17 ms·

I truly hate how the battle against DRM is slowly being lost, and I predict that in the near future it will be very difficult to use many apps (or even websites

I truly hate how the battle against DRM is slowly being lost, and I predict that in the near future it will be very difficult to use many apps (or even websites) while running on custom non-commercial builds of your operating system because "your" hardware will collude with the service provider to deny you access. This should simply be illegal and considered a human rights violation. At least hardware vendors should not be able to claim that they sell you the hardware and that you own it, they should be upfront about it being a rental agreement, and you should be able to cancel that agreement and return the hardware with a full refund at any time.

pmontra 2y ago
Don't give them ideas. 99 dollars per month to use your/their laptop. 49 extra to unlock the performance cores. 99 more for the discrete graphic card. 39 for the AI chip.
- bayindirh 2y ago
  Welcome to Intel On-Demand, formerly called Software Defined Silicon (SDSi): https://github.com/intel/intel-sdsi https://github.com/intel/intel-sdsi From the README: Intel® Xeon® family processors with support for Intel® On Demand (formerly known as Software Defined Silicon or SDSi) allow the configuration of additional CPU features through a license activation process.
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    The first generations of Raspberry Pi had the same with video codecs, IIRC MPEG and h264, to keep the price down for educational users but make it usable for people doing stuff with video.
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      h.264 was licensed out of the box, but MPEG2 was not, you had to buy a license tied to your board (or processor) serial number to accelerate DVD playback on these systems.
    - eth0up 2y ago
      I recently swapped from Debian to OpenSuse and before the first zypper dist-upgrade, verified non OSS was enabled. Then I proceeded to edit videos in openshot, which couldn't recognize the most common formats. Man, I scratched half me hair off me ed after seeing VLC handle everything right beside it. No simple solutions were to be found on forums until after a eureka, I specifically searched with word "codecs". Turned out I had to install the packman-easentials repo, then grab the forbidden codecs. Reminded me of the early 2000s, where things were pretty finicky gettin a functional setup in Linuxland.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - mschuster91 2y ago
        > Turned out I had to install the packman-easentials repo, then grab the forbidden codecs. Reminded me of the early 2000s, where things were pretty finicky gettin a functional setup in Linuxland. Windows world wasn't much better with "codec packs" that led to all sorts of shenanigans - version mismatches that led to issues with games, people spicing up codecs and packs with malware, people mixing and matching stuff from various versions and sources haphazardly for "better performance", quite a few weren't freeware but shareware or paid and subsequently cracked, legitimate installers that distributed adware, download sites injecting adware ('member Sourceforge? [1]), SEO and DDoS wars between mal/adware spreaders... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31110206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31110206
        eth0up 2y ago
        >remember Sourceforge? Yeah and vagueries of much more; Asio For All, AOL, Soundforge, Fruityloops, Spyhunter, endless other things and my 700mhz Celeron powered Pandora's box of disease and hacked productivity tools that all seemed great at the time.
  - baq 2y ago
    In the B2B world where everything is being converted into yoy roi/roe it makes perfect sense for both parties, especially if you can pay for your cpus out of opex budget instead of capex. Absolutely abysmal for the consumer though.
  - Sophira 2y ago
    That's horrifying.
    - jeroenhd 2y ago
      You get data center CPUs at half the price, and doubling your CPU throughput doesn't require paying someone to swap out hundreds or thousands of CPUs anymore. As long as they don't raise the prices of equivalent products that don't have this feature, I don't see the problem. Intel is the one at risk here, because if their license code ever leaks out or is found to be vulnerable, they've just sold their high-end hardware for mid-range prices.
      - hakfoo 2y ago
        Even without a leak, they face a risk with how actual CPUs bin out. They have to sell some $1000 CPUs at $600 as unlockable later to fulfill their contracts. But if their process is marginal, they may have to divert $1000 CPUs from the market who would pay $1000 for them to satisfy the $600 market.
