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How Firefox Will Handle DRM In HTML
An anonymous reader writes "Last year the W3C approved the inclusion of DRM in future HTML revisions. It's called Encrypted Media Extensions, and it was not well received by the web community. Nevertheless, it had the support of several major browser makers, and now Mozilla CTO Andreas Gal has a post explaining how Firefox will be implementing EME. He says, 'This is a difficult and uncomfortable step for us given our vision of a completely open Web, but it also gives us the opportunity to actually shape the DRM space and be an advocate for our users and their rights in this debate. ... From the security perspective, for Mozilla it is essential that all code in the browser is open so that users and security researchers can see and audit the code. DRM systems explicitly rely on the source code not being available. In addition, DRM systems also often have unfavorable privacy properties. ... Firefox does not load this module directly. Instead, we wrap it into an open-source sandbox. In our implementation, the CDM will have no access to the user's hard drive or the network. Instead, the sandbox will provide the CDM only with communication mechanism with Firefox for receiving encrypted data and for displaying the results.'"
THIS is a good reason to oust a Mozilla CEO.
Mozilla just ousted their chair over something that screws over far fewer people than this.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Gopher over TOR.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I doubt it, but it's likely that the CDM will attempt to check the Firefox binary and assert that the one loading it is signed by Mozilla and refuse to operate otherwise.
It's the CDM's job to fight off attack attempts against itself, not Firefox's. All Firefox will do is attempt to isolate the (undoubtedly security hole riddled) CDM and protect the end user from it - but given the closed source nature of the CDM this may not be possible.
It's important that a browser protect me and my rights on my system, not the business model of other DRM-happy corporations.
But this is an open-source browser we're talking about. If we don't want DRM, we can make a build of it without the DRM piece.
Being open-source has nothing to do with this. The number of people who will use a fork is essentially zero when compared to Firefox's total userbase.
The problem is that Mozilla has thrown away the power that comes from being able to speak for hundreds of millions of users out of fear of losing some of those users. That's a path to irrelevancy, they've traded the vision that made them popular in the first place for the hope of maintaining marketshare. It is a total MBA move, as if Mozilla should be driven by profits instead of advocacy.
>Does Firefox's architecture actually get in the way of users eventually pirating the content? Might have to switch browsers if that's the case.
Remember, DRM doesn't just stop 'piracy', it stops fair use of copyright content too.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Obviously you are correct. A UI which exposes control interfaces to the user is bad. The future is to expose control interfaces ONLY to remote ad agencies, and keep the dirty users in their place.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
How are you going to check the binary if you've explicitly isolated the CDM from any access to the system? Either you allow the CDM direct access to the OS so it can perform the check on its own, or you can provide an interface that can be trivially spoofed. If the CDM access the OS directly, aside from the security implications that causes, now your open source OS can attack it in the same exact manner, returning whatever information the CDM wants to see, rather than the reality.
The simple truth is that you cannot have open source anything anywhere within the code chain from the point the content exits the CDM to the point the content is sent along with wire to your display device. If you are breached anywhere, then your system is insecure, and if your system is insecure, your content will be stolen and freely distributed on the internet. All you've prevented with all this DRM is the typical honest customer from being able to flexibly access the content in the manner they chose. The typical honest customer needs to be taught this, that DRM has nothing to do with stopping piracy, and everything to do with artificially restricting their abilities. Education is the key to fighting all forms of oppression.
Much of this conversation is beside the point. You talk like DRM is an acceptable tool for a desirable motive. It is neither.
Not only is DRM an unsound idea that simply does not work, it and the idea of intellectual property it's meant to protect are immoral. That's right, immoral. Our very ability to communicate with each other, and share valuable ideas and information, is at the core of our intelligence, and is what put us on top of the animal kingdom. Sharing is a natural right. To give that up, voluntarily give that up, is to embrace a new status making us no better than sheep, fit only to be fleeced repeatedly. These scumbags in the content industries have misunderstood, perhaps deliberately, the differences between ownership and authorship, and the material and scarce vs the immaterial. Authorship does not mean the power to deny all usage and derivate work, until they get around to individually approving each proposal and only if they please. They are out to control all communications, stifling that which they can't manage, which by necessity would be the bulk of all communication as they haven't the means to handle the sheer quantity, by asserting that they should be compensated every time people share anything they were in any way involved in, and that the only fair way to accomplish this is by controlling all copying so every single occurrence of it can be taxed. And of course to do that requires extreme control of the sort necessary to make DRM actually function somewhat.
If there are risks in fighting DRM, it is our civic duty to take those risks, to preserve the freedoms our ancestors fought so hard to win for us. The risks are in any case little enough. The control freaks who want to monopolize and monetize all content do not have the power to go after everyone. There are other ways to compensate artists. Big Media still doesn't want to be bothered trying them, and admitting that they might work. Instead they have the gall to ask the rest of us to make the truly insane sacrifices it would take to really make their horrible vision work, and act as if they aren't asking much, putting on this hurt and baffled attitude and crying that artists will surely starve. We are NOT going to give up the Internet, flash drives, cell phones, home movie theaters, or even public libraries and used book stores. We are not going to turn the clock back to the 1980s, and artists will not starve and art will still be created.
This ramming of DRM down our collective throats and into the HTML standard is at best a waste of effort that will have no effect. At worst, it will harm the Internet, slowing it down and blocking some things. If, somehow, it kills the Internet, Big Media would celebrate. That's the kind of trolls they are. But it won't accomplish the destruction of the Internet or the elimination of piracy. I think the only reason the DRM was allowed is that we knew it would be ineffective and only slightly damaging if that, and so we could afford to humor them in this matter. And they problably bribed key people, maybe tried some threats too.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"