Slashdot Mirror
Open Source DRM Solutions?
Feint writes "I'm working on an business platform for inter-company collaboration based on an open source software stack. As part of that platform I would like to integrate some sort of digital rights management for the documents in the system. The vast majority of articles about DRM are focused how good or evil it is to apply DRM to digital music or video. I haven't seen many articles address open source solutions for protecting business data like CAD / MS Office / PDF / etc. documents, which is a real need in business today. Can the Slashdot readership suggest some open source DRM offerings other than the Sun DReaM initiative, which hasn't had a release since Jan. 2007?"
Public key cryptography. It won't protect work from being copied, but that's an endless battle anyways until the trusted computing platform is mainstream.
No.
I'm sure some of us could, but why would we want to? Design our own prison? Encumber data? Stop whistleblowers?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Hey, Guys! I want some help too!
Do we have open-source Tasers? I'm also after open-source software to rig voting machines.
I look in freshmeat and SourceForge - but they mostly seem to be oriented to freeing people, not locking 'em up.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Passwords can be applied in any number of ways. You can base it on pgp keys, if you want to limit the specific people who have access to the documents; or, you can do a one-size-fits-all solution, just applying a password to a file, and giving that password to those who need access.
Nemilar http://www.techthrob.com - Visit Me!
If it's open source, you can change it thus disabling any protection it might offer unless it's some hardware-backed signing. The system isn't designed for it either, just removing all the ways you could dump the information anyway would be big job. Just get Vista if you want an end-to-end DRM stack. In short, you want to give someone the DRM'd file, the instrcutions on how the DRM works and still want them to be unable to decode it on their own, bypassing any DRM? Not going to happen.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You need to go find out what DRM is.
DRM is about Alice/Bob/Eve cryptography where Bob and Eve are the same person. All DRM tries to work by hiding the Implementation - Universally, it fails.
Open source is about revealing the implementation.
OpenDRM. Just say Huh?!
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
I don't think it means what you think it means.
OSS is about the open minded sharing of ideas, DRM(TM) is(TM) about(TM) the(TM) close(TM) minded(TM) restriction(TM) of(TM) ideas(TM).(TM)
DRM is security through obscurity. If you have the code, you can break any DRM, so there's no point in developing open source DRM. It's also why all DRM eventually fails.
Use encryption if you want safety. But you still can't prevent the people who have legitimate access from doing whatever they want to the documents.
I think the systems you're after are called Document Management Systems, like you'd find used for medical records under HIPAA.
The only open source system I am aware is OpenKM[http://www.openkm.com/].
There is a reason that DReaM hasn't had a release since January 2007.
Most people smart enough to program such a thing are also smart enough to know it can never work. People who do create/sell/push drm solutions are selling snake oil.
Your best bet is to use PGP and simply encrypt your data, and trade public keys with your intended recipients. And plan ahead - once someone can see it, assume they can always see it. The whole "revoking a key" bit is the snake oil part of DRM.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
For all those who are saying "open source DRM" is an oxymoron, they should have a look at OpenIPMP, which is an open-source DRM solution for video formats. So there is a precedent for this kind of thing, although it may not be widely adopted.
Nemilar http://www.techthrob.com - Visit Me!
DRM is ultimately an unwinnable situation. Cryptography is meant to prevent Eve from listening in on Alice and Bob by using something only Alice and Bob know. In this situation, you are both Bob (the player who has the key) and Eve. If you can derive from your hardware or software what Bob knows, game over, and the past few years have shown us that you can ALWAYS derive what Bob knows.
Give up on this unworkable system.
How about trusting the people you give documents to?
Public key is the way to go. Place the keys on smart cards or smart USB keys. Encrypt files individually, not just as volumes. OK, it'll be a pain in the ass. Maybe PGP Enterprise will help?
"DRM" is not the search term you want, though, and it is in fact not what you want for business documents. You just want to set up a public-key infrastructure (PKI) and make sure people protect their private keys. This can be done by OpenPGP, GnuPG, etc.
DRM makes it hard for people to leak a file. It does not spend very much effort, if any, on authenticating the initial owner of the file (for example, anyone who picks up a DVD can play it, although they can't copy it to a new DVD). In a business environment, you're usually far more worried about authenticating the file's recipient and making sure the original does not accidentally reach anyone else's computer, than about preventing a cooperative person from intentionally leaking the file. (In most cases, you do want to permit them to print, copy-and-paste, etc. the document. These would all be prevented by DRM because they all make it easy to leak the file.)
The other failing of DRM, as I'm sure you've seen discussed, is that it's crackable by mere cleverness. If you're going to permit someone to view a file on screen (or hear an audio clip over headphones), you can always take a screenshot (or recording) and leak that. HDCP and so forth make the screenshot harder, but nothing prevents you from pointing a camera at the TV. It will be low quality but it will be a leak. PKI, on the other hand, is only crackable by brute-force searches of the key space, or (unlikely though possible) sufficiently smart mathematicians.
Implementing something like this, you need to understand why it needs to be implemented.
Most of what you want can be implemented by encrypting/decrypting on the fly as files are opened by signed in users. That is how most programs work. If that won't work for you then you need to organize how the program/files will be accessed in order to establish what control is needed.
If a technology is going to be designed to deliberately suck for the consumer, it might as well suck as hard as it possibly can. Just go closed source.
How would leakers be able to get the goods on corporate misdeeds if there was tracking and protection?
Why would you want to assist corporate overlords at the expense of well-meaning (but misguided) geeks everywhere making such leaks more difficult?
DRM depends on proprietary software. You are encrypting a file, then giving the user the key to decode it, while telling the program in question to decode the file, but only allow it to be used in one of a few ways (eg. display PDF, but don't print).
Such a system is untenable with proprietary software (just need to find the right memory address), and absolutely impossible with open source software, as you can simply remove the line in the program that tells it what actions not to allow. (See xpdf). With proprietary DRM systems, the companies just hope it's difficult enough to decipher the compiled code of the proprietary programs, that it takes a while before someone finds the right spots in memory to probe/change, and publishes the details... Then, they make trivial changes to the DRM system, and call it a new, "fixed" version that everyone should start using quickly (before someone figures it out).
The only thing DRM can do effectively, is to prevent the first opening of the file. After you send that first key (eg. via server), no matter what the DRM involved, the user can (trivially) strip the DRM off, and do whatever they want with the unencrypted file.
If that is what you want... I would suggest using public-key encryption to protect the file instead of a commercial "DRM" system. Either PGP or SSL (keys in combination with a password) can make absolutely sure only the intended recipient can make use of the file, even if others obtain copies of it. If you are expecting any more control over what others do with the file, you are simply denying reality.
All that said, here is one open source DRM system: http://www.sidespace.com/products/oggs/
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
There is a great disturbance in the open source world, as if millions of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
Because DRM is, by definition, security by obscurity. The submitter wants something that can't exist in this universe. Awesome!
We have had this discussion. There is no legitimate use for DRM. It has no right to exist. I have told people this before. DRM does not improve the security of corporate networks. Thats not what it is meant to do. DRM has just one purpose. to deprive people of the right to use the computers they own as they see fit. Securing documents and sensitive company data is to use good security practices. IPSec, Kerberos, PKI, that kind of thing.
Point. Learn good computer security practices.
I want DRM to dissappear from this world forever/
Here's what's become my business-side take on DRM: don't bother.
DRM systems set the bar too high for honest users who just need to get some work done, and too low for malicious users.
Corporate espionage in mind? Just make screen-captures. That won't work? Digital camera, anyone?