  - baal80spam 2y ago
    This one ended just great for Intel, didn't it? https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-finalizes-intel-on-demand-pay-as-you-go-mechanism https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-finalizes-intel-on-d...
  - sillywalk 2y ago
    IBM and HP have had something similar to this in their mainframes/servers - Capacity on Demand - for decades. Pay more licensing to activate more CPUs/Cores that are present but disabled.
- eecc 2y ago
  That’s vintage Mainframe playbook
- squarefoot 2y ago
  I think they'll push for something even worse: all computing to slowly become remote, turning local machines into dumb terminals as in the mainframe era, like the last 60 years of IT development never happened. Cloud, SaaS and vGPU are examples of this tendency. Dumb terminals will be much cheaper: less resources, less (virtually no) storage, therefore many people will take this road to save money (ChromeOS anyone?), although in many cases they'll be forced to pay a lot more with time.
  - pmontra 2y ago
    > all computing to slowly become remote If it will happen it will be probably championed because of security and law enforcement: automatic virus prevention, parental care, OS upgrades, content scans, piracy prevention, etc. Phones are more or less already there right now.
- reaperducer 2y ago
  Don't give them ideas. 99 dollars per month to use your/their laptop. 49 extra to unlock the performance cores. 99 more for the discrete graphic card. 39 for the AI chip. Microsoft was talking publicly about pay-per-minute Windows use way back in 1999/2000, but the technology didn't exist then. It does now.
bayindirh 2y ago
Well, in most cases they won't be able to get Microsoft PC certification, so it's not going to happen. Hardware vendors are the wrong tree to bark at. Most of these requirements are passed down by Microsoft and content lobbies. If they require your PC to be tinkerable/repairable; higher end devices will come with a "toolbox loaded with high quality tools to ease and improve the experience", "for no additional charge", as a selling point.
- grishka 2y ago
  > Microsoft PC certification Why is that a thing to begin with? What happens if a PC doesn't have it? It's not like Windows would refuse to run on it.
  - globular-toast 2y ago
    It's a thing because people want to control other people. This is what it all boils down to, sadly.
    - xbmcuser 2y ago
      It's less about control and more about unhindered capitilism. Something a lot of people have blinders on about this is about capitilism and the world is fast moving towards a big fracture between the haves and have nots.
      - TeMPOraL 2y ago
        It's both - i.e. control is means to an end, which is setting up the rules so that we are forced to live on their terms, which mostly boils down to paying them for the stuff they want us to pay. DRM is fundamentally an attempt to rewrite reality, or at least the computing aspects of it, in ways that are not possible to do with laws of physics in general. An idealized DRM setup establishes a faux reality, a virtual environment running on top of reality, in which bits have extra rules to it - codifying the weaker attempt of what IP regulations are doing to information in general, i.e. establishing a faux legal reality, in which bits carry colour, and with it restrictions and consequences. The worst part is, the forces that push us to this direction are shielded in plausible deniability and good intentions, as DRM and cybersecurity are, in the limit, the same thing, so the unhindered capitalism control freaks get to hide behind fear of cyber criminals, while secretly using tools of protection against us.
_blk 2y ago
While I can totally relate to the sentiment, I strongly differ in the view that the battle against DRM is being lost. It's nothing that capitalism couldn't fix. Don't like it, don't buy it. Vendor didn't stick to their promise? Sell the hardware to someone who wants it and submit a review or a comment.. I don't like DRM either for many use cases but it's not often that I feel violated to use or buy a product against my will.
- Joker_vD 2y ago
  > It's nothing that capitalism couldn't fix. Don't like it, don't buy it. It's hard to buy alternatives when they literally don't exist, nobody is willing to provide them, and those who would maybe like to provide them, are quickly shut down by the industry's self-regulation mechanisms.
- bayindirh 2y ago
