longest suicide note in history

[ORAC]

Vista security spec "longest suicide note in history" (http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36570)

Don't think I'll be rushing out to buy it...... :hmm:

[Mac the Knife]

Yep, I saw that too - sounds quite disturbing.

Original at http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt

What is more worrying is that x86 mobos with all this DRM encryption crap built in may effectively be Microsoft only - other OSes like Linux won't install at all. Same for graphics cards - only usable under Vista. And Microsoft WILL be able to pressurise hardware manufacturers into not releasing open/non-DRM encumbered chipsets.

Just as Linux becomes a truly viable alternative OS, MS uses the hardware (under the guise of anti-piracy DRM protection) to truly lock the door and enforce it's monopoly completely.

Very clever, very nasty and very bad for all of us. Extraordinary that no one can control them. Still, with a net income of $12.6 billion on $44.2 billion for 2006, I suppose they can buy anyone.

On the bright side, openSuSE 10.2 is gorgeous and I've ordered the boxed set (I'm not impressed by the FSF's shrieks about the Novell/MS "arrangement", though I fear that Novell is going to get more than it's fingers badly burned).

And the SimplyMEPIS 6.0.1 release - http://www.mepis.org/ - is the best yet. Warren Woodford really has put together a very polished distro.

Merry Christmas to all!

[Gertrude the Wombat]

"longest suicide note in history"

Really? Is it actually longer than the previous holder of this title then??

(For those who don't remember, the Labour Party 1983 general election manifesto.)

[Tosh McCaber]

Sorry, can someone translate this thread into English for me? Toooo technical!!

[Mac the Knife]

I'll try and explain.

Say you buy a DVD of a movie. To prevent piracy the movie is usually encrypted using Digital Rights Management (DRM) software on the DVD. With the appropriate permissions, your computer or DVD player decrypts it, using DRM in reverse, and sends it to the screen.

At the moment it is still possible to circumvent the encoding and watch it illegally, or intercept the decoded stream on the way to the screen and copy it, so that you end up with a non-copy protected version.

For HDTV and BluRay high-definition movies, the Recording Industry Association of America (or RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), who oversee recording and movie royalties, want to make this much more difficult, so they propose a system where the video stream stays in encrypted form all the way (the screen/monitor does the final decoding).

This is technically difficult; the encryptions have to change on the fly all the way, the DRM keys have to managed, and to be fully protected, the software and hardware has to be able to pick up any changes in it's environment that could be an attempted hack and lock down.

Essentially it demands new DRM hardware compliant motherboards, graphics cards and monitors that can cope with all this added crap. The added complexity is significant and these will all be more expensive. To some extent it slows the whole system up and adds failure points.

And there's only going to be one operating system that will understand and work with all this secret welded-in hardware - Microsoft's new "Vista" (though Apple may get a look in later) - only Vista will be able to play the new protected HD-DVDs.

Free and Open operating systems like BSD, Solaris and Linux (which are becoming more popular now as people get fed up with Microsoft's shenanigans), won't get a look in - much worse, they just won't work at all with the encrypted motherboards, graphics cards and monitors that Vista will soon demand.

"Oh well..", you may say, "Then I'll just use my PC for doing PC things and watch movies on my separate DVD player."

Well, just in case you do, Microsoft can and WILL "persuade" motherboard, graphics card and monitor companies not to release hardware that doesn't contain all the extra encryption chips. There'll be no choice at all.

"Compliance" with "requirements" of the RIAA and MPAA is perfect cover for their real game plan, which is to eliminate Open Source (Linux, etc). If Microsoft simply pressured hardware manufacturers (video cards etc) never to release specs, and also to spend billions making it impossible to reverse-engineer their programming specs, just to stop programmers from developing Linux drivers, they'd lose an antitrust action in court.

But by wrapping the plan up in the excuse that it's to meet RIAA and MPAA requirements, Microsoft has a perfect defense.

So in a few years time, apart from specialised scientific computers, Microsoft may have crushed all alternatives and it will truly be Microsoft only.

Finally they'll have the world by both balls.........

[Saab Dastard]

Some of us have been saying that Vista's DRM is a VERY VERY BAD thing for some considerable time.

Make backups of your XP installation CDs. Start playing with Linux. Otherwise you will lose control of your PC to MS.