You can't make it work, principally because there's no way to both show and not show the same document to an end user. The security is only as good as your trusted users are.
You can also appeal to reason on financial grounds: the Hollywood studios are extremely motivated to make DRM work, have pored in millions and haven't hit on anything at all that prevents piracy.
If they can't do it, you probably can't either, and should probably focus on differentiating your content by making it sticky and extremely easy to use.
Do you want to control the copyrights
or do you want to control the access rights?
It would seem to be 2 different issues.
Do you really want to send this data out in to the wilderness to lots of people you don't trust on the hope they might pay you?
Or are you more looking for a system where trusted colaberators can freely share information in a more flowing fashion.
"Call us when the New age is old enough to drink" Beck
When utilizing something like PGP, why not have multiple levels of permissions? If a user has a password of X, he gets read access, if it's Y there's full access. If you don't have either, you can't even open the document.
I don't know if PGP supports something like this but I don't see how it could be a major failure.
"Use encryption if you want safety. But you still can't prevent the people who have legitimate access from doing whatever they want to the documents."
Like install a logic bomb.
There's basically two kinds of DRM in the world: DRM that's been broken and DRM that no one has cared to break.
So, that said, here's some python DRM you can use which I am releasing into the public domain:
(replace _ with spaces)
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
Well, that is your only recourse.
1) Have recipients sign an NDA, telling them you will sue if you can prove they "leak" stuff.
2) Prove it!
Now that's the tricky part, but slapping DRM on a document isn't going to help. I think all you are left with is being sneaky and sending out "marked" copies to all recipients. Of course it can't be an obvious mark, or they will just remove it. Also, if a "leaky" recipient gets more than one copy he can diff them to clean it up.
Slashdotters will just say "trust your recipients", of course that doesn't work, because if you have to share with any organization with more than X employees, some number of them will be scumbags, for whatever reason. The document will be leaked, if only because "they can".
After someone has seen the restricted document, inflict severe head trauma, wiping it from their memory. If you're not willing to go that far, DRM is pretty pointless.
Software patents delenda est.
The main purpose of Free and Open Source software licensing is to insure that all of a device's native capabilities are always available to the user.
//not// available to the user in specific circumstances.
//licensing// used, without even considering any code at all.
The main purpose of DRM is to insure that some of a device's native capabilities (eg, the ability to copy bits) are
THAT is why FOSS DRM does not really exist (and why nobody uses Sun's DReaM). It's not about software quality control - it's a flaw in the designed intent of these systems that you can point out based on the
You can't expect to design a "technological protection measure" that one commits a felony to bypass, and then release it under a license that expressly permits them to bypass it.
Search the USPTO for DRM patents sometime:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=drm&FIELD1=&co1=AND&TERM2=&FIELD2=&d=PTXT
Just start reading some of the claims. Every variation and every nuance of just about any DRM scheme has been patented up the whazoo. Any company that even starts to think about implementing or using a DRM solution, open source or not, is just begging to get sued into oblivion.
Hey dude.
DRM is usually a pain for your customers. Some people like me buy stuff and try to use it and begin to really hate DRM. I hate DRM so much, I use linux at home. I'm willing to give up a decent OS just to be rid of DRM.
I'm sure your a nice person, I'm just trying to warn you: If you put your DRM junk in my app, I will download your source, and make it save without the DRM.
Then I will fork it and put it on sourceforge. If you're looking for it, it will be called the same with _free or _liberty on the end.
I will then spam your forums telling your customers that you are a liar and a thief and are using DRM to spy on your customers. Which is fairly accurate, you're putting DRM in their app you sound like a real bastard.
Go closed source or the forkers will get you.
Thanks for your concern.
Here's an open source project that tried to put horrible banner ads in their app: http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1877483&forum_id=618307
Now they're trying to unopen source it hehe.
As the buzzwords further proliferate within this industry, I have a subtle recommendation for you.
1. Implement a good role based administration system, say Kerberos with a Mysql Back end then use Samba to serve the windows boxes on your network, cheaper than Windows Server 2003 / 2008 and highly scaleable, you'll just have to figure somthing out for enforcing security policies from the directory side or use e-Dir from Novell.
2. Get said roles into a good documentation management solution
(Document management solutions are available from everyone, Microsoft; Novell (Suse), Xerox)
Find out which methods and processes work best for what type of media you are storing, a good example for projects and documents may be Wiki's with editing and administrative domains over trees run by the appropriate responsible parties.
Most of all do your Resarch, keep your management in the loop and use their input to guide you.
Cory Doctorow was been over this a couple of years ago when Sun came up with the (I'm guessing abandoned) idea of an Open Source DRM. Here, go read why it's oxymoronic: DRM != SSL
Any protection scheme where your customer and your attacker are the same party, doomed to failure, IMO.
Do not buy any DRM-encumbered products. Make a statement about this by not participating.
The only way to keep data secure is to keep the method or key secure. I've developed 2 encryption apps that basicly function like a container compression app (like winrar, winzip, etc). I would keep the encryption and compression types completely secret. Since I do not own the copyrights to the work, I can not go into great detail, but it can be done.
Like anything, once the data is out of the bag, your security drops. You cant prevent everything.
Container Object
-mathmatical object (is based on a set of rules on where to place the 'header' information, instead at the front and end of file.
-detail object (contains the encryption info, expire data info, server authentication info, key authentication info, compression info, password key info)
-file object (contains all the files using the detail object)
-checksum object (validates the file to the original file for security)
Container Application
-functions like winzip (has a windows explorer shell, a MS outlook shell and a IE shell).
You should also check out http://www.alfresco.com/. It was started by some of the founders of Documentum and Interwoven. It does some interesting Enterprise Content Management foo, which may be of use to you.
You've gotta transcend the user experience and do what ever it takes to protect those revenue streams! It's that important!
May I suggest XCP?
--Sony BMG.
THL phish sticks
Why would anyone want to defer from working on their open source poison that causes slow-and-painful death for cute puppies?
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
... I suggest you put your wallet back in your pocket, and don't spend any more money on consultants, software, or IT staff hours spent configuring the free and non-free stuff in furtherance of your goals.
Instead you should save your money and hire a lawyer instead who will draft up NDAs for you to have people sign in order to protect those documents/secrets you want tightly controlled.
Technical solutions will not cut it. They never will. You are throwing your money away.
Hire a lawyer, and only give the documents to people who ABSOLUTELY need it and is worth the time to get contracts involved with.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Open iPIMP? Who named that thing, anyhow?
can we produce a black whiteness?
can we produce a filled emptyness?
can we produce a hard softness?
can we produce a rich poverty?
can we produce an Open DRM?
err... not really?
I know of one DRM system that is totally open. You can put any document in it that you want. They have a website at http://goatse.cz/ that shows all of the great things about DRM.
Licence limiting software is a real pain and time sink. I've been halted in the last couple of weeks by one with a Y2K bug of all things, have others limited to dongles on real parallel ports (USB converters have a different memory address to a parallel port in MS Windows) and have to keep a licence server on Redhat 7.3 due to another bit software that handles licences using an experimental linuxthreads implementation dropped eight years ago. One thing that is incredibly frustrating is that the licence software is almost always easily bypassed by very obvious means but it is against the licence agreement to do it without permission - the software only suceeds in punishing the honest.
The important thing with documents is if you do not want the recipient to look at it then do not give it to them. Portions can be copied and pasted out
Alot of you seem keen on bashing DRM, and yes I may agree when it comes to fair use etc on Music and video. But in a corporate scenario, there are many valid reasons for DRM. For instance, I may wish a collegue to read a document but not be able to forward it on, or print it. I may wish a collegue to view a document, but only for a limited time, as it is a draft and I don't want them to get confused over which document they have is live.