  When there's a one ring to bind them all (Microsoft PC platform certification), and everybody needs to cater to it, you can't do anything besides allowing your PC to play nice with Linux kernel, if you want to sell that device and make some money. OTOH, it's greatly helpful that Lennart Pottering of systemd is working squarely for Microsoft, enabling more and more of SecureBoot and TPM functionality in systemd to protect the users and systems' integrity in the face of adversarial attacks, so the PC can be TiVo-ized once and for all, after all. What a great era to be alive. BTW, this is exactly Capitalism, functioning as intended: extract value from a market for the shareholders of a company or an entity.
- friendzis 2y ago
  > It's nothing that capitalism couldn't fix. Free market could fix this, however unrestrained capitalism is, at it's core, anything but free. > Don't like it, don't buy it In practice DRM and majority of content go hand in hand, therefore the DRM compromise places majority of content on the compromise scale. Don't like DRM, don't buy access to entertainment. That's a much tougher sell than it might seem at a first glance. Unless the dominant majority shares your sentiment regarding DRM, you are on a losing side of the battle.
eecc 2y ago
OTOH, it allows you to implement secure vaults for your personal and most important data. It all depends on how access to these privileged interfaces is managed.
- ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
  Yes, the technology is not inherently evil, but some applications of it are. We shouldn't put bans on the tech, but we should put bans on usages of it which takes away personal freedom. Using it to implement secure vaults for your personal data is a way to actually improve personal security, and I can get behind that. Using it to prevent software from even running on your device claims to improve personal security, but actually it is mainly about asserting control over you. Yes, it improves security as a side effect, but it does so by taking away your freedom.
  - nonrandomstring 2y ago
    > a way to actually improve personal security, I'm not sure this is true. I've studied trust models in some depth now and I think that cryptographic enclaves are at best an analgesic and sedative. Don't fall for any myth of symmetrical technology that can be used "for evil or good". The purpose of this technology is to assert logical ownership over computation under remote physical control of another. That would serve your interests and rights iff you purchase a cloud computing resource you want to make secure in an untrustworthy data-centre. Sadly "security" gets used as a bare noun. One must always ask three questions: - security for who? - security against who or what? - security to what end? DRM is a generally a net loss to security of the physical machine owner, since it is a way to hide code and functionality within the perimeter of ownership and control. It's no worse than blobs or treacherous silicon, but any security conscious operator should avoid or remove it. It is opaque "security" for vendors/content-publishers, and "security" against the owner and operator.
    - ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
      I think it makes sense in very narrow use cases such as hardware security modules for key management, giving the user a somewhat strong guarantee that there is a one-to-one correspondence between control of the key and physical ownership of the HSM. This is an example where limitations of what you can do with the hardware is the primary feature of the hardware and the reason the user acquired it in the first place. It is analogous to physical locks being hard to pick by design. Any use of enclaves for DRM are unethical though, and solutions such as Play Integrity API is a commingling of security guarantees and totalitarian control over the user. Instead of proving to a service provider (such as your bank) that your whole phone is running a verified software and hardware stack, it suffices to communicate with a HSM with which you verify that the transaction to be authorized (1) comes from your bank, and (2) has a description which aligns with what you expect. The HSM can be built into the phone or be an external device with a small screen, but it should never ever enforce how you use the rest of the phone, it should only solve the narrow security issue of authorizing critical transactions.
jjcob 2y ago
I was so happy when HDMI caught on that the troubles with VGA ports in meeting rooms were finally a thing of the past. But now I randomly get "HDCP not supported" messages when trying to make a presentation because... I have no idea why. It's just a giant fuck you from the recording industry. I could download a torrent of any movie I want, so the tech is obviously not preventing piracy. It's just making random things in life harder than they should be.
