Well, not all change is progress. InfoWorld's Tom Yager reports that AMD plans to block access to the framebuffer in hardware to help enforce DRM schemes, such as allowing more restricted playback of Sony Blu-Ray disks. They can pry my Print Screen key from my cold, dead fingers."
Ok, so AMD aren't doing this because it makes their customers happy. Given the choice between two identically performing chips, one of which restricts your ability to do something, I'd bet most people would choose to get the unrestricted one. Whether that's because they need it not to be restricted, or they think they need it in the future, or they just object to the principle, I'm betting few people would go "Gee, well, this one stops me doing this, so I better get that".
So the only reason AMD is doing this is to pander to the content providers. I wonder, what's in it for AMD. Money? Too simplistic somehow. Can't think what else..... Surely it can't just be because Sony/whoever turned up with a big cheque?
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
The drooling masses will eat up the slop fed to them so they can watch their DRM'd BluRay edition of Friends and Threes Company.
Trolling is a art,
Disable hardware acceleration of video, and you'll get your printed screens just fine.
From the article: '...ATI's new GPU ... will ship with software that plays movies on Blu-ray discs. The AMD rep ... said that the new chips will "block unauthorized access to the frame buffer." In short, that means an unauthorized party can't save the contents of the display to a file on disk unless the content owner approves it.'
Looks like things are going the same (unhappy) way that the HD-TV did. The web's full of dire stories about people suffering from IBM (Incompatible Bits of Machinery) - most of it shiny new and very expensive.
Imagine Vista on this... *shudders*
How long after release before DVD-Jon or someone else breaks this? Not long. It's just piss of the legit, non-expert user, like most DRM.
"Now I have another reason (other than processor heat) to stay away from AMD."
So I am guessing you used a P3 for all these years and just now upgraded to a Core2Duo.
AMD isn't known for making hot running chips Intel is. I also guess you haven't heard about Intel's trusted platform...
Plus this is just a rumor.
Man you can jump high enough to reach any conclusion you want too.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You might just be joking, but... Intel is already doing DRM. They're building the features required for TCPA into CPUs now.
This is a non-story really, because this is called "curtained memory", and it is a part of the TCPA specification. TCPA hypervisors can prevent programs accessing memory at a level that you, the user, cannot circumvent. At least, not without breaking the "trusted" nature of your system and stopping some applications from executing.
Given AMD's commitment to TCPA, shared with Intel, ARM, MIPS, IBM and most other processor manufacturers, it is no surprise that they are allowing the GPU memory to be curtained. Your next CPU is defective by design.
They're in cahoots with George Lucas. In the next edition he releases, that line's edited to say "Better technical prevention measures will prevent Star Systems from slipping through our fingers".
would you like to sell hardware with blu-ray or HDDVD licensed drives?
consumers WANT to play blu-ray and HDDVD's on their home pc's
business users WANT to back up 50gb of data on a optical disc
if you DON'T help us protect the content, you won't be able to purchase drives.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
What do Christians have to do with this?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Just as audio has the Analog Hole that can never be plugged, framebuffer access restrictions can't continue once it gets out of the DVI cable.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
HDCP.
Why bother.
You might see it as:
1. Chip A who isn't restricted,
2. Chip B who is restricted to comply with some DRM scheme.
What Joe Sixpack and Jane Housewife will see it as, and what the marketting machine will sell it to them as, is:
1. Chip A which doesn't play BlueRay and HD-DVD movies, or plays it with a crappy pixelated resolution, worse than an old DVD
2. Chip B which plays BlueRay and HD-DVD movies in MediaPlayer with no problems. In 1080p, even.
Why, _of_ _course_ Chip B is better. It's obviously so much more powerful too. I mean, it obviously has all the horsepower to play 1080p, unlike Chip A who's obviously so underpowered that it has to play the same movies at a decreased resolution.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I think it's fairly obvious that it's about AMD Live! versus Intel's Viiv. Each of those two brands is trying to be the ultimate living room multimedia PC. I think that customers haven't really caught on (why would we... who needs an expensive fully decked-out hot and noisy desktop PC masquerading as a media appliance in their living room?), but they seem convinced that this is where the market is going with or without the consumer. I think the whole media center PC has very little thought for the customer, and this AMD DRM issue highlights that very well.
It's funny how Vista is being hailed as the future for the media PC... I used to be able to watch DVDs perfectly well on my P3 (600MHz, 128 MB RAM) back when it was running Windows 98. But a few years ago I "upgraded" to XP, and now it won't play the same DVDs. It has a very hard time with most video content. But MS (along with AMD and Intel) wants us to believe that we need the next super-shiny version of their software, which gets less and less efficient with each release, in order to keep up with the time and have the media experience of the future. Sure, HD content requires more horsepower to decode and display, but if they didn't keep fattening up the OS, and the player software, and the whole Media Center environment, it wouldn't need that much more horweposer. From my experience, my 2.6Ghz P4 with 2GB of RAM can't even play videos in the Vista Media Center at all. Any PC related living room media devices should be small, quiet, run cool, and be inexpensive, and not have lots of bright lights. But of course all the hardware manufacturers want to push the latest hot, fast hardware... because it's the fastest. They want your attention to be drawn to the PC so you know how cool it is. Lame.