These simple scenario's are not covered by PGP or PKI infrastructures which are about allowing access to the document, and securing its transport. it is about the permissions on the use of the document itself. If you send an email to a collegue, in which you say something you don't want repeated, then with DRM, they would not be able to forward it, or print it. At which point it expired after 1 viewing. Please explain to me how this would be done with a PKI infrastructure and PGP.
You may not agree with the concept of this, but in the business community it is common place to secure a document from being printed or forwarded. Industrial Espionage is rife, which is why most orgs will use some form of PKI for the forwarding of sensitive information outside or they have an extranet which is secured via SSL or the like.
If you are going to reply here, and do so with gusto, I would suggest you read and understand the question and then you can reply much more intelligently. The question was about a business environment, and not you illegally gained music, and was about DRM, not PKI security or encryption.
In business there are things like trade secrets, documents, drawings and the like that you have to distribute to a jobber or some other outside entity to accomplish a task, but you really only want the outside entity to have them for the amount of time that they actually need them to get a task completed.
Typically this has been accomplished via NDA's or other legal agreements. It appears that in some instances they want more then a "promise" to destroy the information when it is no longer useful for the legitimate contracted purpose. Sort of like the old "This tape will self destruct in 10 seconds" gag from mission impossible.
The problem is that it really cannot be accomplished. You can use PGP or IronKey (tm) as others have suggested but that only prevents the material from being easily viewed by 3rd parties and does not address the "self destruct" desire.
I really cannot think of a way to make that happen. Every method that I can think of requires the destruct method to either be built into the data ( as a code block ) but even then something has to execute that code, and that is simply worked around.
It basically has to come down to trust. Either you trust the outside entities that you deal with or you don't. When I was in the military I had access to classified materials, and I was looked over from front to back top to bottom, my friends and neighbors were interviewed as well as my Principal from High School.
Sadly, I think the last 8 years of the current administration have re-enforced the notion of mistrust and it has found its way deep into the culture of corporate America.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
i think the author totally misses the point? if your talking how do you restrict access by group/individual etc to the files this is a function of ther file-system used NOT DRM pick a good filiing system and anyone can choose which users/groups they want to be allowed read/write/whatever access their files {DRM is supposed to be a method of making a copy of a file useless to anyone but the intended reader or an uncopyable file, this requires the creator and the reader use a file format that allows the creator to create a unique copy per reader and the reader being unable to alter the recieved copy, not much use for files in an office i'll bet!!} thus each form of DRM needs a file creation tool and a file display tool and a secret algorithim for making it only possible to display it with the correct hidden key, open source solutions would therfore be improbable as the key/hash/function could be reverse engineered by reading the source}
Just trying to use a DRMed file is useless
Just try using adobe ebooks, (not the protected pdfs) but the actual ebooks being sold. EBX_HANDLER errors and no real way to remove that crap
A publisher should not have the power to say you cannot print a file, but sadly they do.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
If the hardware signing is not controlled by the user, it's generally not considered Free Software, although it may well be open source.
But that is pretty much the only way to give someone the source, but not the content -- assuming you are trying to protect content. If you are trying to prevent people from copying your code, then you completely missed the point of "open source".
I would very much like to see a followup article, or a clarification, or some comment by the guy who made this post, to find out just what the living Hades he was thinking to come up with this idea. This is even worse than the last Ask Slashdot, where the guy was asking how to run a consolidated, distributed network -- also a contradiction in terms, except in a very limited context (something like Coda for a distributed FS, so there's no "servers")...
Maybe we're missing some context here? Because I'm going to have to cry if this is actually, say, an MBA who thinks "Open Source" is a good idea because he gets free labor and "DRM" is good because they need to "protect their rights," and why can't he have both?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
am I the only one who gets the willies from their calling such a thing "dream"?
expandfairuse.org
Last time that was posted, there was a DMCA complaint. Careful.
For company documents, this problem has already been solved, just any of the many encryption solutions available ... I don't think there is any major need in normal business use that DRM fulfills that regular encryption based solutions do not. (Actually your request just sounds like a FUD-style attempt to 'legimitise' DRM, good luck with that around here.)
Either trust the people you show the documents, or don't show them to them. That's all you can do, realistically.
Paranoia is contagious... if you show people you suspect that they're devious bastards, they'll arrange to be devious bastards. If you trust people for the most part, they'll be trustworthy. I'm not saying put everything on a publicly available website, but show your employees a little faith and they'll believe in you, and just keep a little eye out for things that aren't right. You don't need a panopticon, though.
The second solution is a completely secure display device. Only allow the things to be displayed on one machine that has no connection to anything else, no removable drives or accessible ports, no Internet connection or programs except to the VPN to the "secure" documents, and big burly bald guy scowling at everyone who uses it.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Make absolutely certain the drawings being used on the production floor are the correct revision. I mean on terminals on the line. And make sure no one printed a copy for "convenience".
I.E. - Engineers and CAD designers are the only ones that can see pre-production drawings. Pre-production drawings are not accessible from line terminals, only engineering or conference room workstations. Line terminals can not print drawings, though they can print some other things. Line terminals and assembly people can't even open non-production documents.
Considering many electronics assembly shops have people on staff that used to (like, last week) work for a competitor the possibility of moles in real. So, prevent documents from being opened by non-authorized personnel. Prevent drawings from being printed, copied to removable media, etc.
I've had to deal with all of that in a manufacturing environment.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
No DRM solution is better than your everyday encryption. DRM is just an added layer ontop of the encryption that lends itself to new and expanded attack vectors against the protected material.
Also, no matter what scheme you use the analog hole is still prevalent. If your client shows that PDF/whatever to the wrong person any protection is useless.
HTTP/1.1 400
it is about the permissions on the use of the document itself.
So, it's not about DRM, but about permissions....
Anyway, the thing is: you want to secure data from an authorized person for a limited time. That is, by definition, not possible. Let's simply take the "Forward" scenario, you mentioned. The system will clearly not allow Copy/Paste because that would already defeat it. This is very well known and exists in Exchange/Outlook, which as you will note are closed proprietary platforms. Now, we're going to imagine that they are open source. Our corporate spy is a bit of a coder and gets the source of Outlook, which he now hacks to allow Copy/Paste (the "Forward" may be enforced by Exchange, but he could use his own mailserver to leak it... anyway, let's not drift off). Now somehow, he manages to install that version on his machine (if physical security is lax, but we could imagine it to be Mission Impossible style if you are inclined to do so) and pronto! Copy/Paste of a non-forwardable message, or alternatively (if he disabled the disallow-forward code) forward to a known mailserver in his control that will allow all forwards.
Anyway, this was a simple scenario. You can implement all this in open source, but it will be trivial to circumvent. DRM depends on closed source. Once data is visible on your computer, there is always a way to copy it. The email is currently visible? Well, a clear-text decryption exists somewhere in the memory of the computer. "Just" find the address.
DRM exists to make it harder, yes, but impossible.... Not on a cold day in hell.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
The ultimate user for DRM would be DoD. They don't use it. Maybe that should tell you something.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Ultimately, open source software is mutually incompatible with digital rights management. Imagine you had a system built from the ground up on open source software; everything from the BIOS to the document viewing software was open source and thus open to end-user modification. With such a system, there is simply no way to restrict users from viewing content, short of encrypting that content and providing the key only to trusted users.
To take a simple example: imagine you have a PDF that has the 'printable' flag set to false, and you want to print a page from it. Just get the source code to your favourite open source PDF viewer, modify it to ignore said flag, recompile, and print to your heart's content.