- geraldhh 2y ago
  > the troubles with VGA ports in meeting rooms please elaborate fwiw vga is plug and play, but multi-monitor support in operating systems was indeed a pia
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    VGA/DB15 is not a hot-plug connection by default. That part started with DVI.
    - M95D 2y ago
      No, it started with DDC and was used since Win95, the first PnP OS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_Data_Channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_Data_Channel
      - bayindirh 2y ago
        Being PnP doesn't imply any hot-plugging capability. DDC allows digital means of changing data and letting the OS know what the monitor can do. It doesn't allow/enable hot-plugging. Since the interface doesn't support hot plugging by design, there's no standard way to detect a new VGA peripheral. However, manufacturers flexed the standard to try to enable hot-plug, but it doesn't work reliably, as we seen for years. Similarly, PS2, SATA, PCI are not hot-plug by default, even if they're PnP. PS2 required standards bending, SATA had to wait AHCI, and PCI had to wait PCIe to gain hot-plugging support. To add to the list, IDE drives required special hardware, and RAM requires chipset and board support to be hot-pluggable. RAM has myriad of ways of identifying itself, making it truly PnP out of the box. So, being PnP doesn't mean anything, from a hot-plug perspective. They're very different things.
nicman23 2y ago
just do not use them. actually vote with your wallet.
- ajsnigrutin 2y ago
  In theory this works, but when you have 4 banks in your country, and all 4 require this, you're basically fscked.
  - nicman23 2y ago
    your bank requires drm? what.
    - ajsnigrutin 2y ago
      Not drm per-se I was commenting this (from above): > and I predict that in the near future it will be very difficult to use many apps (or even websites) while running on custom non-commercial builds of your operating system because "your" hardware will collude with the service provider to deny you access. Many banking apps (and other payment apps) won't work on phones with custom android builds, nor on phones with unlocked bootloaders, same for rooted phones. But yeah, in turn, unless you have a "dedicated banking phone", this will mean that people will stay with the official OS's with all the DRM features included. (or well.. as we in the balkans do, pirate stuff)
      - surajrmal 2y ago
        Do you think your bank is obligated to run its software on your arbitrary device? Why? If, for its own risk tolerance of fraud, it needs to ensure nothing has messed with its app, shouldn't they have the right to refuse? You've not paid anything for the app, it's simply a venue for a service they offer. I would not like to live in a world where I need to pay extra to ensure some folks want "freedom". Fraud indirectly is a tax on all of us. There should obviously be limits on what we put up with, but I'm not sold this limitation is where the line should be drawn
GuB-42 2y ago
They probably shouldn't have called it "DRM" here. It can be used for DRM, but it can also be used to secure your own data, and calling it "DRM" is unclear on what feature it is. What standard does it follow? The technology that can prevent a thief from getting all your data from your computer is the same that prevents you from ripping media files, the only difference is who owns the keys, but that part is out of scope for a SSD.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
hansvm 2y ago
> return the hardware at any time "Any time" might be a stretch, but I've had no problems returning hardware which, after unboxing and/or setting it up, I found violated basic expectations and didn't have those limitations listed in the specs (no, I'm not buying and maintaining an un-rooted Android AND granting location services and other such permissions just to set up your special snowflake printer, and if your OBD-II control app works via a webview and one day starts requiring a subscription for the device I "purchased" then that's going straight back to the store/manufacturer even years later, ...).
- TheJoeMan 2y ago
  Regarding the printer comment, I've bought HP printers that have stickers covering the USB port with a "NO" symbol, and removing the sticker the port works just fine. I'd like to think there is an engineer in the belly of the beast ensuring this stuff slips past the marketing team.

