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The enthusiasm against DRM is mostly based on principle because the technological argument is so uninteresting. "DRM is part of an standard s.t. required permi

by bcoates 13y ago

The enthusiasm against DRM is mostly based on principle because the technological argument is so uninteresting. "DRM is part of an standard s.t. required permissions are visible and minimizable and the platform is open, opt-in and extensible" isn't possible and this is non-controversial among anyone not in the business of trying to sell it to someone who doesn't know that.

shmerl 13y ago
> the platform is open Where did you find an open DRM? It sounds oxymoronic.
cynicalkane 13y ago
DRM is just a math problem (encryption) coupled with a hardware problem (retaining control of the results). The industry in, say, video games has settled on an equilibrium of making it very hard but not impossible to crack the hardware. But uncrackable encryption hardware already exists, it would just be inconvenient to make it uncrackable inside an XBox. But whether the methods of DRM are open or closed is an implementation detail. Nobody thinks that TLS being open makes it crackable. But if users and programmers know the capabilities and requirements of DRM solutions, they can sequester them from the rest of the computer.
- tomp 13y ago
  Your post includes a lot of words, but none of these even attempt to justify your claim that there exists open, uncrackable DRM.
  - cynicalkane 13y ago
    The whole reason I started this thread is that it doesn't currently exist but I think it should.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      And I think invisible pink unicorns should exist, limitations of reality be damned!
    - betterunix 13y ago
      An open DRM system would die in minutes, because we would just hack it to return its secret key to the user. In any DRM system, something needs to be closed.
- mwcampbell 13y ago
  All of the crypto in the world is worthless for a DRM system if a user can easily circumvent the system by replacing one of the components between the black-box DRM module and the hardware in order to get a perfect digital copy of the "protected" stream. This is why "content protection" systems, like the one introduced in Windows Vista, tend to be so over-reaching; they want to create a leak-proof pipe between the "protected" media and our senses.
  - cynicalkane 13y ago
    That's a last mile problem the industry doesn't need to solve. How many people would rather hack hardware than pay money to watch TV and play video games? Of course, if it becomes cost-effective to hardware encrypt the entire stream, I don't think the lack of a W3C standard will make any difference in stopping it.
    - mwcampbell 13y ago
      If the DRM system is sequestered from the rest of our computers, then what I described is far from a last-mile problem. It's not a last-mile problem unless support for a "protected" playback path is baked right into the OS kernel, in a way that users would have some difficulty modifying or disabling (e.g. mandatory driver signing and Secure Boot). As long as the playback path is not secured by the kernel, there's always a way to intercept a perfect digital copy of the output in software. And the user doesn't have to know anything about user-space API hijacking, LD_PRELOAD, custom driver development, or whatever it takes, as long as there's some software they can conveniently install that does the job. So it seems to me that the proponents of DRM would never accept a DRM system that is sequestered from the rest of the computer.
    - bcoates 13y ago
      > How many people would rather hack hardware than pay money to watch TV and play video games? It only takes one. Everyone else just uses that cracked copy. I'm not worried about DRM working, I'm worried about it not working in a way that gets in my way as someone whose time is generally worth more than the hassle of finding movies on bittorrent.
josteink 13y ago
The enthusiasm against DRM is mostly based on principle because the technological argument is so uninteresting. It's also based on the philosophical aspects of DRM. Everything which digital technologies enables, DRM takes away. Every improvement enabled by new technology, DRM hinders. Everything which digital opens, DRM closes down. DRM is artificially retro-fitting the limitations of the past into the future for no other sake than benefiting the already rich, with an added cost of taking control away from the people and handing it to the few. DRM is digital ass backwards and has no place anywhere in this new century.

by bcoates 13y ago

shmerl 13y ago

> the platform is open Where did you find an open DRM? It sounds oxymoronic.

cynicalkane 13y ago

DRM is just a math problem (encryption) coupled with a hardware problem (retaining control of the results). The industry in, say, video games has settled on an equilibrium of making it very hard but not impossible to crack the hardware. But uncrackable encryption hardware already exists, it would just be inconvenient to make it uncrackable inside an XBox. But whether the methods of DRM are open or closed is an implementation detail. Nobody thinks that TLS being open makes it crackable. But if users and programmers know the capabilities and requirements of DRM solutions, they can sequester them from the rest of the computer.

tomp 13y ago
Your post includes a lot of words, but none of these even attempt to justify your claim that there exists open, uncrackable DRM.
- cynicalkane 13y ago
  The whole reason I started this thread is that it doesn't currently exist but I think it should.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    And I think invisible pink unicorns should exist, limitations of reality be damned!
  - betterunix 13y ago
    An open DRM system would die in minutes, because we would just hack it to return its secret key to the user. In any DRM system, something needs to be closed.
mwcampbell 13y ago
All of the crypto in the world is worthless for a DRM system if a user can easily circumvent the system by replacing one of the components between the black-box DRM module and the hardware in order to get a perfect digital copy of the "protected" stream. This is why "content protection" systems, like the one introduced in Windows Vista, tend to be so over-reaching; they want to create a leak-proof pipe between the "protected" media and our senses.
- cynicalkane 13y ago
  That's a last mile problem the industry doesn't need to solve. How many people would rather hack hardware than pay money to watch TV and play video games? Of course, if it becomes cost-effective to hardware encrypt the entire stream, I don't think the lack of a W3C standard will make any difference in stopping it.
  - mwcampbell 13y ago
    If the DRM system is sequestered from the rest of our computers, then what I described is far from a last-mile problem. It's not a last-mile problem unless support for a "protected" playback path is baked right into the OS kernel, in a way that users would have some difficulty modifying or disabling (e.g. mandatory driver signing and Secure Boot). As long as the playback path is not secured by the kernel, there's always a way to intercept a perfect digital copy of the output in software. And the user doesn't have to know anything about user-space API hijacking, LD_PRELOAD, custom driver development, or whatever it takes, as long as there's some software they can conveniently install that does the job. So it seems to me that the proponents of DRM would never accept a DRM system that is sequestered from the rest of the computer.
  - bcoates 13y ago
    > How many people would rather hack hardware than pay money to watch TV and play video games? It only takes one. Everyone else just uses that cracked copy. I'm not worried about DRM working, I'm worried about it not working in a way that gets in my way as someone whose time is generally worth more than the hassle of finding movies on bittorrent.

josteink 13y ago

The enthusiasm against DRM is mostly based on principle because the technological argument is so uninteresting. It's also based on the philosophical aspects of DRM. Everything which digital technologies enables, DRM takes away. Every improvement enabled by new technology, DRM hinders. Everything which digital opens, DRM closes down. DRM is artificially retro-fitting the limitations of the past into the future for no other sake than benefiting the already rich, with an added cost of taking control away from the people and handing it to the few. DRM is digital ass backwards and has no place anywhere in this new century.