If you're using systems with TCPA chips, then check out this overview and IBM's examples.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
They're mutually exclusive. The only way to enforce DRM is to encrypt the contents and only permit decryption when authorized. But, to decrypt the content you have to have the decryption key present. If the software is open-source, anyone can simply change the code to dump out the decryption key. Once they have the key, they can decrypt the content exactly as if they were authorized to do so. Or, they can simply change the code so the enforcing application always gets back "Yes." as the answer to "Is this operation authorized?". And protecting the code using signatures won't work either, since the user can simply change the signature-verification key and sign the modified application himself or simply remove the signature check entirely.
DRM requires preventing the user from seeing the internals of the program and preventing him from modifying the program. Open source starts with the user being able to see every bit of the internals of the program and being able to modify the program in any way he wants. You've invalidated DRM's basic requirements before you've even begun.
Everyone on this board appears to be so biased by the DRM implementation that the RIAA has used that it is truly blinding your vision to some actualy good uses. Example. Small time photographers will photgraph a wedding. These guys generally pay for their time/expense by charging for the shoot. Where they actually make a profit to spend on fancy things like food and clothing is by charging per print. Most people want to view a good copy of the prints online before ordering. The photographer must place online low quality photos, or ones that are covered in trademarks, lines and other crap that can't be easily photoshopped out. Why? Because if they put the high quality res version up, the person would just download and print the thing without paying. Now the argumnet "Fuck the RIAA" doesn't really apply here I would hope people see. In this scenario a "DRM JPEG Browser Plug-in" would be very handy. the photographer can release a drm'd version so the consumer can see a high quality copy, they just can't then "steal" the thing. And yes I know about print-screen and etc, but this is just an example of how document drms are not necessarily bad.
Why is Digital Restrictions Management important within a business? Do you really want to annoy your employees?
If you're concern is protecting privacy and confidential data, then why don't you look at encryption instead of DRM?
I was trying to shave my balls, and wanted to email a picture to an un-tech-savvy friend for "approval". Needless to say, I was hesitant to do so, since I had no idea what her (yes, a female, try to breathe) data security practices were, and I didn't exactly want those pictures lying around.
To make a long story short, I never did find a practical solution. I could have hacked something up, but it wouldn't have stopped someone with malicious intent. It was easier to just get approval in person anyway...
All it takes is for ONE dedicated geek to build a phonograph, the copy then hits the internet and it's game over. Not even locking down the hardware will help because a single output wire operating at 50khz or above will be able to reproduce the sound. You would have to sniff every single port on the computer for a watermark, which just isn't going to happen.
The only way for DRM to work is through a big-brother society where all our activities are constantly monitored. DRM and privacy cannot exist together. The nature of sound is such that you can't stop people recording it without entering their homes and observing them in everything they do. How you generate the sound, through a record player or an advanced system of cryptographic "trusted" hardware, is irrelevant. The physical phenomena of sound has been well understood for more than 100 years, it can be recorded, copies can be made, life goes on.
It gets a little bit more elaborate for movies, but same thing applies. Theoretically I could make photographic film, use a rather simple assembly of lenses to project the screen onto them, record the movie at twice the desired frame-rate... Photography isn't very new by modern standards, it just takes one person to circumvent it, then it hits the net.
One of the big problems with DRM is that it's a sexy technology.
Technologists and businessmen just love the idea of being able to control other people in ways that were not possible before and that's why DRM keeps resurfacing. I know, I used to like DRM myself until I grew up and realized that it was simply not in my interest to live in a supposedly free society when DRM does end-runs around everything from first sale doctrine to fair use provisions to the copyright bargain to free enterprise. This is becoming increasingly important as intellectual worlds become more important in people's lives.
DRM is guilty until proven innocent. I do not want to live in such a society.
---
DRM - Have you got big-corp-of-your-choice's permission to go to the toilet today?
What a pompous fool. If you want to spike your crap with digital AIDS, go ahead. I wasn't planning on using it, but now that you add Digital Restrictions Malware to it, I'll make sure to pirate it.
I was about to say 13256278887989457651018865901401704640, but it appears this number is private property.
Look, get DRM out of your head - I have yet to find a place for it, and I've only been in IT for 25 years, of which 15 in security. I have seen dongles (still in use in the CAD industry), I have seen floppy disks with laser holes (bypassed by TSRs), I have seen media with altered parameters (which neededs special drives: say hello to hardware maintenance hell), I have seen registration schemes..
You should really first see if the disadvantages outweigh the benefits, from what I read you're simply after some method to protect information from disclosure. Well, encrypt it. Just don't use any DRM related solution because you're inflicting a serial chain of single points of failures on your business, and it'll screw any backup and recovery strategy as well. Just don't. You really don't know just how much trouble you're heading for.
Insert
A controversial branch of GStreamer added DRM support a few years back. The idea is that a trusted module can receive data from an untrusted module but only send data to another trusted module. Trusted modules are usually based on the same source code as the signed module but have been compiled by a party that the previous trusted module trusts, and there is a PKI like system to manage which signatures are accepted by which modules and it uses some sort of an asymmetric signature checking system to verify this.
I don't know whether this is going forward or not, the very idea of this system is going to invoke the ire of the free software world and I doubt the GStreamer guys are stupid enough to go against community beliefs (and possibly prejudices) since it relies on the community for patches, bug reports and publicity. Anyway, GStreamer is a great platform that is widely used now and it is worth checking out, thought the DRM side might need a lot of TLC without much help from the community.
I hope this helps, even though I wish DRM ill in general, I admire anyone with the courage to post something like that on Slashdot, though it would have impressed me more if you had your account/email address attached.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
The TiVo demonstrates that open source DRM is possible. As many, many others have pointed out, if the end-user has control of the code then they can easily circumvent DRM measures. The TiVo closed this loophole by using DRM/encryption technology to control the code that runs on the user's device, making it impossible for users to run modified software that is not approved by a central authority. Yet the source code is open for all to see.
It is much more difficult (impossible) to use Free (as in freedom) software to implement DRM. Free software ensures the end-user has control over the code running on their own machine and then all of the oxymoron arguments made above apply. All free software is open source but not all open source software is free. When discussing things such as implementating DRM, it is a mistake to assume "open source" and "free" are synonymous. They're not.
Choose your words and your licenses wisely.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
A lot of people seem to be hung up on "DRM is bad" part, but it seems there are plenty of good uses for such a technology. Especially in the areas of personal data.
For example:
Bank has an accounts data file which contains, among other things, Social security numbers. It outsources the processing of this accounts file to some third party contractor. Wouldn't it be nice if there was something that kept the contractor from stealing all that info? No, the bank can't wipe his brain, but it could damn well make it harder to steal everything en masse.
I would love for my bank to take this great care in my personal data. Or my doctor, for that matter. Or my accountant, etc. Why is the basic premise such a bad idea?
If you want DRM then you have fundamentally misunderstood how (and why) computers and the internet work.
I suggest a career change to advertising.
Your problems have been tackled back when I was still fluid. Funny though that a quick grep doesn't show any comments about AAA; authentication, authorization and accounting. Combined with auditing, you can manage your rights and lefts in a remarkably fine grained fashion.
/.:
You can use Authentication to determine who's who, ACLs to determine who can access what and when (who's authorized), Accounting to determine who's doing what and when, and Auditing to point out who's doing what they shouldn't have been doing and when. Or like how we like to point things out here on
1. Implement authentication (I hope you're at least already this far)
2. Implement ACLs
3. Implement accounting
4. Implement auditing
5. ?????
