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So the author is claiming that the main reason why ME exists is DRM. I can see it being one of the reasons but it is also a pretty good anti-theft system if yo

So the author is claiming that the main reason why ME exists is DRM. I can see it being one of the reasons but it is also a pretty good anti-theft system if you look at it naively. And I haven't seen a laptop with a CD tray for at least 7 years. Who is playing these bluray discs in their laptop?

jchw 8y ago
Intel also benefits from ME in many many ways, I'm sure. Like obviously it is a massive value add to their Enterprise customers. However, I think the argument in the article still holds water, not because Blu-ray matters, but because nobody had any idea it wouldn't. CPU and GPU manufacturers probably have extremely long contracts to implement and obscure DRM features, fueled in part by Hollywood's sore feelings from the DVD Jon days. Of course Netflix and Hulu and so forth happened and whoops, laptops got thin and stopped having optical drives and oops, Samsung added streaming services to their TVs... And now Bluray and it's assinine security schemes hardly matter. Hollywood didn't adapt well to this new streaming world so I'll bet they didn't see it coming either. Of course the threats not over. Next generation we'll probably see even more insane copyright protection coming out of Hollywood for the sake of protecting services like Netflix as a contractual obligation if they want to carry the hot new garbage. I'm particularly excited to see what happens with stuff like Intel SGX. This will probably continue for the next couple decades until a set of realizations finally become too apparent to ignore. After all, the pirates torrenting the latest Game of Thrones don't need Intel SGX or HDCP. They just click play. But the more delusional and out of touch the industry is, the longer it takes. Video game DRM may not be a solved problem but even the absolute worst protection available today is so much less hostile than what we were dealing with a decade ago that it hardly matters. Hell, nowadays with PC games, anticheat is the more invasive technology. Modern invasive DRM mostly just phones home to get some crypto keys and to try to limit a single license from being spread to the entire internet. It may seem anticonsumer, but it's the worst there is, and it's very telling that gamers seem more concerned about tracking technology than middleware like Denuvo.
- hlandau 8y ago
  Don't assume that hardware-level DRM will go away with the death of optical media. As I understand it, the media industry seems to have adopted a standard position that UHD/4K content should require hardware-level DRM. UHD Blu-rays require this sort of thing, but also UHD streams on Netflix; for this reason at least at one point UHD Netflix was restricted to Chromebooks only. Not sure if this is still the case; I'd expect Google's Widevine to get Intel DRM support if it hasn't got it already. You might want to look at Widevine's website; there's a small amount of information on the security levels. Essentially, there seem to be two levels of Widevine; what I'd describe as the placebo level (just obfuscated data processing within the browser, etc.) that might be used for e.g. HD Netflix, and the toxic-waste level which expects hardware-level DRM, which industry appears to be demanding as a minimum standard for UHD content. Consumer demand for UHD Netflix will continue to drive adoption of hardware-level DRM for the time being, it seems.
bubblethink 8y ago
Doesn't have to be CDs or blurays. AFAIK, the latest generation of DRM for 4K streaming uses SGX, which I don't think can work without ME.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  And who's watching that on a PC often enough that a market alternative doesn't even exist? Not to mention, a significant number of laptops are still sold with 1080 screens.
  - bubblethink 8y ago
    It's not about PCs. The same principle applies to embedded devices and smart TVs, where there are equivalents from other manufacturers. And 4K is not pertinent to this in any way. It just happens to be so right now.
    - mixmastamyk 8y ago
      If not about PCs, why is Intel doing this? To be honest, I don't mind a tablet having provision for DRM to watch movies, but on my work PC, not being able to trust it is clearly unacceptable.
hlandau 8y ago
"The" reason the ME was added was enterprise remote management, as far as I'm aware. Of course, once you have a non-owner-controlled microprocessor on the system, you can use it to implement a lot of other value-add functionality that depends on not being owner-controlled. The article discusses the DRM aspect of it because this is one thing which would make it particularly legally difficult to allow owner control of the ME, since there are likely to be contractual obligations regarding keeping that secure. AFAIK, Intel isn't offering the anti-theft service anymore.

