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Inside the AP's Plan To Security-Wrap Its News Content

Posted by timothy on from the one-of-the-greatest-diagrams-ever dept.

suraj.sun writes with an excerpt from this story at Ars Technica that the "Associated Press, reeling from the newspaper apocalypse, has a new plan to 'wrap' and 'protect' its content though a 'digital permissions framework.' The Associated Press last week rolled out its brave new plan to 'apply protective format to news.' The AP's news registry will 'tag and track all AP content online to assure compliance with terms of use,' and it will provide a 'platform for protect, point, and pay.' That's a lot of 'p'-prefaced jargon, but it boils down to a sort of DRM for news — 'enforcement,' in AP-speak."

6 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. I thought Slashdot was filled with geeks by devleopard · · Score: 5, Informative

    If it were, then whoever moderated this post would have read the Ars Technica story. The "wrapper" and DRM are nothing but an HTML microformat, which enables categorizing and parsing, but has zilch to do with enforcement.

    --
    The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
    1. Re:I thought Slashdot was filled with geeks by spun · · Score: 4, Informative

      This has zilch to do with enforcement because the proposal contains no technical method of enforcement. Nothing is encrypted and nothing is protected in any way. The 'system' is basically, AP tags news items and you are on your honor to respect those tags. That's it.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    2. Re:I thought Slashdot was filled with geeks by bughunter · · Score: 4, Informative

      FTFA: You'll be forgiven if you find it difficult to square the reality of hNews with the AP's pronouncements about it. Ed Felten, the eminent Princeton computer security researcher, couldn't figure it out, either. [Felten blogs that] "hNews is a handy way of annotating news stories with information about the author, dateline, and so on. But it doesn't 'encapsulate' anything in a 'wrapper,' nor does it do much of anything to facilitate metering, monitoring, or paywalls."

      IOW, zilch to do with enforcement. In fact, it sounds to me like just enough bullshit to make a DMCA circumvention claim in court, or better yet, send out a bunch of threatening letters to bloggers. (How very RIAA of them.)

      --
      I can see the fnords!
  2. Re:I actually want something like this -- but for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    the functionality already exists
    its called P3P from the w3c, it is specified in your headers on every request and specifies what the company who is setting the cookie does with your information
    http://www.w3.org/P3P/

    in IE8 > safety > web page privacy policy

    Firefox supports P3P policies but its a convoluted setup and is well hidden from the user (why?)
    http://mozilla.gunnars.net/firefox_help_firefox_cookie_tutorial.html#Advanced_Cookie_options

  3. Wishful Thinking by daemonburrito · · Score: 4, Informative

    You've got to be kidding. Was that just a gut feeling? Have you ever heard a Republican say anything of the sort?

    Maybe you should email members of your delegation and ask. I did, and I can assure you that Republicans from my state are wholly dedicated to "Protecting America's Intellectual Property and Competitiveness(tm)". The ranking member and former chair of the House committee charged with overseeing IP (the Judiciary Committee), Lamar Smith, is one of the strongest allies the IP cartels have ever known. Additionally, in his position he's protected the corrupt the Eastern District of Texas.

    The IP debate is still far too esoteric for members of either party to be shamed into saying "no" to the cartels.

    Oh, and this is interesting: do a whois for 143.231.249.141 and look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lamar_S._Smith&action=history. Self-editing from a House.gov network. Stay classy, Lamar.

    1. Re:Wishful Thinking by twostix · · Score: 2, Informative

      Holy two facedness batman!

      "On October 3, 2008, Smith was one of six Texan Republican Congressman to vote for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 which created the Troubled Assets Relief Program[6].

      Despite his support of the bill, he also was a proponent of the 2009 Tea Party protests which condemned any bailouts, and even sent rallies in his district a letter which encouraged them "to protest the massive expansion in the size and scope of government currently underway". [7]"

      I bet the fork tongued viper sleeps like a baby on his mountains of corrupt cash at night as well.

      There simply must be revolution in western governance.