6. Profit!
Yes, it is possible. It's just not that simple.
You need a good key stored inside the processor in battery backed RAM, and a real-time decryption engine from the memory to the internal processor bus. This is used for embedded code protection in some cases. This has some really serious drawbacks. First, if the backup battery is dead or removed, you have a brick. Second, if its to be used for DRM, the key must be unique for each unit and software distribution will be a nightmare. And the list goes on...
First and formost, be aware that the information in the contant can be taken out. Even just reading it or re-typing it is possible. Some people might even memorize parts of what is in the documents.
Next perhaps you want to be sure that the papers come from the people that they say it comes from. For that you can use gpg. Either by signing or by encrypting it.
I am not sure if there is a method that has embedded gpg in the document. That could potentialy be a good idea as it is then verifiable IF the signature is in there. No signature, no valid file.
I am sure it is possible to build something that would make this possible. Again understand that this does NOT protect the data in there. It just verifies that the content is unchanged.
Look also at how many people will be using such a system, because the more people, the easier it will for somebody to look at something that is not intended for them. Managers gove logins and passwords to their secretaries and so on.
Now if you make a document type with empedded gpg, you could install software on client machines that will do part of the autentication based on e.g. their IP adress.
You could even have a kind of code-machine that banks use.
The question is if it is worth it. I doubt that it is.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Yes.
Its called a filesystem, use it!
There are plenty of projects to allow fine tuned access to the files on a filesystem, in a variety of methods.
Thats our version of DRM.
It seems to me that there is a degree of confusion over *what* DRM is, probably because of the big fuzz about protected music files. Digital Rights Management is a bit more than that, and in my opinion it's *still* a security holy grail: being able to extend the security controls to *what is done* with the file, not just control who can read it. This would include being able to print or copy a sensitive document as opposed to only be able to view it on the screen. It might seem as a BigCorpBadThing(tm) but it's really no more evil than encryption or ACLs, it's about who can access my data AND what they can do with it. Slapping such protections on a music file is draconian, stopping a contractor walking out of the front door with soft or hard copies of sensitive, business critical documentation is just sensible. At any rate, for all that to be possible, the system must be trusted and validated in its entirety (Trusted Computing anyone?). So, given that most hardware around is nowhere near "military grade", how come these DRM'd mp3s have not been hosed across the board already? ;)
Password protect them or encrypt them all. And in each copy, you encrypt it or password it with the Social Security number of each employee it's going to. This would be a pain, but who's going to tell the web what the password is to this new file.
DRM, if by DRM you mean a method to stop files from being copied, is based on security through obscurity. It has to be.
In cryptography, Alice wants to send a message to Bob without it being intercepted by Charlie. With DRM, Alice wants to send a message to Bob without it being intercepted by... Bob. This makes no sense. You have to send Bob both the document, and the key to the document, otherwise Bob won't be able to read the document. But, if you send Bob the key, then Bob can also strip the encryption from the document, destroying your DRM. Typically, DRM systems try to make the algorithm used and the location of the key difficult to find, by hiding it with convoluted code. This is why these systems always fail.
In an open source world, though, you have to give away the location of the key and the algorithm used; it's open source, and anyone can look at the source code. Open source and security-through-obscurity are fundamentally incompatible.
Funny, or anything. Just mod them down and move on.
The only reason accounts like this are posting at all is to trick people into clicking the fake links in their sigs.
Yeah, only stupid people will click & log themselves out, but why encourage the trolls?
Why would someone donate their time to help protect your content?
You have to separate DRM, which is a type of protection designed for short-term media protection, from content-based information security. The former fails by security through obscurity, the latter is a very interesting, but very difficult research area, and if you (or anyone) were to come up with any cross-vendor implementation of a working solution, you would advance the security of information exchange between partners manyfold.
Exactly. The poster says:
I'd like to see real proof of that need. Corporations were created to serve society. Keeping secrets from the public, or preventing competition by keeping secrets from competitors instead of cooperating for maximum return on time and investment, does not help society.
There's been talk lately of forcing companies that work on government (i.e. public) projects to do all related dealings in the open. I'd like to see that idea become more popular, and to extend to the rest of corporate dealings as well, since it all affects society and government eventually.
It would simply not work because anyone could change the code of the playback portion to drive the data to the hard disk instead of the screen. The only way this would be possible is through TIVOing, i.e. the hardware would not run if changes were detected in the binary code of the software... This goes all against OpenSource fundamentals, and is already prohibited blocked by GPL3. I.E.: There must be an unencripted stream somewhere, and open source software would always allow us to hook it up. This might be solved only by hardware, e.g. a monitor device capable of decripting and playing a stream. This implies, though, that the monitor has a hardware decoder, so only one codec might be supported. If the solution on the monitor were a software, it would fall back to the same case as decription on the PC.
The only DRM that can possibly work is the sealed black box with self destruct feature when tampered with. And even then, the black box has to be fully integrated, or use something like a stronger version of HDCP with a monitor.
This is all entirely a different concept than, for example, a top secret agency like the NSA encrypting backup data it stores offsite. That agency has no reason to give out any keys to the public because it isn't trying to make the data accessible to the public. You, and the media companies, OTOH, have contradicting goals. You want at least some of the public to see the data on a platform they basically control most of. In the case of open source software, change that to: they control virtually all of. This is all fundamentally a flawed concept right from the beginning. Whether or not your system gets cracked, or how quickly, depends on whether there is an interest. If someone wants it, they will get it.
Your best option is some sort of watermarking that identifies each customer individually, in addition to being a proof that the document originates with you. Even this can be easily cracked, but at least it doesn't require being cracked for someone who just wants to view your document to do so. So maybe the effort to crack it won't be made unless someone wants to get into the act of masssively distributing your document.
You can't win. So why play the game.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
If you've been paying attention you know Dumb Restrictions on Media won't and can't work. How many programmers do you have working with you? OK, they're arrayed agains literally hundreds of thousaned of nerds all ready to crack your encryption, and once it's creaked it's cracked. The genie won't get back in the bottle. One against a million, those are impossible odds.
DRM gives "pirates" features that your paying customers don't have. Why should I pay for a crippled product when I can get the real deal for free? If you're going to treat me like a thief, why should I be honest?
Either you know this and are defrauding your employers, or you don't and you're incompetent. Or possibly you're trolling?
DRM is stupid. Anyone who thinks DRM can work is ignorant. Anybody who codes DRM is defrauding their employer.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
This whole conversation is a moot point because it's a question being asked without this fundamental technical principle. You can't have open-source software that is capable of decrypting some content and then just keep a user who has that open-source software not to rewrite it to let them remove the encryption. The only thing this conversation can turn into is another search result about the relative evils of DRM.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
DRM implementation attempts, in the past (for the foreseeable future), like M$vista ... is a path to self-assured-destruction.
... for some DRM and content assurance. DRM has hidden cost with no added value or ROI to performance, creativity, innovation, success ....
... international (macroµ) economics.
Use PKI, SecLAN, AirGap
IPR should be protected by law, but all DRM models and present IPR laws have proved to be dysfunctional and costly. The never-ending DRM cost should not justify higher kiddie-persecution fines (or corporate expenditures) as a solution. The cost should indicate that existing concepts and far better IPR laws/solutions must be considered as very reasonable for US, EU
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
If this were the "old days" and your translation work was done on a typewriter would you be looking for self-destructing paper? Why are people always looking for technical solutions for business problems? Have your clients sign a contract before beginning the work and if they don't pay when you deliver then hire a collections agency (or take them to small-claims court, or demand payment up-front for first-time customers, or write it off as a business loss, or hire the mob to shake them down). Business people have been facing the problem of dead-beat customers for millenniums, the solutions are already out there.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Is it possible that rather than DRM you need:
1) Access control
2) Revision Tracking
3) Document Encryption
Because those needs can probably be met by open source software.
as it is currently implemented is necessarily bad for encrypting files securely, and providing authentication services, the issue is that the trusted computing chips (and the standard) were influenced by the media companies, and thus don't allow for individuals to create their own anonymous identities. Unfortunately, this last subtle issue means that once TCPM is up and running on your PC, you no longer own the PC, the companies who install software or media do. This last point is particularly madening as the process to install and activate Trusted Computing on your PC is called "taking control".