jchw 8y ago

Intel also benefits from ME in many many ways, I'm sure. Like obviously it is a massive value add to their Enterprise customers. However, I think the argument in the article still holds water, not because Blu-ray matters, but because nobody had any idea it wouldn't. CPU and GPU manufacturers probably have extremely long contracts to implement and obscure DRM features, fueled in part by Hollywood's sore feelings from the DVD Jon days. Of course Netflix and Hulu and so forth happened and whoops, laptops got thin and stopped having optical drives and oops, Samsung added streaming services to their TVs... And now Bluray and it's assinine security schemes hardly matter. Hollywood didn't adapt well to this new streaming world so I'll bet they didn't see it coming either. Of course the threats not over. Next generation we'll probably see even more insane copyright protection coming out of Hollywood for the sake of protecting services like Netflix as a contractual obligation if they want to carry the hot new garbage. I'm particularly excited to see what happens with stuff like Intel SGX. This will probably continue for the next couple decades until a set of realizations finally become too apparent to ignore. After all, the pirates torrenting the latest Game of Thrones don't need Intel SGX or HDCP. They just click play. But the more delusional and out of touch the industry is, the longer it takes. Video game DRM may not be a solved problem but even the absolute worst protection available today is so much less hostile than what we were dealing with a decade ago that it hardly matters. Hell, nowadays with PC games, anticheat is the more invasive technology. Modern invasive DRM mostly just phones home to get some crypto keys and to try to limit a single license from being spread to the entire internet. It may seem anticonsumer, but it's the worst there is, and it's very telling that gamers seem more concerned about tracking technology than middleware like Denuvo.

hlandau 8y ago
Don't assume that hardware-level DRM will go away with the death of optical media. As I understand it, the media industry seems to have adopted a standard position that UHD/4K content should require hardware-level DRM. UHD Blu-rays require this sort of thing, but also UHD streams on Netflix; for this reason at least at one point UHD Netflix was restricted to Chromebooks only. Not sure if this is still the case; I'd expect Google's Widevine to get Intel DRM support if it hasn't got it already. You might want to look at Widevine's website; there's a small amount of information on the security levels. Essentially, there seem to be two levels of Widevine; what I'd describe as the placebo level (just obfuscated data processing within the browser, etc.) that might be used for e.g. HD Netflix, and the toxic-waste level which expects hardware-level DRM, which industry appears to be demanding as a minimum standard for UHD content. Consumer demand for UHD Netflix will continue to drive adoption of hardware-level DRM for the time being, it seems.

bubblethink 8y ago

Doesn't have to be CDs or blurays. AFAIK, the latest generation of DRM for 4K streaming uses SGX, which I don't think can work without ME.

mixmastamyk 8y ago
And who's watching that on a PC often enough that a market alternative doesn't even exist? Not to mention, a significant number of laptops are still sold with 1080 screens.
- bubblethink 8y ago
  It's not about PCs. The same principle applies to embedded devices and smart TVs, where there are equivalents from other manufacturers. And 4K is not pertinent to this in any way. It just happens to be so right now.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    If not about PCs, why is Intel doing this? To be honest, I don't mind a tablet having provision for DRM to watch movies, but on my work PC, not being able to trust it is clearly unacceptable.

hlandau 8y ago

"The" reason the ME was added was enterprise remote management, as far as I'm aware. Of course, once you have a non-owner-controlled microprocessor on the system, you can use it to implement a lot of other value-add functionality that depends on not being owner-controlled. The article discusses the DRM aspect of it because this is one thing which would make it particularly legally difficult to allow owner control of the ME, since there are likely to be contractual obligations regarding keeping that secure. AFAIK, Intel isn't offering the anti-theft service anymore.