So to make a long story short, AMD, Intel, Microsoft, and all the rest want to cram the media experience down our throats... This seems to me like it's the equivalent of Circuit City's DIVX, only the players involved are much bigger, and mostly working together to make an inescapable dragnet. They want to make their own brands successful (Win MCE, AMD Live! Viiv), and they know that the average consumer doesn't even know why he or she would care about Viiv or Live. So they want to make all PCs move in this direction, and if they can't get the consumers excited about it, they can at least get the content providers excited about it, so they don't have the same fate as DIVX.
One poster mentioned that this is essentially covering the framebuffer with the TCPA "curtained memory" spec.
TCPA is and has always been a 2-edged sword that can also be sheathed. I can completely ignore it, I can use it to my own benefit.... or I can surrender control of my computer to The Dark Side.
Is this "hidden framebuffer" the same way? In other words, if I'm not touching protected content can I still access the framebuffer as I wish? Is it also possible that I can use this as extra security? We've taken to encrypting filesystems and swapfiles, and moved from xhost to xauth, it seems to me that the framebuffer could be considered another leakage point. (Won't comment on the difficulty of exploiting.)
Theoretically TCPA can be a good thing, and most of people's fears center around it being required and locked away from the owner. I'm not sure I ever see that being an issue, simply because of implementation and legal difficulties. What I can see is "If you want to use ??AA media, surrender control of your computer, for this boot." As long as I can reboot and have complete control of my own computer, that is.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Oh, I don't know. Ultimately there will be mod chips carrying custom bios etc if things get to that point. People will find a way. The thing about computers is that nothing at all happens without software, and that software can always be diddled. If you are having trouble getting the crowbar in, you just need a better tool to chisel out a gap.
Ok, so AMD aren't doing this because it makes their customers happy. Given the choice between two identically performing chips, one of which restricts your ability to do something, I'd bet most people would choose to get the unrestricted one.
So what? Given the choice most consumer electronics manufacturers and large corporations would choose the other one, and they are the ones making equipment.
I think you'll find that what the people want really does not matter.
Psalms x64-x86
"And God said unto the Israelites
'Blessed is he who protects content
and, ye, shall the masses loath it
but God shall smile upon you,
and bless your blu-ray player
and the copy of Batman Begins
housed within it.' "
The abyss gazes also into you.
and in doing so make any computer inaccessible and not purchasable by government. Between this and the fact that none of the windows screen readers work with Vista it seems as it everyone is working over time to have the blind and print disabled move from Windows to Mac, Linux or Sun.
At some point will we need legislation that requires that computing equipment be accessible the way we now require such of telephone equipment?
I work for a major corporation. Why don't we bother with this DRM sort of thing? The short list:
Often, the truly valuable things in a company are the ideas and business strategies. This is low bandwidth information. The others - such as code, source masks, etc... already have the legal protection afforded trade secrets and copyrights. While it might not be practical to hand copy source code, this kind of espionage is rare and not very valuable. If company A stole company B's source code, company B would probably have a pretty good legal case against company A. However, the case for stealing ideas is a bit murkier and harder to prove.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Did anyone realize this has "Screw You Linux" written all over it?
\
I wouldn't be surprised if the next generation of freedom comes out of countries you don't really consider "free". Boggles the mind.
Taiwan, speaking broadly here, isn't that "unfree." It's not like PRC/mainland China, anyway.
Sure, they're not exactly a libertarian data haven, but I don't think you should be tarring them with the Russia/China brush. (I mean, they didn't get medieval and had a basically rational, collected response, when they had a bunch of Neo-Nazis hold a rally, which would probably land you in prison in many "free" countries in Europe.)
They're a secular, representative democracy, with a strong respect for individual rights. Yeah, as a nation they have some not-too-savory stuff in their collective past involving the treatment of the native population, but you could say the same thing about the U.S. or Australia or any number of other nations. Frankly, I think Taiwan deserves a lot more U.S. support than it gets (although, I suppose these days, they might not want it).
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
If Print Screen is disabled, how will the RIAA gather evidence?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Then /. readers should be taught the real value of "the freedom of choice" and myths about how the market will cater to our interests as users if there were fewer restrictions on it. Your freedom to control your computer as you see fit simply isn't adequately addressed by either. Richard Stallman reminds us in his talk about free software from Zagreb on 9 March 2006:
Digital Citizen
Implementing DRM functions in the CPU is not cowtowing to Vista, it's responding to the same rights management pressures that VISTA had to accommodate. VISTA's DRM is there to satisfy the demands of the content providers so that Vista can play back DRMed media from those providers. I know you want to blame MS for all the ills of the World, but you'd do better directing your misplaced anger at things like the BluRay consortium which make the DRM demands that Vista meets.