The smoking gun here is that the original designers of trusted computing in the PC market have publicly stated that they didn't realize at the time the impact that their design would have on owners, and that they now oppose its use. Long story short, for public use, there is a OSS supported platform, trusted computing, however, it is ill suited for use by the public. If on the other hand, you are designing embedded devices and need to deal with the RIAA or MPAA, it is the cat's meow.
PDF Creator (and similar programs) won't stop people from making copies of files. It won't stop determined individuals from cracking it open. But it can stop casual users from misusing documents in some circumstances.
It lets you easily restrict certain actions by selection options when you create the PDF. You can password protect, prevent copy/paste actions, even restrict printing.
I use it for Word, Excel, and CAD documents I don't want to be changed by the recipient. Usually because I don't want umpteen versions floating around I don't know about. Just my low budget form of revision control.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
While it is true that many articles about DRM focus on whether the attempt to create workable DRM is good or evil, the more fundamental issue is that DRM is not possible (at least using the accepted common definition of DRM).
Information security has been around a lot longer than DRM, and there is one unavoidable fact: You must choose between default accept and default deny. If you choose default accept, the DRM will be broken. If you choose default deny, legitimate use will be denied. And the latter will be broken anyway without dramatically changing the nature of computer workstations.
There are solutions, suggested in this commentary, which work great in specific circumstances. If you are using the documents in a controlled environment you can have a secure network with no physical capability to export bits (combined with physical security to avoid modification of the network). If the legitimate users are not considered release vectors you can use plain old encryption. But these are not DRM in the common sense, which would involve allowing restricted access to a set of bits on an untrusted computer by an untrusted operator. That part is not possible.
Most of the articles on DRM focus on whether it is good or evil. That is because those who argue that it is good do not understand that it is not possible, and so think they are engaging in a rational debate about its merits. Those who argue it is evil are either similarly mislead and arguing against its existence, or are aware that it is impossible and are arguing that the attempt is causing harm with no possible associated reward.
DRM is not possible. Scientifically speaking it is as silly as arguing the pros and cons of moving the Earth into a square orbit around the Sun.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Also, Bruce Schneier had a three-way with them both. Wish they had filmed it.
First a "disclaimer" (?): I was a key implementer of a rather large scale DRM system around a modern media project. While it may not be the best thing that I've ever done, after much thought I agreed with the business owners that it was better for the service to exist with DRM than not to exist at all. No one involved wanted the DRM except for the content providers, but we really couldn't get them to budge. While I'm no longer with that group, I know that it is an on going point of contention.
./ for useful information on how to do DRM? That's like asking a group of Amish how best to build a nuclear reactor.
So, with my unverifiable claims of authority out of the way, what are my recommendations? Define your problem better.
You're coming to us saying "I want to do DRM. How?" But you never told us the "Why?" This isn't about justification or excuses. It is to help us to understand the problem and work from there. Is this to maintain trade secrets? To isolate business information of one company from another? Is it to provide limited access (read but not print)? Is it to have an end date for access or duration limits? Is it to prevent copying? And (perhaps most importantly) how much do you trust the end users?
Most likely, a mixture of public key crypto (possibly with a hardware (either a TCM, smart cart, or USB crypto token)) along with a Document Management (or Enterprise Content Management) will be your solution. Though, you may only need well chosen file permissions.
But finally, what were you thinking to ask
"I haven't seen many articles address open source solutions for protecting business data like CAD / MS Office / PDF / etc. documents, which is a real need in business today."
Lies. Business existed for how many thousands of years without DRM?
OK, I think I need to toss a post out (to the wolves!) because the way I make my living is deeply enmeshed in the whole DRM chaos. I've got an unusual approach (well- for the business I'm in) and it's worth explaining how it specifically works because it violates some assumptions and makes others.
;) )
I make a living selling copyable software which has no DRM or copy protection, so I'm taking a bunch of time to explain how I'm doing that in the hopes Slashdot minds will find it interesting. This isn't hypothetical, it pays my bills. I'm betting it will continue to do so...
The software is mostly plugins for Logic etc. (Audio Unit format) but I'm also getting some other tools together like an animation program. This isn't free software- I'll talk pretty freely about how I do what I do but I don't distribute the code, and I pick some software products to give away at no cost and other products to sell, never for more than $60 before VAT etc. (lots of my sales are overseas, I'm in the USA)
Almost every (every?) commercial plug-in maker uses DRM, sometimes insanely intrusive stuff. There's stuff that has to dial home in order to be 'authorized' and you only get 3 or 4 goes before it is shut off, there's stuff that uses one of several dongles (iLok is the most common but there are others), etc.
I use NOTHING- once you have the plugin, I expect you to use it, back it up for safe keeping, use it on whichever computers you need it, including the new Logic nodes for DAW clustering that Apple's come up with. There isn't a line of code in there to take the plugin away from you, ever. It's a matter of principle.
At the same time, I expect people not to copy these to their friends, put them on websites, anything like that. You are only supposed to get them from me. It's done through a variation on DRM by Kagi Shareware, who are my store-runners: they have a thing they'd like to see people use more, called Kagi's Digital Download Service. This could be open source if people wanted one like it- how it works is, a purchaser is given a temporary download URL. It's open for X downloads or X days and then it's no longer valid, so if someone posted one of these somewhere it would go dead quickly. The neat thing is, if there's a problem and someone emails me I can check my copies of the Kagi receipts, and see if a sale went through. If it did- the reply email contains a copy of the thing they bought- I don't have to wait for Kagi's systems to be fixed, because the customer only needs the plugin, not access to some authorization server.
This brings me to my point about DRM, one I take very seriously- I've been thinking about this for some time having been a Slashdotter from way back. (that's easily proved, at any rate
There are two ways you can get a person to do something- push them or entice them. DRM is strictly push-ville. The big assumption you make there is that the enticement is basically infinite- the person MUST buy your thing, or steal it, so it's all about getting really tough with them to compel them not to steal it.
I make a different assumption, and it's paying my mortgage. I may not be putting out lots of open source code (though anyone from an OSS project wishing audio tips is welcome to talk with me endlessly) but I assume the person must CHOOSE to buy your thing or steal it.
No matter who it is, they still must choose. It doesn't matter if they're 14, have never bought something before, and have found my stuff on an FTP site somewhere- even if the choice seems compellingly obvious, people CHOOSE to copy stuff that's not intended to be copied. (to use the non-thief terminology)
I get to make choices as well. For instance, current law is very friendly to me talking to such an FTP site and telling them, please remove those files now. It's easy to monitor, they'd have no real leg to stand on, and I'd be entitled to want that done since it's my stuff.
The site itself CHOOSES to include my stuff (if they can get it) or not to bother- or
Honestly, who would need this for CAD files? I can understand encryption to make sure competition doesn't get a hold of trade secret files, but you wouldn't be sharing those with your customer anyway. Once a CAD file is shared with your customer, you assume he's gonna try and farm it out to the lowest bidder. That's why you don't hand out production drawings, just GAs and the like.