I hesitate to recommend Apple Macs, as Apple has a few fingers in the content distribution (and protection) pie also.

SD

[Keef]

Remember Betamax? Superior technology and better package size than VHS, but restricted and licensed only to "favoured" manufacturers. Now extinct.

My guess is that MS will force some suppliers into selling only Vista-enabled products. The smaller manufacturers will decide they can't afford the licence fees that will no doubt be demanded from them, and will supply only the non-MS market. That market will grow, because all standards work with it. A clever Chinese gentleman will produce a freeware HD and Blueray decoder, downloadable from his .cn website, and MS, Vista, and the major peripheral manufacturers will find how fickle the customer can be.

MS will go the way of the Dodo, and we'll all be happily using Linux. Or, maybe, our antique copies of Win XP, with the freeware and shareware enhancements offered by some of the same experts that write Linux.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Sorry, can someone translate this thread into English for me? Toooo technical!!

(1) Vista is, in theory, going to make it harder for you to steal things.

(2) Linux weenies get all worked up about this, because they don't believe in paying other people to do work, they think they should be entitled to everyone else's work for free. (Mostly they're kiddies who've never had to work for a living so they don't understand about things like feeding children, paying the mortgage, saving for a pension, and so on.)

(3) Actually Linux weenies get all worked up about anything with "Microsoft" in the name, regardless of the content of the story, and regardless of whether they actually understand the story.

(4) So, when this is a story about Microsoft making it harder for you to steal things the Linux weenies get twice as worked up as usual. (After all, they haven't got anything better to do with their time, like actually earning a living or anything.)

[Saab Dastard]

ROFL!!

For an equally balanced view, I think anyone reading Gertrude the Wombat's last post would do well to simply substitute "Gertrude the Wombat" for "Linux Weenie" and similarly "Microsoft" for "Linux".

:D

SD

[Keef]

(1) Vista is, in theory, going to make it harder for you to steal things.

No problem with that, although I try not to steal things anyway.

But if Vista is going to start screwing up the workings of my computer, with bloatware and goofware aimed at stopping me doing anything, then I will rapidly become Chaplain to the Weenies.


(4) So, when this is a story about Microsoft making it harder for you to steal things the Linux weenies get twice as worked up as usual. (After all, they haven't got anything better to do with their time, like actually earning a living or anything.)

Earning a living? What's that? Something different from sitting playing with a computer all day?

[Gertrude the Wombat]

For an equally balanced view, I think anyone reading Gertrude the Wombat's last post would do well to simply substitute "Gertrude the Wombat" for "Linux Weenie" and similarly "Microsoft" for "Linux".

*Shrug*

I'm perfectly happy to work with Linux, if someone pays me to do so, and they do occasionally.

[Mac the Knife]

The usual silly old MS fanboi stuff from Gertrude (it's such nonsense that it doesn't qualify as argument).

"I'm perfectly happy to work with Linux, if someone pays me to do so, and they do occasionally."

I can't imagine why anyone using Linux would want a VBA jockey and Excel macro weenie.

Generally Windows coders are too sloppy to be let loose in a Linux production environment.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

I can't imagine why anyone ... would want a VBA jockey and Excel macro weenie.

Neither can I. I learned decades ago not to hire a VB programmer who had never done assembler coding - otherwise you run the risk of getting someone who hasn't the remotest clue what a computer actually is.

[Basil]

For a long time we've had the silly system where you buy a laptop - take anywhere international machine, right?
. . . with a one region DVD drive.
Anyone know if this has been tested at law?

Personally I wouldn't have the slightest compunction in chipping such an unreasonable restriction on freedom of use of my equipment.

[Mac the Knife]

Basil, this results from an agreement between the MPAA and most DVD player manufacturers. It supposedly lets the MPAA coordinate movie releases between countries (and maximise their profits at the inconvenience of todays international user). It doesn't really have anything to do with Microsoft (though MS wholeheartedly supports it).

DVD player manufacturers have always been lukewarm about region coding which is why it is usually trivial to bypass. Effectively, all it does is annoy legitimate consumers. Needless to say, the studios are not happy with this and are trying a new wrinkle called is Regional Coding Enhancement(RCE) - this a digital "enhancement" added to some Warner Bros and Columbia DVDs to stop region 1 (R1) DVDs from playing on Region-free DVD players.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/images/rce.jpg

Region coding has nothing to do with DRM content protection as such (you could have bought the authentic DVD perfectly legally outside the region where you live). Many view region code enforcement as a violation of WTO free trade agreements or competition law. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has warned that DVD players that enforce region coding may violate the Trade Practices Act. The government of New Zealand has also made a similar ruling.

