Tag: DRM
-
Rethinking DRM Dystopia
Thanks to Ed for the flattering introduction – now if only I can live up to it! It’s an honor (and a little intimidating) to be guest blogging on FTT after several years as an avid reader. I’ve never blogged before, but I am looking forward to the thoughtful, user-driven exchanges and high transparency that…
-
University-Purchased Music Services a Bust
When universities buy music service subscriptions for their students, few students use them, according to Nick Timiraos’s story in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. Students tend to download music illegally, or buy it from iTunes instead. In explaining the popularity of Napster and other file-sharing systems, commentators have often overemphasized the price factor and underestimated convenience.…
-
Freeing the Xbox
When Microsoft shipped its Xbox game console, Linux programmers salivated. The Xbox was a pretty nice computer, priced at $149. The Xbox had all the hardware needed to run Linux and its applications. Problem was, Microsoft had tried to lock down the Xbox hardware to prevent unauthorized programs – such as the Linux kernel –…
-
Ed Talks in SANE
Today, I gave a keynote at the SANE (System Administration and Network Engineering) conference, in Delft, the Netherlands. SANE has an interesting group of attendees, mostly high-end system and network jockeys, and people who like to hang around with them. At the request of some attendees, I am providing a PDF of my slides, with…
-
Happy Endings
Cameron Wilson at the USACM Policy Blog writes about a Cato Institute event about copyright policy, which was held Wednesday. The panel on the DMCA was especially interesting. (audio download; audio stream; video stream) Tim Lee, author of the recent Cato paper on the ill effects of the DMCA, spoke first. The second speaker was…
-
U.S. Copyright May Get Harsher and Broader
Rep. Lamar Smith is preparing to introduce a bill in Congress that would increase penalties for copyright infringement and broaden the scope of the DMCA and other copyright laws, according to a news.com story. (The story seems to get some details of the bill wrong, so be sure to look at the bill itself before…
-
HDCP: Why So Weak?
Today I want to wrap up (I think) the discussion on security weaknesses in HDCP, the encryption scheme used for sending very high-def video from a device like a next-gen DVD player to a TV monitor. I wrote previously (1, 2, 3) about how HDCP will inevitably fail – catastrophically – when somebody manages to…
-
HDCP Could Have Been Better
I wrote Friday about weaknesses in the HDCP handshake protocol that is being used to set up encryption of very high-def TV content that is in transit from devices like next-gen DVD players to television monitors. This was not news to those who follow the area. The ideas in my post came from a 2001…
-
Making and Breaking HDCP Handshakes
I wrote yesterday about the HDCP/HDMI technology that Hollywood wants to use to restrict the availability of very high-def TV content. Today I want to go under the hood, explaining how the key part of HDCP, the handshake, works. I’ll leave out some mathematical niceties to simplify the explanation; full details are in a 2001…
-
HDMI and Output Control
Tim Lee at Tech Liberation Front points out an interesting aspect of the new MovieBeam device – it offers its highest-resolution output only to video displays that use the HDMI format. (MovieBeam is a $200 box you buy that lets you buy 24-hour access to recent movies. There is a rotating menu of movies. Currently…