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DRM should not be confused with cryptography. DRM uses cryptographic methods, but I've never heard of a use case where a user chose a DRM product rather than a

DRM should not be confused with cryptography. DRM uses cryptographic methods, but I've never heard of a use case where a user chose a DRM product rather than a more straight forward cryptographic product to protect themselves. Full disk encryption is a better tool for protecting yourself than SecuROM. In fact using SecuROM may well leave you more vulnerable to attack due to it's hacky obfuscation methods.

stcredzero 11y ago
DRM should not be confused with cryptography. I am not confusing DRM with cryptography. See the cousin comments in this thread. Full disk encryption is a better tool for protecting yourself than SecuROM. Doesn't help when you have to share data with companies and governments, and the information ends up on someone else's disk.
- shawn-furyan 11y ago
  > Doesn't help when you have to share data with companies and governments, and the information ends up on someone else's disk. FDE was an example among a vast array of encryption products. Attacking an non-comprehensive example as non-comprehensive isn't very enlightening. I still fail to see which DRM product you are suggesting is the proper tool for this situation. Even further, cryptography and careful allocation of trust seem to be a better solution than DRM for disseminating sensitive information since DRM is generally only a barrier, and not robust against concerted attack. That is to say, if you are disseminating information to untrustworthy sources via DRM, then in the great majority of cases, you can consider the information compromised. Most DRMed content is copyable with as simple a solution as recording your screen. Even HDCP can be defeated with a simple camcorder.
  - stcredzero 11y ago
    I still fail to see which DRM product you are suggesting is the proper tool for this situation. I am and always was talking about the abstract concept of trusted execution. As of yet, there is no environment which is trustworthy from a technical or a political standpoint. Today's society's attitudes towards DRM are like what one would expect from the world of Orwell's 1984 towards cameras. We've only experienced a certain tool's use for oppression, so people's brains have turned off and they can't imagine the implications of the same tool being in the hands of the masses.
thescriptkiddie 11y ago
It's also worth noting that while many DRM systems do use cryptography, cryptography is not required to implement DRM and cryptography alone is insufficient to implement DRM. Cryptography only keeps data away from people who don't have the decryption key - it can't provide a way for people to read the data without copying it. But that is the goal of DRM. Because reading and copying data are fundamentally the same thing, the only way to achieve that particular goal is to modify the operating system so that it lies to the user. That is called a rootkit.
- shawn-furyan 11y ago
  Good note. The line would be more accurate if it read: >DRM /often/ uses cryptographic methods [...] Too late to edit though.

stcredzero 11y ago

DRM should not be confused with cryptography. I am not confusing DRM with cryptography. See the cousin comments in this thread. Full disk encryption is a better tool for protecting yourself than SecuROM. Doesn't help when you have to share data with companies and governments, and the information ends up on someone else's disk.

shawn-furyan 11y ago
> Doesn't help when you have to share data with companies and governments, and the information ends up on someone else's disk. FDE was an example among a vast array of encryption products. Attacking an non-comprehensive example as non-comprehensive isn't very enlightening. I still fail to see which DRM product you are suggesting is the proper tool for this situation. Even further, cryptography and careful allocation of trust seem to be a better solution than DRM for disseminating sensitive information since DRM is generally only a barrier, and not robust against concerted attack. That is to say, if you are disseminating information to untrustworthy sources via DRM, then in the great majority of cases, you can consider the information compromised. Most DRMed content is copyable with as simple a solution as recording your screen. Even HDCP can be defeated with a simple camcorder.
- stcredzero 11y ago
  I still fail to see which DRM product you are suggesting is the proper tool for this situation. I am and always was talking about the abstract concept of trusted execution. As of yet, there is no environment which is trustworthy from a technical or a political standpoint. Today's society's attitudes towards DRM are like what one would expect from the world of Orwell's 1984 towards cameras. We've only experienced a certain tool's use for oppression, so people's brains have turned off and they can't imagine the implications of the same tool being in the hands of the masses.

thescriptkiddie 11y ago

It's also worth noting that while many DRM systems do use cryptography, cryptography is not required to implement DRM and cryptography alone is insufficient to implement DRM. Cryptography only keeps data away from people who don't have the decryption key - it can't provide a way for people to read the data without copying it. But that is the goal of DRM. Because reading and copying data are fundamentally the same thing, the only way to achieve that particular goal is to modify the operating system so that it lies to the user. That is called a rootkit.

shawn-furyan 11y ago
Good note. The line would be more accurate if it read: >DRM /often/ uses cryptographic methods [...] Too late to edit though.