Schneier on Security

There has been considerable debate on the Peter Gutmann article since it came out in 2006 well before the final Vista code release. It appears he has recently updated the article, however, giving him another round or notoriety in the press cycle. (Do a google search for rebuttals to the article if you care.)

The important thing as I see it is this:

The content providers are pressuring hardware manufacturer's to secure the paths to the endpoints. Let's take a monitor for example; the monitor will include a decryption unit so the video stream will remain encrypted until it gets to the monitor. The only path to the monitor will be a low-fi version which does is unencrypted. If the OS does not detect a monitor which supports this decryption, it will send the degraded signal to the monitor instead to prevent piracy.

So ultimately, it does not depend on your O.S., if the concept is implemented in a wide-spread manner (and correctly), you would not be able to view high def content without encrypting it appropriately.

Of course there will be a thousand hacks, but that's the idea in a nutshell.

No, Steve Jobs did not publicly come out against DRM in music, not really. He proposed the abolishing of DRM (something he knows won't happen in the short term) as a preferable alternative to opening up iTunes (something European antitrust regulators are proposing to press on him), with the motivation of derailing the antitrust people (hey, look over there! The record companies are making me be a monoplist).

Apple could already distribute DRM-free music, from those labels and musicians that want it (many of these have already asked Apple to do it).

I know I've found it exceedingly hard to do what seems like a trivial task: copy my mini-DVD so I can edit the video and then burn it onto regular DVDs. It's surprising the amount of effort, software parts, etc. that are necessary to do this.

Microsoft MovieMaker would seem like an easy choice, but it won't import from a DVD or burn a DVD. Go figure!

"Some researchers think that this is the final straw that will drive Windows to the competition"

Windows *users*, perhaps?

JamesM: I'm composing this message on a monitor with 1600x1200 display, that does not have any encryption path. Such monitors are common, and the studios can't make them all go poof. If Vista refuses to display a high-definition movie on such a device, everyone will just run Windows XP or (if Microsoft tries to disappear XP) Linux. Video-on-demand services can require Vista, but when pirates do whatever it takes to break the encryption, their unencrypted high-definition videos will display just fine for non-Vista users, and will be degraded for Vista users.

Well, I just advised a friend of my father's to get XP rather than Vista, although this wasn't to do with the DRM.

Regardless of the merits or demerits of the system, it's just too soon - some hardware may not work, and we don't know what the security is really like - will antivirus work OK?. She'll get better performance out of the same hardware using XP rather than Vista. Her friends and family know XP too, and wouldn't be able to support her on Vista. It feels like a big change for... what benefits were those again?

Still, it's the first time I can remember when just getting the latest version of Windows for home use wasn't regarded as a no-brainer.

"Vista continuously spends CPU time monitoring itself, trying to figure out if you're doing something that it thinks you shouldn't."

That's funny. We are at the point now where the PC decides what we can and can't do. It's like the CPU is overriding the brain. Next Vista will tell you what you can think according to a DRM scheme. The user should manage the PC, the PC shouldn't manage the user.

Vista - An OS only the Stazi could love.

gradually people will come to realize that the characterization of DRM as digital rights (or restrictions) malware is correct (that which works against the device owner cannot be good)...

i just don't think it will happen in time...

"With 95% of the operating system market, where else would Hollywood go?"

Standalone players. Hollywood don't have to make it possible for their content to be viewed on general-purpose PCs at all.

This post is just plain dishonest.

This is the final straw, for me. I'm almost grateful for the clarity M$ is showing regarding its true constituency: itself and the Entertainment biz...now conjoined!

Mac/OS-X, here I come!!

@Joe Buck

You are correct; there's nothing they can do about legacy devices. This is why the DRM described in the first link is not yet fully enabled in Vista. In my opinion that article is being overly hyped at the moment. You could also make an argument that the TPM module in Apple Macs are just as much a serious threat, but Apple isn't really using it yet either.

