4 ms·

> the contents of any source media...should readily provide the raw, unencrypted content data Once this crap becomes ubiquitous, why would companies ship unen

> the contents of any source media...should readily provide the raw, unencrypted content data Once this crap becomes ubiquitous, why would companies ship unencrypted bits at all? They could send files encrypted with all the major OEM "protected content" keys. If you're running on non-supported hardware, well, sucks to be you, pirate. I imagine it's rather difficult to extract the private key from DRM hardware. In the end, big media wins.

anon4 12y ago
They already did that, twice. First with DVD which used a weak scrambling scheme that was defeated, then with BluRay which used strong encryption, but people were able to extract the keys. The problem with that scheme is that once any one key leaks, you can't do anything about it, especially not if the key is burned in your CPU. You can't expect everyone to go buy a new Intel CPU each time someone manages to extract a private key.
- mike_hearn 12y ago
  DVD encryption was the same strength as BluRay, cryptographically. The difference between them are twofold: 1) For DVDs there were only a handful of player keys, like less than 30 if I recall correctly. Once they were all leaked the system was broken forever. AACS as used on BluRay has so many keys and such efficient revocation that each player can have its own key. 2) The BluRay designers realised that AACS by itself was insufficient because it takes time to revoke a key, and if they leak faster than they can be revoked the total quantity doesn't matter much. So they did BD+ as well, which is basically a kind of band-aid to detect emulators using stolen keys. BluRay security has definitely been more effective than DVD security, especially in its earlier days, but the leak of the HDCP master key was pretty fatal, and eventually (all proprietary) emulators got good enough that BD+ programs couldn't really tell them apart from legit licensed players.
- michaelt 12y ago
  They already did that, twice. The DRM on the PS3 lasted from 2006 until at least 2010 - and even today, as I understand it, online play is disabled if you refuse a patch that closes the jailbreak security bugs. Perhaps effective DRM is possible, it's just taking a lot of practice. What's more, in the past media distribution was on physical disks and players weren't on the internet, so software couldn't be upgraded. The future is obviously in downloads and streaming, which will enable a bunch of new things. Key rotation will be much simpler as vendors can just issue a compulsory automatic upgrade. As a different download can be prepared for every customer, there's no need for keys to be shared by multiple customers. Every download can be watermarked so anything that does get out can be traced to a particular downloader. So I don't think the failures of the past indicate it's impossible for DRM to ever work.

anon4 12y ago

They already did that, twice. First with DVD which used a weak scrambling scheme that was defeated, then with BluRay which used strong encryption, but people were able to extract the keys. The problem with that scheme is that once any one key leaks, you can't do anything about it, especially not if the key is burned in your CPU. You can't expect everyone to go buy a new Intel CPU each time someone manages to extract a private key.

mike_hearn 12y ago
DVD encryption was the same strength as BluRay, cryptographically. The difference between them are twofold: 1) For DVDs there were only a handful of player keys, like less than 30 if I recall correctly. Once they were all leaked the system was broken forever. AACS as used on BluRay has so many keys and such efficient revocation that each player can have its own key. 2) The BluRay designers realised that AACS by itself was insufficient because it takes time to revoke a key, and if they leak faster than they can be revoked the total quantity doesn't matter much. So they did BD+ as well, which is basically a kind of band-aid to detect emulators using stolen keys. BluRay security has definitely been more effective than DVD security, especially in its earlier days, but the leak of the HDCP master key was pretty fatal, and eventually (all proprietary) emulators got good enough that BD+ programs couldn't really tell them apart from legit licensed players.
michaelt 12y ago
They already did that, twice. The DRM on the PS3 lasted from 2006 until at least 2010 - and even today, as I understand it, online play is disabled if you refuse a patch that closes the jailbreak security bugs. Perhaps effective DRM is possible, it's just taking a lot of practice. What's more, in the past media distribution was on physical disks and players weren't on the internet, so software couldn't be upgraded. The future is obviously in downloads and streaming, which will enable a bunch of new things. Key rotation will be much simpler as vendors can just issue a compulsory automatic upgrade. As a different download can be prepared for every customer, there's no need for keys to be shared by multiple customers. Every download can be watermarked so anything that does get out can be traced to a particular downloader. So I don't think the failures of the past indicate it's impossible for DRM to ever work.