4 ms·

AFAIK, there is nothing in the current proposal about forcing browsers to bundle CDMs. The CDMs could be part of the OS, installed separately, or simply not the

AFAIK, there is nothing in the current proposal about forcing browsers to bundle CDMs. The CDMs could be part of the OS, installed separately, or simply not there at all (in which case you have a browser that won't play DRM video, but is otherwise fully functional). That's no different from the current situation with Flash and Silverlight. You're not forced to use them, but some content is only accessible if you do. If we can replace Flash with a CDM, the attack surface is decreased, because a CDM is less complex. Without the EME standard, it seems highly unlikely that media companies would decide to distribute videos DRM-free. They would simply continue to build and use non-standard solutions. EME is just a standard API for what they'd be bound to do anyway.

shadowmint 13y ago
It's irrelevant whether the CDM is part of the browser, part of the OS or an installed plugin like Java. The browser must invoke the closed source, vendor provided CDM by pass a binary stream from the server. Certainly, it's no worse than what we currently have, but current plugins have, shall we say, a rocky security history wouldn't you say? (>_> java) Worse, every content provider is going to have their home written CDM, because they certainly aren't going to share. Once a CDM is compromised thats it, it's useless. It's going to be a nightmare of install-all-the-plugins. Most likely major browsers will bundle the most popular one to reduce the burden on the user.
- acdha 13y ago
  Look at the security track record of all plugins. Notice how few of the vulnerabilities are in the actual content decryption code as opposed to the code duplicating things the browser does natively? Also consider how sandboxes the CDM interface can be if it's just passing data through to decode. That's why this is such a big improvement.

shadowmint 13y ago

It's irrelevant whether the CDM is part of the browser, part of the OS or an installed plugin like Java. The browser must invoke the closed source, vendor provided CDM by pass a binary stream from the server. Certainly, it's no worse than what we currently have, but current plugins have, shall we say, a rocky security history wouldn't you say? (>_> java) Worse, every content provider is going to have their home written CDM, because they certainly aren't going to share. Once a CDM is compromised thats it, it's useless. It's going to be a nightmare of install-all-the-plugins. Most likely major browsers will bundle the most popular one to reduce the burden on the user.

acdha 13y ago
Look at the security track record of all plugins. Notice how few of the vulnerabilities are in the actual content decryption code as opposed to the code duplicating things the browser does natively? Also consider how sandboxes the CDM interface can be if it's just passing data through to decode. That's why this is such a big improvement.