The threat is still out there somewhere in the future when the hardware is widely deployed. Moving back to XP won't help in this case if all you have is the monitor.

People will find ways around it, but the idea is to make it a major hassle for the average Joe from copying their CD's to give to their sister.

@ Bruce,

"And you don't get to refuse them."

Uhm, sure you do - MS has to compete with its own older products as well as an array of other operating systems.

"I don't see the market righting this wrong, because Microsoft's monopoly position gives it much more power than we consumers can hope to have."

Oh, please. Markets don't form monopolies unless there is a government to prop them up. That propping up is called 'intellectual property', and against reverse-engineering (i.e. violation of other peoples' use of their physical property). If not for this, DRM would be strictly reserved for proper uses (yes, there are some).

One should study how markets actually work before making blanket statements like that.

"Microsoft put all those functionality-crippling features into Vista because it wants to own the entertainment industry."

The industry will just make movies so that MS can distribute it for them - yeah right.

" It might not be as obvious as Microsoft using its operating system monopoly to kill Netscape and own the browser market, but it's really no different. "

Netscape killed itself by being wholly financially unsound, and refusing to compete fairly. By competing fairly I mean not running to papa government to threaten its more productive competitors. Compare them to Opera and one easily sees where they went wrong.

"Microsoft's entertainment market grab might further entrench its monopoly position, but it will cause serious damage to both the computer and entertainment industries."

It will be like their other big bad market grabs. I'm still waiting for the late 90's MS forecasts of taking over the server market, the gaming market, and the embedded market. When is MS finally going to accomplish these old tasks when alarmists like yourself predicted the same thing?

"Some researchers think that this is the final straw that will drive Windows to the competition, but I think the courts are necessary."

And what is the crime for which you think the courts are necessary?
Offering a crappy product that will ultimately be rejected by customers?

Who are the victims?
People who purchased the product voluntarily?

If the courts are to be of any use they should strike down IP and anti-tinkering laws - and the problem will be solved forever across the board.

"And Microsoft has some pretty deep pockets and can wait us all out if it wants to."

Ah, the old 'We've got plenty of money to burn; our investors love to lose money in our business as opposed to investing it in a higher yield' argument. Well it's so ridiculous it isn't worth refuting.

i find it interesting that noone i've read has touched on the fact that all these spare cycles being used to monitor your behavior, whether or not DRM works, will in the aggregate cause a pretty significant amount of power consumption. while AMD is constantly touting their processors' lower power consumption as a selling point, MS is going out of their way to INCREASE power consumption unnecessarily, in order to fellate Hollywood content-owners.

"most of us are stuck on Windows"

I'm sorry, Bruce, I think that's a cop-out.

I'm typing this is Konqueror, and if I were sitting at my Mac mini I'd be using Safari. Either works just fine. I'm not stuck.

I think the situation is just as serious as you say, and not only because of Windows Vista Content Protection--although that is a none-too-subtle attempt to corner another market. The problem is a larger one of a company with an undesirable monopoly and few scruples trying to extend its monopoly position into yet more areas. The comment about Netscape was a timely reminder. Any monopoly situation is a serious matter; and--because it is a monoploy--it's not clear what can be done about it:

Here is another Eric Raymond expressing the problem succintly:

"Microsoft will literally put an OEM out of business before it lets them help a competitor. "

Monopoly begets monopoly, one might say.

http://catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-domination-201.html#msoft

I don't think it's good enough in this situation to say something along the lines of: Wouldn't it be nice, if?--but of course, we're stuck.

For home users there's no great issue. The only slight difficulty is that most Linux distros ship without multimedia codecs (owing to licensing issues), such as those needed for MP3. But the next release of Ubuntu will, apparently, do multimedia out of the box. And there's always Mac OS X.

Business users may be dependent on particular pieces of software, but if they want to enough can do very nicely without Redmond, thank you very much--witness the Ernie Ball saga:

http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

The only thing to ask oneself is, "Do these moral issues about how business ought and ought not to be conducted matter?" If they do, then making the effort to switch to Mac OS X, Linux or *BSD is something one perhaps ought to do. At any rate, if someone feels as strongly as you do, judging by what you say in the article, he ought at least to be able to say, "I use something other than Windows whenever I can."

