Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

BBC's Plan To Kick Open Source Out of UK TV

Posted by samzenpus on from the how-can-you-have-any-TV-if-you-don't-eat-your-meat? dept.

bluec writes "Generally speaking, the BBC isn't allowed to encrypt or restrict its broadcasts: the license fee payer pays for these broadcasts. But the BBC has tried to get around this, asking Ofcom for permission to encrypt the 'metadata' on its broadcasts – including the assistive information used by deaf and blind people and the 'tables' used by receivers to play back the video. As Ofcom gears up to a second consultation on the issue, there's one important question that the BBC must answer if the implications of this move are to be fully explored, namely: How can free/open source software co-exist with a plan to put DRM on broadcasts?"

2 of 302 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Strange question by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 5, Informative

    In an open-source solution you can download the source and a debugger and see exactly which bytes you need to patch to break the DRM.. Finding 09 F9 was hard when hackers had a 15MB memory dump to scour, but it wouldn't be hard at all with the full source code. You don't seem to realize that an "encryption system" needs to store its key (or a method of obtaining the key) in the source or else the client can't view the content at all.

    You can do some Bad Things like using a weird memory manager that puts instructions in unpredictable places but that only increases headaches all around and is still breakable.

  2. Re:Strange question by Kevinv · · Score: 5, Informative

    > an "encryption system" needs to store its key (or a method of obtaining the key) in the source or else the client can't view the content at all.

    This is untrue for an "encryption system". It is generally true for a DRM system.

    GPG, PGP, many open source projects implementing encryption systems such as AES, DES, etc... have no qualms about their source being public. Because the keys do NOT need to be included in the source.

    DRM system such as DVD encryption however requires the player to be able to decode the disc for playback, but they don't want the user to be able to playback on non-certified devices. This means the player has to have a key to decode the files. Keys don't need to be stored in the source, but the source would reveal how the key was used. It would reveal implementation problems that could make breaking the DRM easier.