MS is a symptom as often as they are a cause of this problem, as here. The fundamental problem is the forced-upgrade/planned obsolescence cycle.
My point is simply that this cycle doesn't get as firm a foothold when the market is (relatively) free, i.e. when there is not a monopoly engaging in anticompetitive behavior and raising artificial barriers to entry.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
"Things like the BluRay consortium". That would inlcude the HD-DVD group right? Only, Microsoft are members of that consortium. So maybe it's ok to be mad in that case. It's not like this feature is going to be BluRay only, after all.
And after all is said and done, Microsoft surely do seem to have a passion for hardware that restricts what the users can do. Remember Paladium? Microsoft were founder members of the TPCA. And they've gifted the world with no shortage of software DRM. There's the Plays For Sure fiasco, and all the helpful DRM features built into windows media player... And somehow I can't help think that if they were opposed to the idea, they could do something about it. Then there's
Microsoft may not be solely to blame in this instance, but somehow I have difficulties buying into this image of them as weak and helpless, adrift at the mercy of Market Forces.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Business people do not start with supply and demand. They begin with property. Capitalism and free-marketry are sufficiently similar to confuse with one another, but they are not the same thing.
Management will see property ownership (the flip-side of rights restrictions) as inherently good. Their instinct is to perpetuate the business 'good', and receive a slice of that 'good' in due course. This is how they implement long-termism. 'Good' accumulates on 'good', and eventually the property that they created is expected to bring dividends. In a large company, the dividends are unlikely to be directly to themselves; so they are rewarded for being seen to have promoted the 'good' (in this case, creating new property).
The only thing that is missing from this equation is whether it actually brings benefits to the bottom line. When there is class war going on (in this case management against engineers), this side is often missed. When functionality fights a propertarian ideology, you're going to need mutiny to prevent propertarianism from winning. Engineers are trying to feed their families, are likely to be fatalist, and might be trying to win management favour besides. It's not as if it were a union issue; they're not protecting their own interests, so ethics and consumer interest will fail.
The shareholders will surely comply themselves, regardless of their true interests; when faced with a choice of slightly greater profits, and the promotion of their own propertarian ideology, they will choose "common sense" over analysis. Ie, they will choose propertarianism, for failure to do so is to oppose Locke and the American dream; something that they will not do for a couple of basis points on the dividend. Companies that choose analysis over "common sense" will be following a "risky" (non-conservative) strategy; thus their shares will be marked down, and the company will find it harder to raise money.
Market corrections to this kind of tendency are long-term, and people are born and indoctrinated too fast for them to do more than push a little the other way. Powerful social pressures strengthen naïve propertarianism; mere economics cannot compete.
Wikileaks, no DNS
MS didn't HAVE to do this. IT was a choice. Do you think it would have mattered even the slightest if MS told the media companies to get bent, and that it was THEIR responsibility to protect their oh-so-precious content?
How can the Blu-Ray consortium possibly hope to threaten Microsoft here?
I can understand PC manufacturers wanting this -- as someone else puts it, a nightmare for (say) HP might be "Only Dell computers can play Blu-Ray!"
And thus, if AMD supports it, and Intel doesn't, Dell will either buy AMD chips exclusively, or advertise their AMD offerings as being Blu-Ray compatible, while their Intel offerings aren't. Meaning that, in this sense, AMD has to support it for the same reason Dell does, except they don't even have to directly market this to consumers.
So, I can see hardware manufacturers rushing to support this, because they actually have competition. They could form a somewhat-illegal oligopoly by deciding to not support it -- neither Intel nor AMD -- but that buys them nothing. Whereas, if AMD supports this, and Intel/nVidia doesn't -- which seems likely -- then AMD could indirectly make money (through Dell selling AMD stuff as "Blu-Ray compatible").
I don't like it. Many here on Slashdot are fond of saying "Businesses exist to make money," as if that's an excuse here. AMD could certainly take a risk and simply develop the tech, but never sell it on a single chip until Intel does something similar.
But what does this have to do with Microsoft? With no competition, can't they just deliver a big "FUCK YOU" to the record labels and refuse to support this shit in their OS? At this point, it becomes irrelevant for AMD or any hardware manufacturer to try anything, as Windows won't support it. Without cooperation from Microsoft, it seems like it would be a lot harder to build a hardware/software platform on top of Windows designed to lock anything in.
So, what are they afraid of? "Fine, only MACS will support Blu-Ray!" Is that actually a threat? Linux would be even more laughable, here...
I mean, I can understand why they did it -- they cooperate with corporations, not individuals. Oh, and they want to make sure they get stuff for the Zune store, and there's really no reason for them not to...
Still, notice how Steve Jobs has managed to get EMI's stuff DRM-free. I'm sure if Microsoft even tried here... "Remove your DRM if you want this stuff to work on Windows."
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!