I'm sticking with XP on my main computer. I need to use Windows for gaming... so I won't probably ever make a full switch to Linux, but eh.

"Regardless of the merits or demerits of the system, it's just too soon - some hardware may not work, and we don't know what the security is really like - will antivirus work OK?. She'll get better performance out of the same hardware using XP rather than Vista. Her friends and family know XP too, and wouldn't be able to support her on Vista. It feels like a big change for... what benefits were those again?"

Absolutely. That's why I hadn't even considered upgrading and wouldn't have for at least a year anyway.

There are more reasons why this is Microsoft's fault more than Hollywood's. There's also Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), which is Vista's own presumed-guilty DRM scheme. It's a mandatory background process that asks Big Brother's servers every day whether it thinks you are entiteled to continue using Windows, or whether your computer should be disabled.

Also know how we are slowly softened up to losing control of the devices we own. Look no further than your DVD player. When you put in a disk and press play, we are forced to sit through various trailers that we can not skip. Not because the player is not capable of skipping, but because Hollywood forces the hardware into obedience and does not allow consumers to override.

Microsoft launches 'PlayReady' DRM system
"Microsoft has launched a new digital rights management system that will allow users to use commercial content on multiple different devices for a single fee." writes David Meyer.

So you buy Vista and then pay fees to use content on different devices. Call me simple, but I don't think people are going to buy into this. If you buy a CD, you should be able to listen to it on whatever, when and where you choose. You paid for the content once. Paying to play it is simply crazy.

I am reminded of E. E. "Doc" Smith in the Lensman series of books stating that anything humans and technologically create as a security measure can be analyzed and bypassed. This was in Galactic Patrol published in 1937.

His words have been prophetic: any scheme business has come up with to protect their investment has been circumvented by the "pirates". And regardless of the variations and permutations that might be applied, the technological mechanisms will be "cracked" with relative ease. It didn't work with software in the 80's and 90's and it won't work with DRM.

And, I will use Linux before I will purchase Vista - Microsoft has gone power and $ mad. Why should I pay huge dollars for an OS that will be discovered to be inherently flawed, when I can obtain a free OS that is patched very quickly when holes are uncovered.

And as for the document formats that are proprietary under Microsoft, governmetns are moving to an Open Doc standard. As long as my office suite applications can deal with that emerging cross-platform standard, I don't care which operating system I use.

The issue with Apple opening up FairPlay is constantly misunderstood.

To get the studios to agree to allow distribution, Apple agreed to DRM. As part of this agreement, they also agreed that if their DRM scheme was broken, they'd fix it in a certain amount of time. To counter this required DRM (and lure consumers), Apple implemented the protection scheme in a way that is trivially easy to work around. (Burning to CD is essentially unrestricted).

However, in order to comply with the "if it breaks, we'll fix it" part of their compact with the labels, Apple has refused to license FairPlay. The reason for this is obvious--once FairPlay is licensed, Apple becomes responsible for "fixing" FairPlay in a short amount of time in way that doesn't screw up a licensee's implementation. This is essentially impossible, and thus there's a strong disincentive for Apple to go this route.

The iPod doesn't sell because it's "locked" to the ITMS. It sells because it has a relatively intuitive UI and "buzz." You can move music to the iPod without using iTunes, and you can play MP3s on the iPod. The whole (mistaken) idea that somehow Apple is locking people in to iTunes is ridiculous.

@Joe Buck
>Apple could already distribute DRM-free music, from those labels and musicians that want it (many of these have already asked Apple to do it).

Unless Apple's agreement with the Big Labels forbids selling any unprotected content. Since we don't know the terms of any such agreements, we don't really know who is holding whose chain.

@JamesM
>You could also make an argument that the TPM module in Apple Macs are just as much a serious threat, but Apple isn't really using it yet either.