So you're kinda off-topic actually...

[Mac the Knife]

Charlie Demerjian's rant in the the Inquirer is worth reading just to give the uninitiated an idea of how the big players and the media companies have sold us all out.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36574

Grrrrr! :*

[Mac the Knife]

And here's another thoughtful essay by John Gilmore on the abuses of copy-protection schemes.

http://www.toad.com/gnu/whatswrong.html

[Basil]

So you're kinda off-topic actually...
Yes, yes, but indulge me a bit :)

[IO540]

My view is that this scheme will fail, or at least will fail to be implemented anywhere near as fully as described.

Intel have tried to bring out non-80x86 processors and failed. 80x86 compatibility is essential for all the open source software out there.

Major corporates, and some small countries, are insisting on the ability to run open source. They will boycott it.

This scheme is basically just a means of selling a non-IBM-PC compatible machine, which will run only M$ code, and IMHO it will go as far as previous attempts to do the same have got. The only firm that has sort-of managed it is Apple :) And they did it through having a fantastically (fanatically, some might say) loyal band of followers, at a time when the IBM PC was anyway not a good option for graphics-intensive work.

I don't think HD security will be broken - it is far too strong. It isn't the CSS stuff used on DVDs. What will be broken, for sure, will be the data. You need to access the data in raw digital (or high quality HD analog) format anywhere at all, and the genie is out of the bottle for that particular movie. Even converting 24-bit RGB data from analog back to digital will be so good nobody will tell the difference, and the analog data cannot ever be protected even if it exists only inside the display product. It then won't take long for every imaginable movie to be all over P2P.

As has been stated above, a good reason to keep one's XP install disks, or (even better in some cases as they don't need registration at all) win2000 install disks :)

[ORAC]

The Times January 08, 2007

High-quality DVDs will not operate on some Vista PCs

Microsoft has been forced to acknowledge that a substantial number of PCs running the new version of its Windows operating system will not be able to play high-quality DVDs.

The Vista system will be available to consumers at the end of the month. However, in an interview with The Times, one of its chief architects said that because of anti-piracy protection granted to the Hollywood studios, Vista would not play HD-DVD and Blu-ray Discs on certain PCs. Dave Marsh, the lead program manager for video at Microsoft, said that if the PC used a digital connection to link with the monitor or television, then it would require the highest level of content protection, known as HDCP, to play the discs. If it did not have such protection, Vista would shut down the signal, he said.

The admission will be a blow to Microsoft, which is hoping that more users will turn to their PCs for watching films and other content.

According to DSG International, which owns PC World, about 15 per cent of PCs sold at present in Britain use digital connections, but that number is expected to grow.

Virtually none of the PCs that use a digital connection have HDCP. “It’s up to the content providers to set the level of protection that Vista applies, but they’re likely to be pretty firm on the need to use high-definition content protection [HDCP] when using a digital connection,” Mr Marsh said. “At the moment HD DVD and Blu-ray Discs certainly require such protection.” Mr Marsh added that computers with built-in HDCP protection — which could play such discs — were being phased in, but that, in the meantime, Microsoft was obliged to ensure that the studios’ content was being used securely.

Computers using an analog connection will not be affected and the requirement does not apply to regular DVDs.

Peter Gutman, a researcher in computer security at the University of Auckland, who produced a report on the compatability of Vista with various hardware, said: “When this aired at a couple of Windows conferences last year, I thought: ‘This is so bad it’s going to die.’ But it didn’t.

“To downgrade the signal so that the HD-DVD will play, you need a constrictor, but that doesn’t seem to be present in many of the computers that are shipping. Given that it downgrades signal quality, most manufacturers aren’t rushing to include it. “Any computer which has an LCD monitor is potentially at risk of not being able to play this content.”

A DSG International official said that the number of PCs with digital connections would grow as the computer came to be used more as an entertainment device. “The PC is moving out of the study and into the living room as users begin to connect up their computers with their TV,” the official said. “The majority of HD-TVs sold now have a digital input on the back.”