I've had to take the grinding wheel and cutting torch to a few components from companies without parts libraries. I hope we don't ever get back to the sorry state where that was the norm. CTSBTFPTM, I think it was. Cut to size, beat to fit, paint to match. Something like that.
He mentions PDFs and Office files, too. I've seen companies do this before. They'll send a quote in PDF thinking that it's somehow more secure. If I wanted to forge a lower quote, I would just do it. A "protected" PDF isn't going to stop me. There's always the analog hole for things that can be printed out. OCR has gotten pretty reliable these days at recreating documents. If it can't be printed out, it can still be copied on screen or even have the file "hacked" into.
Really the only possible reason I can see a company wanting this is not to keep their customers out, but to lock out former employees. I just can't figure how you'd be able to do that. If somebody knew they were leaving, they'd still be able to exploit any analog holes while they still had legit access.
You probably have not understood your problem and what DRM does. I fail to see why you would need DRM when you can have GPG or similar crypto.
Seek out and hire people you can trust? Trust these managers to hire other trustworthy people? Give your employees incentive not to leak company data instead of passive-aggressively trying to preempt them?
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
DRM is stupid in this context, the issue is protecting data is one of encryption not digital rights. Christ.
What I really want to know is when
Salut,
Jacques
If you have heartburn, don't just have a doctor tell you to watch what I eat; any doctor can do that... get one to tell you that you need to wear a banana on your head under your hat for a week. A self trained scientician could explain it as the healing liquid of the banana pulling the heartburn from your body and releasing it as flies which then fly harmlessly away.
Did you know that a spoonful of Uranium 238 taken internally can give the imbiber lightning quick computational abilities? This is why the government keeps it out of everyone's hands.
Why believe what you are told. Try something, anything, the more odd sounding the better. When the situation changes that means that it's working!
Who knows, you could be responsible for inventing the next aphrodisiac, open source DRM solution, or top 40 teen pop song!
..is to go Stallmanesque and truly understand the different between Open Source and Free Software. (If you don't know the difference, then you will fail.) Your resulting code must not be Free Software -- that is, maintainable/inspectable by the user. If the user is able to maintain the code, then they will be able trivially defeat the DRM by removing the restrictions.
If you understand that, then you can use Open Source to develop your application. Then, after you have developed the app, deploy a closed version to your victi^H^H^H^H^H user, where whatever functionality that you don't want, has been removed. You will not be able to do this if your Open Source programmers use GPL, but it's possible with BSD. You will probably want to keep your developers in the dark about why you are using a particular license -- if your ultimate agenda is known, you'll be shunned.
The result will be code that cannot be maintained by the user, and has numerous interoperability problems. And that's the goal, not a criticism in itself. But this is where the word "evil" comes in, since most Open Source people tend to disapprove of software that deliberately works against the users' interest. But maybe that's what you want.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I don't believe you and think you posted this just to bait us. But DRM (and what a counter-productive concept it is) isn't even the biggest red flag here.
Someone in the company is asking you to fix an executive/managerial problem by writing more code. After all, that's the workflow everyone is used to: the guys upstairs want something done, and the geeks go to work.
But there are tasks which are not solved by coding. Some tasks are problems that are more organizational in nature, and are best solved by a good executive and his or her experience managing an entire company, its people, customers, and line of products [try no to laugh please].
The real question is, why are you being asked for DRM in the first place? Who is trying to protect company PDFs (of all things), from whom?
I have no idea what the situation is at your place, but I was once asked to write a collaborative (sort of) web app that would enforce the prices salesmen should charge for each product, by forcing them to use it to generate contract documents. The project brief was a nightmare of Philip K. Dick paranoia run amuck.
Your mission now, as was mine then, is to convince someone above you that they must also do some work once in a while. In fact, this is one of those times when they should possess a real expertise that you do not, and show that off. Executive problems are best solved by executives, just as you would never ask a VP of Marketing to write an app.
The typical arguments about DRM never working make a lot of sense when you're talking about the decoding device (xbox, blu-ray player etc) in the hands of a consumer who can modify hardware/software etc.
In a corporate environment, it's completely different. Machines should be locked down enough so that you can't just use the source to bypass the DRM - because you won't be able to create/run your own binaries.
I see this as just a slightly higher level of UNIXy permissions - instead of read,write,execute, you have read,write,execute,print,send etc. etc. Obviously this would require extensive work, probably kernel patches and things, but I'm sure it's possible.
Instead, you all just got on your boring soapboxes and started ranting non sequiturs and complete nonsense about what DRM is and isn't.
I'm not really a fan of most of the existing DRM implementations, but I have a hard time deciding whom to root for. I'm almost rooting for "the industry" because you're all so delusional and the fact is "they" (the bad guys) _can_ win this battle via hardware and making it progressively more expensive and difficult to crack their DRM. You are simply in denial if you don't believe this.
That's one way to interpret "information wants to be free". Another is treat it like "nature abhors a vacuum".
There is a 'space' where the information is, and where it isn't. Unless you put in energy it will flow into the space where it isn't. This is what DRM and copyright is about: information, as an 'entity', tends to spread about easily so you need to prevent it doing so.
This is no different then having a compound in air or water, and having it spread to the entire volume of liquid. The main difference with information is that it doesn't necessarily become "diluted". (At least not in the digital world; with analogue you get copy degradation and the "broken telephone" syndrome when dealing with person-to-person reporting.)
The best you can hope for is some kind of a nag or a privacy flag. For example, a spreadsheet could have a "super confidential" flag that would put up a big red warning dialog when someone attempts to email it outside the company or save it to a flash drive. As implementing open DRM allows anyone to disable the parts that enforce DRM, I think that gentle reminders about how to properly handle information security are less likely to be disabled.
No, I will not work for your startup
That has nothing to do with DRM - at least as understood in "the real world". It does have everything to do with configuration management and data management. Which is not a new problem - and the solutions are known.
As far as I know there are no OS solutions for CM/DM, although some of the "Content Management" website tools come close to solving the DM problem. I could snipe that the sort of people who write OS code are too 3733t to be "constrained" by CM/DM. I think the real answer is that a full blown CM/DM system is bloody lot of work. And any instance requires a lot of ongoing support work - work that remains very much out of fashion.
The best tools (Eagle, Ematrix) remain $$$ and closed source, just like the best revision control tool.
-- Butlerian Jihad NOW!
I use IPR as a term for personal property. Intellectual Property is personal, because an institution Biz/Gov/... has no intelligence or any "human IPR"; Therefor, though I agree with RHS's position on how corporatist/plutocrats would like to use the term/concept IPR, I reject completely that any institution should/can have any "human rights" or "intellectual property" in a democracy or liberated/free society.
... together as IPR. IPR should remain with the owner never an institution which may/will act against the individual and/or public interest/welfare.
The law is not, but should be such that individuals can license/lease IPR (never sold) for a limited time, but cannot ever prevent IPR use for non-economic (no financial/private/personal benefit) personal/institution purposes. IPR should extend to immediate family survivors never further. So, yes I do clump TM, Patents, Copyrights
I use the acronym IPR in a very specific manner and consider the present international/local IPR laws/conventions as anachronistic and industrial-age exploitation of humanity by the greedy and crippling to creativity, innovation, and content sharing for reasonable and highly ethical purposes.
So, I will continue to use the IPR acronym as a collective term for all types of IPR.