pmontra 2y ago

Don't give them ideas. 99 dollars per month to use your/their laptop. 49 extra to unlock the performance cores. 99 more for the discrete graphic card. 39 for the AI chip.

bayindirh 2y ago
Welcome to Intel On-Demand, formerly called Software Defined Silicon (SDSi): https://github.com/intel/intel-sdsi https://github.com/intel/intel-sdsi From the README: Intel® Xeon® family processors with support for Intel® On Demand (formerly known as Software Defined Silicon or SDSi) allow the configuration of additional CPU features through a license activation process.
- mschuster91 2y ago
  The first generations of Raspberry Pi had the same with video codecs, IIRC MPEG and h264, to keep the price down for educational users but make it usable for people doing stuff with video.
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    h.264 was licensed out of the box, but MPEG2 was not, you had to buy a license tied to your board (or processor) serial number to accelerate DVD playback on these systems.
  - eth0up 2y ago
    I recently swapped from Debian to OpenSuse and before the first zypper dist-upgrade, verified non OSS was enabled. Then I proceeded to edit videos in openshot, which couldn't recognize the most common formats. Man, I scratched half me hair off me ed after seeing VLC handle everything right beside it. No simple solutions were to be found on forums until after a eureka, I specifically searched with word "codecs". Turned out I had to install the packman-easentials repo, then grab the forbidden codecs. Reminded me of the early 2000s, where things were pretty finicky gettin a functional setup in Linuxland.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - mschuster91 2y ago
      > Turned out I had to install the packman-easentials repo, then grab the forbidden codecs. Reminded me of the early 2000s, where things were pretty finicky gettin a functional setup in Linuxland. Windows world wasn't much better with "codec packs" that led to all sorts of shenanigans - version mismatches that led to issues with games, people spicing up codecs and packs with malware, people mixing and matching stuff from various versions and sources haphazardly for "better performance", quite a few weren't freeware but shareware or paid and subsequently cracked, legitimate installers that distributed adware, download sites injecting adware ('member Sourceforge? [1]), SEO and DDoS wars between mal/adware spreaders... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31110206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31110206
      - eth0up 2y ago
        >remember Sourceforge? Yeah and vagueries of much more; Asio For All, AOL, Soundforge, Fruityloops, Spyhunter, endless other things and my 700mhz Celeron powered Pandora's box of disease and hacked productivity tools that all seemed great at the time.
- baq 2y ago
  In the B2B world where everything is being converted into yoy roi/roe it makes perfect sense for both parties, especially if you can pay for your cpus out of opex budget instead of capex. Absolutely abysmal for the consumer though.
- Sophira 2y ago
  That's horrifying.
  - jeroenhd 2y ago
    You get data center CPUs at half the price, and doubling your CPU throughput doesn't require paying someone to swap out hundreds or thousands of CPUs anymore. As long as they don't raise the prices of equivalent products that don't have this feature, I don't see the problem. Intel is the one at risk here, because if their license code ever leaks out or is found to be vulnerable, they've just sold their high-end hardware for mid-range prices.
    - hakfoo 2y ago
      Even without a leak, they face a risk with how actual CPUs bin out. They have to sell some $1000 CPUs at $600 as unlockable later to fulfill their contracts. But if their process is marginal, they may have to divert $1000 CPUs from the market who would pay $1000 for them to satisfy the $600 market.
- baal80spam 2y ago
  This one ended just great for Intel, didn't it? https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-finalizes-intel-on-demand-pay-as-you-go-mechanism https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-finalizes-intel-on-d...
- sillywalk 2y ago
  IBM and HP have had something similar to this in their mainframes/servers - Capacity on Demand - for decades. Pay more licensing to activate more CPUs/Cores that are present but disabled.
eecc 2y ago
That’s vintage Mainframe playbook
squarefoot 2y ago
I think they'll push for something even worse: all computing to slowly become remote, turning local machines into dumb terminals as in the mainframe era, like the last 60 years of IT development never happened. Cloud, SaaS and vGPU are examples of this tendency. Dumb terminals will be much cheaper: less resources, less (virtually no) storage, therefore many people will take this road to save money (ChromeOS anyone?), although in many cases they'll be forced to pay a lot more with time.
- pmontra 2y ago
  > all computing to slowly become remote If it will happen it will be probably championed because of security and law enforcement: automatic virus prevention, parental care, OS upgrades, content scans, piracy prevention, etc. Phones are more or less already there right now.
reaperducer 2y ago
Don't give them ideas. 99 dollars per month to use your/their laptop. 49 extra to unlock the performance cores. 99 more for the discrete graphic card. 39 for the AI chip. Microsoft was talking publicly about pay-per-minute Windows use way back in 1999/2000, but the technology didn't exist then. It does now.

bayindirh 2y ago

Well, in most cases they won't be able to get Microsoft PC certification, so it's not going to happen. Hardware vendors are the wrong tree to bark at. Most of these requirements are passed down by Microsoft and content lobbies. If they require your PC to be tinkerable/repairable; higher end devices will come with a "toolbox loaded with high quality tools to ease and improve the experience", "for no additional charge", as a selling point.

grishka 2y ago
> Microsoft PC certification Why is that a thing to begin with? What happens if a PC doesn't have it? It's not like Windows would refuse to run on it.
- globular-toast 2y ago
  It's a thing because people want to control other people. This is what it all boils down to, sadly.
  - xbmcuser 2y ago
    It's less about control and more about unhindered capitilism. Something a lot of people have blinders on about this is about capitilism and the world is fast moving towards a big fracture between the haves and have nots.
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      It's both - i.e. control is means to an end, which is setting up the rules so that we are forced to live on their terms, which mostly boils down to paying them for the stuff they want us to pay. DRM is fundamentally an attempt to rewrite reality, or at least the computing aspects of it, in ways that are not possible to do with laws of physics in general. An idealized DRM setup establishes a faux reality, a virtual environment running on top of reality, in which bits have extra rules to it - codifying the weaker attempt of what IP regulations are doing to information in general, i.e. establishing a faux legal reality, in which bits carry colour, and with it restrictions and consequences. The worst part is, the forces that push us to this direction are shielded in plausible deniability and good intentions, as DRM and cybersecurity are, in the limit, the same thing, so the unhindered capitalism control freaks get to hide behind fear of cyber criminals, while secretly using tools of protection against us.

