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BBC's Plan To Kick Open Source Out of UK TV
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?"
Maybe it's a nitpick, but the headline "BBC's Plan To Kick Open Source Out of UK TV" to me sounds like someone is against open-source software, and has conjured up a scheme, the primary purpose of which is to harm it.
From the article, though, it seems more likely that the BBC is worried about copyright infringement, and as with many companies, the only sort-of-half-assed solution they can think of to combat it is to introduce some DRM, and the only even-more-half-assed solution they can think of to make it hard to crack the DRM is security-through-obscurity. That's incompatible with OSS, as Cory Doctorow points out, but I think out of a misplaced attempt to use security-through-obscurity, not out of an actual antipathy to open-source vs. proprietary software as licensing models. Who knows if they even realized that: 1) lots of open-source software is used in conjunction with receiving TV broadcasts (and not just by warez groups); and 2) their scheme would therefore harm an important segment of the public.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Where is the "-1 boring" moderation?
In an open-source solution you can download the source and a debugger and see exactly which bytes you need to patch to break the DRM.. Finding 09 F9 was hard when hackers had a 15MB memory dump to scour, but it wouldn't be hard at all with the full source code. You don't seem to realize that an "encryption system" needs to store its key (or a method of obtaining the key) in the source or else the client can't view the content at all.
You can do some Bad Things like using a weird memory manager that puts instructions in unpredictable places but that only increases headaches all around and is still breakable.
However, the BBC would like to collaborate with the Open Source community, academics and others to produce an Open Codec
DRM absolutely excludes open source, Free-with-a-capital-F-as-in-Freedom software. My freedom is restricted if I am not permitted to modify the software (e.g. to write to disk instead of screen).
Encryption strength depends on the key, not the algorithm. You can study the source of GnuPG all you want, but you can't break the encryption without the private key.
And DRM fails because of neither the key nor the algorithm. It fails because some greedy clods don't know heck about the basic principles of encryption, one of which being that you can't encrypt and not-encrypt at the same time.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
PGP has a much easier task, though: it only needs to ensure that people with the key can decrypt content, while people without the key cannot. DRM schemes need to ensure that the same person can only decrypt given content for certain purposes, and not for other purposes.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
> 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.
you're not going to see any open source DRM systems any time soon.
While I can't be clear on their efficacy, it would be incorrect to say there are no DRM systems available.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=open+source+drm+solutions
How does DRM help the BBC provide their services to the taxpayer, better ?
Gordon Ramsey cooks Doctor Hu a bird's nest souffle.
He reveals his secret identity as a Thymelord, but there is a leek in the kitchen.