Oh, yes, institutions can own land, buildings, businesses/governments, but intellect is reserved for individual/human-ownership. The present IPR laws are perverse, I speak against the IPR laws, but I do not break IPR laws. I will donate time/money/... to foundations and politics for GPL (1,2,3...), L/FOSS, "Open" content/standards/sharing..., and against current IPR laws (the opposite implied is correct). No U$ politician has convinced me they deserve a dime from me in 20+ years. I continue to hope (not expect) separation of government from corporatism and religious dogma/interference/domination....
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Copyrights, trademarks, and/or patents are not 'property', and they are *very* different concepts, and using a term that suggests they are 'property' or any generalizing term that groups them all together, serves only the interests of the 'greedy' and those that would seek to 'cripple innovation'. If you actually took the time to read the essay at the link I provided you might have a chance of recognizing that.
Sounds like for this non-profit that maybe the simplest ways of doing this will get you the farthest.
If they just need numbers to cite, then use the download logs as a start. Then if you believe that the files are often shared (rather than downloaded by each person), you ask people to send a simple email to you with the number of people they are sharing it with and/or have a place on website where they can use a form to do the same if they don't want to email you for risk of spam.
If you explain why you want them to do this (so the non-profit can continue to show its board how much things are used), many people will comply since it is in their best interest to do this so the non-profit can stay in business. Of course tell them you don't intend to try and sell them anything and you won't spam them.
Another approach is to provide your information on the web (HTML), that way people typically will read it right off the site and if they share it, they will typically send a link rather than trying to figure out how to package all the pages and images up. So simple web logs become an instant way to see how often your information is being read.
I'd suggest against doing anything more complicated, especially DRM-like, you're just going to make your users unhappy and introduce all sorts of other issues. Take some reasonable simple approach to tracking (like with logs) and trust that they will do the right thing.
It's more than just CONCEPTUALLY antithetical. It's completely impossible, using the modern, practical meaning of the word "DRM". My summary is basically this: while "digital rights management" is a sensible phrase, in practice "DRM" only means systems that are fundamentally flawed AND that for the same reasons depend on being 100% closed source.
If I send you a file and you promise not to share it, that's a promise between us. You would never install DRM for yourself, because it's simple for you to not share it, yourself.
If we do the same thing but we want to make sure an eavesdropper can't swipe it, we use encryption. We have some kind of secret to make this happen. (With public key encryption I don't have to know your whole secret, but on your machine there's still a secret.)
If we do the same thing but I'm dealing with a lot of different people, I might use some kind of software that manages that encryption to distribute it automatically to the right people.
DRM is different. In practical use, DRM is where, essentially (e.g.) Microsoft** makes me a promise that THEY won't LET you copy the files. This is the ONLY fundamental difference between what's commonly called encryption and what's commonly called DRM.
This is completely impossible with OSS - because by it's very definition an OSS app is one where you could trivially, legally recompile an alternative "hacked" version which used your same secrets but did not actually keep you from making copies.
In practice, such hacked versions happen all the time even WITH secret DRM. Microsoft can't actually back this promise up effectively, because people all over the world have physical access to the HDs that their software, AND any secrets, AND the media are on, so hacking it is basically easy. But to try to back it up, they have to basically rely on the idea that they're going to make it as hard as possible for you to modify your OS and software, and that you therefore won't BE ABLE to change it to being decrypted without destroying your OS.
In other words, there's no way around this fundamental problem, when the end user you're trying to block and the machine admin with full control over the machine are the same person. The MS solution is to try and make it so that even the admin is very limited in certain ways - so your computer isn't really your computer even more than it already isn't. And this is, in a nutshell, what Trusted Computing is - motherboard support for your computer not being your computer.
This means that the fundamental difference between what is practically called DRM and encryption is that encryption can sometimes be strong and DRM must by definition be very weak.
On the OTHER hand, rights-management schemes are not fundamentally broken* if the final use of the file can only ever occur on a machine the end-user doesn't really have control over. e.g., if Apple's files played ONLY on the iPod and not in iTunes etc, it could hypothetically be made fundamentally unbreakable without someone taking apart an iPod and wiring it up to find some kind of secret in it.
This doesn't have to be DEDICATED hardware, of course - if the end user has limited privileges on a secure* OS and no access to the physical hardware, that's even better. (For definitions of "no access" that are "harder than reverse engineering iPod hardware" Depending on your audience, you might need a pretty good cage/alarm for that to actually be true... but much less might be sufficient.)
This is EXACTLY what the OP is asking for... a managed encryption system allowing central control over who can see files. But to be effective, any such system requires that the machines be locked down. And IF the machines are locked down, there are simpler, less problematic, less error-prone encryption methods to address this than the things we call DRM.
*Security is still hard, of course - because any flaw that allows someone to gain control of something breaks this lack of control. If they have physical acce
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
I was USMC in 1969@17yo, I sent my first email@IPv4 in 1985. I have never meet RHS, but age wise we are almost peers, and much of what I have said and wrote for the last 40year allows me to use the term I want and mean it the way I want. RHS has the same right, I respect him for it, and as cultural humanist heroes go RHS, Jimmy Carter, Mother Theresa, OLPC Nick, PKI Zimmerman ... folks of the global OSS community, MIT OKI/OCW/Media lab ... and many others (from Harvard to Stanford to ...) are for me and my beliefs/faith the best of humanity. Still, I am not required to parrot/proselytize their or any party/dogma line.
IOW: We will continue to respectfully disagree, and attack the enemy on all fronts, until victory or death slaps our silly (maybe smirking) faces one last time. I agree, "*very* different concepts" make up IPR which is enveloped in total monopolistic corporatist crap [AKA: laws].
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Well, I suppose disagreeing on merely the use of the term is not worth arguing about.
My main point is that none of the concepts wrongly grouped together by the term "IP" are 'property' in any fair sense of the concept, and using that term can be very misleading to the uneducated masses, suggesting that record labels are being deprived of their 'property' when you copy a track from a CD to an MP3 player without paying them again, or that if megacorp inc holds a patent on some lifesaving drug that they are deprived of their 'property' if another company makes the same drug and sells it to poor africans dying of some disease that couldnt afford to buy it from the first company. (And I wont even get started on so-called software patents)
If you want real, tamper-proof security, DRM will not help you unless the computers are managed by trusted people who will prevent the use of software that bypasses the security. Short of that, The very concept of DRM is flawed ... as explained by others. But is it really DRM that you want ? You did not state the nature of your problem.
... he cannot program anyway. But most protections have been broken in object code in the past ... for example for games (I do not mean to say I approve).
This being said, the fact that is is open source or not is essentially immaterial. Since the DRM concept is flawed, it can be circumvented in source code or object code. The latter is only a bit harder. But it is not clear that it makes a significant difference. For example my mailman does not see a difference
Intellect and Spirit/Individuality is a human quality. Businesses/Governments are institutions no intellect/soul.
...; believe me, I know it is legal for the OCC (in the US, EU, Russia, China, India, Saudi ...) to starve, defraud, and murder for greed/profit, but I could be delusional ... not many folks see things as B&W as U&I do.
Organized Corporatist Crime (OCC)... plutocrat monopolies, DMCA, RIAA, IPR-theft/fraud, loan-shark banking/mortgages, TIA, Iraq
I suspect, you are a "Knight of the WoeFolk Continent, Order of Quixote."
TAKECARE
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Putting aside all philosophical, ethical, moral, etc aspects of the discussion (open source people would never implement something like that, etc), DRM is literally security through obscurity. Yes it uses crypto but the key has to be known by the player, so the only way to make DRM work is to hide the key from the user. An open source DRM system would allow you to look at the code and find out where the key is.
Go hug some trees.
A different watermark for each recipient. This way you at least know who leaked it :-P