_blk 2y ago

While I can totally relate to the sentiment, I strongly differ in the view that the battle against DRM is being lost. It's nothing that capitalism couldn't fix. Don't like it, don't buy it. Vendor didn't stick to their promise? Sell the hardware to someone who wants it and submit a review or a comment.. I don't like DRM either for many use cases but it's not often that I feel violated to use or buy a product against my will.

Joker_vD 2y ago
> It's nothing that capitalism couldn't fix. Don't like it, don't buy it. It's hard to buy alternatives when they literally don't exist, nobody is willing to provide them, and those who would maybe like to provide them, are quickly shut down by the industry's self-regulation mechanisms.
bayindirh 2y ago
When there's a one ring to bind them all (Microsoft PC platform certification), and everybody needs to cater to it, you can't do anything besides allowing your PC to play nice with Linux kernel, if you want to sell that device and make some money. OTOH, it's greatly helpful that Lennart Pottering of systemd is working squarely for Microsoft, enabling more and more of SecureBoot and TPM functionality in systemd to protect the users and systems' integrity in the face of adversarial attacks, so the PC can be TiVo-ized once and for all, after all. What a great era to be alive. BTW, this is exactly Capitalism, functioning as intended: extract value from a market for the shareholders of a company or an entity.
friendzis 2y ago
> It's nothing that capitalism couldn't fix. Free market could fix this, however unrestrained capitalism is, at it's core, anything but free. > Don't like it, don't buy it In practice DRM and majority of content go hand in hand, therefore the DRM compromise places majority of content on the compromise scale. Don't like DRM, don't buy access to entertainment. That's a much tougher sell than it might seem at a first glance. Unless the dominant majority shares your sentiment regarding DRM, you are on a losing side of the battle.

eecc 2y ago

OTOH, it allows you to implement secure vaults for your personal and most important data. It all depends on how access to these privileged interfaces is managed.

ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
Yes, the technology is not inherently evil, but some applications of it are. We shouldn't put bans on the tech, but we should put bans on usages of it which takes away personal freedom. Using it to implement secure vaults for your personal data is a way to actually improve personal security, and I can get behind that. Using it to prevent software from even running on your device claims to improve personal security, but actually it is mainly about asserting control over you. Yes, it improves security as a side effect, but it does so by taking away your freedom.
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  > a way to actually improve personal security, I'm not sure this is true. I've studied trust models in some depth now and I think that cryptographic enclaves are at best an analgesic and sedative. Don't fall for any myth of symmetrical technology that can be used "for evil or good". The purpose of this technology is to assert logical ownership over computation under remote physical control of another. That would serve your interests and rights iff you purchase a cloud computing resource you want to make secure in an untrustworthy data-centre. Sadly "security" gets used as a bare noun. One must always ask three questions: - security for who? - security against who or what? - security to what end? DRM is a generally a net loss to security of the physical machine owner, since it is a way to hide code and functionality within the perimeter of ownership and control. It's no worse than blobs or treacherous silicon, but any security conscious operator should avoid or remove it. It is opaque "security" for vendors/content-publishers, and "security" against the owner and operator.
  - ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
    I think it makes sense in very narrow use cases such as hardware security modules for key management, giving the user a somewhat strong guarantee that there is a one-to-one correspondence between control of the key and physical ownership of the HSM. This is an example where limitations of what you can do with the hardware is the primary feature of the hardware and the reason the user acquired it in the first place. It is analogous to physical locks being hard to pick by design. Any use of enclaves for DRM are unethical though, and solutions such as Play Integrity API is a commingling of security guarantees and totalitarian control over the user. Instead of proving to a service provider (such as your bank) that your whole phone is running a verified software and hardware stack, it suffices to communicate with a HSM with which you verify that the transaction to be authorized (1) comes from your bank, and (2) has a description which aligns with what you expect. The HSM can be built into the phone or be an external device with a small screen, but it should never ever enforce how you use the rest of the phone, it should only solve the narrow security issue of authorizing critical transactions.

jjcob 2y ago

I was so happy when HDMI caught on that the troubles with VGA ports in meeting rooms were finally a thing of the past. But now I randomly get "HDCP not supported" messages when trying to make a presentation because... I have no idea why. It's just a giant fuck you from the recording industry. I could download a torrent of any movie I want, so the tech is obviously not preventing piracy. It's just making random things in life harder than they should be.

geraldhh 2y ago
> the troubles with VGA ports in meeting rooms please elaborate fwiw vga is plug and play, but multi-monitor support in operating systems was indeed a pia
- bayindirh 2y ago
  VGA/DB15 is not a hot-plug connection by default. That part started with DVI.
  - M95D 2y ago
    No, it started with DDC and was used since Win95, the first PnP OS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_Data_Channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_Data_Channel
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      Being PnP doesn't imply any hot-plugging capability. DDC allows digital means of changing data and letting the OS know what the monitor can do. It doesn't allow/enable hot-plugging. Since the interface doesn't support hot plugging by design, there's no standard way to detect a new VGA peripheral. However, manufacturers flexed the standard to try to enable hot-plug, but it doesn't work reliably, as we seen for years. Similarly, PS2, SATA, PCI are not hot-plug by default, even if they're PnP. PS2 required standards bending, SATA had to wait AHCI, and PCI had to wait PCIe to gain hot-plugging support. To add to the list, IDE drives required special hardware, and RAM requires chipset and board support to be hot-pluggable. RAM has myriad of ways of identifying itself, making it truly PnP out of the box. So, being PnP doesn't mean anything, from a hot-plug perspective. They're very different things.

nicman23 2y ago

just do not use them. actually vote with your wallet.

ajsnigrutin 2y ago
In theory this works, but when you have 4 banks in your country, and all 4 require this, you're basically fscked.
- nicman23 2y ago
  your bank requires drm? what.
  - ajsnigrutin 2y ago
    Not drm per-se I was commenting this (from above): > and I predict that in the near future it will be very difficult to use many apps (or even websites) while running on custom non-commercial builds of your operating system because "your" hardware will collude with the service provider to deny you access. Many banking apps (and other payment apps) won't work on phones with custom android builds, nor on phones with unlocked bootloaders, same for rooted phones. But yeah, in turn, unless you have a "dedicated banking phone", this will mean that people will stay with the official OS's with all the DRM features included. (or well.. as we in the balkans do, pirate stuff)
    - surajrmal 2y ago
      Do you think your bank is obligated to run its software on your arbitrary device? Why? If, for its own risk tolerance of fraud, it needs to ensure nothing has messed with its app, shouldn't they have the right to refuse? You've not paid anything for the app, it's simply a venue for a service they offer. I would not like to live in a world where I need to pay extra to ensure some folks want "freedom". Fraud indirectly is a tax on all of us. There should obviously be limits on what we put up with, but I'm not sold this limitation is where the line should be drawn

GuB-42 2y ago

They probably shouldn't have called it "DRM" here. It can be used for DRM, but it can also be used to secure your own data, and calling it "DRM" is unclear on what feature it is. What standard does it follow? The technology that can prevent a thief from getting all your data from your computer is the same that prevents you from ripping media files, the only difference is who owns the keys, but that part is out of scope for a SSD.

deleted 2y ago

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hansvm 2y ago

> return the hardware at any time "Any time" might be a stretch, but I've had no problems returning hardware which, after unboxing and/or setting it up, I found violated basic expectations and didn't have those limitations listed in the specs (no, I'm not buying and maintaining an un-rooted Android AND granting location services and other such permissions just to set up your special snowflake printer, and if your OBD-II control app works via a webview and one day starts requiring a subscription for the device I "purchased" then that's going straight back to the store/manufacturer even years later, ...).

TheJoeMan 2y ago
Regarding the printer comment, I've bought HP printers that have stickers covering the USB port with a "NO" symbol, and removing the sticker the port works just fine. I'd like to think there is an engineer in the belly of the beast ensuring this stuff slips past the marketing team.