IIRC, the TPM device isn't present in any recent Mac models.

This is why I don't like running proprietary software on my computer: it's working for someone else.

btw, a question: is there a "Law" or "Axiom" out there that describes the idea that you can't keep secrets from a person within a device that is in their physical possession?

It seems closely related to Kerckhoffs' Principle/Shannon's Maxim (basically, a system must still be secure even if someone knows everything about it, excepting a private key).

@quincunx:

Please name any markets that were not supported by a military force.

Honestly, I can't think of any larger than a few guys trading jade, and those were eventually subsumed under govt. organized markets.

Big brother Microsoft will make sure my users don't accidentally pirate their operating system. For free in Vista! How thoughtful.

Big brother Microsoft will make sure my users don't accidentally pirate a movie or song. For free in Vista! Super. I'm sure we all have nightmares about that possibility.

What I want to know is when will Microsoft make sure my users don't accidentally infect their computers with spyware, adware, trojans, or viruses?

We still have to pay extra for that?!?!

This has very little to do with Vista, and everything to do with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Vista *ONLY* uses these 'copy protection' code paths when you're playing HD-DVD or Blu-Ray content.

If you want to boycott the problem, boycott HD-DVD and Blu-Ray!

It will be interesting to see if VISTA's DRM backfires and actually starts a trend away from convegence of the PC and multi-media...

...it would be nice to see Hollywood and Microsloth lose a few billion on this investment.

I have never more seriously considered a Mac until Vista. Not that it's a bad system, but the DRM and the licensing make is so. The day they remove support for XP may be the last day I use a Windows OS.

The "get a mac" meme doesn't work on me.

Why, if I were a Windows user, would I want to switch from one closed source Operating System (Windows) to another OS (Mac OS X) which is partly made up of closed source?

No thank you! I want my OS and software programs to ALL be FREE AND OPEN SOURCE!

Now some may get a Mac for the hardware, and/or to run Linux or a combo of Linux/Mac OSX/Windows or what have you on it, but if you value security and freedom, make sure your OS is FOSS like Linux! Free yourself from paying for upgrades and from software (like iTunes) which you cannot modify the source or even audit yourself for security. The "most people don't read source code" is bullshit, it's about FREEDOM *and* security.

"Mac/OS-X, here I come!!"

The same DRM will be present in OS X as well once it gains the capability to play HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.

"If Vista refuses to display a high-definition movie on such a device, everyone will just run Windows XP or (if Microsoft tries to disappear XP) Linux."

Neither XP nor Linux support HD-DVD/Blu-Ray. Any OS/device that supports HD-DVD/Blu-Ray will support HD-DVD/Blu-Ray DRM. If you don't want to be subject to HD-DVD/Blu-Ray DRM, don't buy/play HD-DVD/Blu-Ray disks. It's as simple as that.

@quincunx:
Microsoft does have to compete with its older products, but "end of life" will come in a few years. Moving content to Windows Media Player 12 or 13 and making said application uninstallable on version prior to Vista will effectively kill off those older versions for content-viewing.

It is very true that government activity has propped up Microsoft's monopoly. Or more to the point, government INactivity. Court documents show that Microsoft violated anti-trust laws (the Sherman and Clayton acts) repeatedly, yet has only been slapped in the face. In the case of Netscape, for example, they inserted special code into Win95 to cause browser hangs and crashes. They also paid OEMs to include IE / not include Netscape with the computer. They used special OS hooks to make Word and Excel work better than WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and Quattro Pro. If you believe that all of these competitors *suddenly* stumbled at the same time in the two or three years after Windows 95 came out, perhaps we can find a therapist for you.

"It will be like their other big bad market grabs. I'm still waiting for the late 90's MS forecasts of taking over the server market, the gaming market, and the embedded market. When is MS finally going to accomplish these old tasks when alarmists like yourself predicted the same thing?"

Because of monopolies in client/consumer operating systems and office applications, they have been able to rapidly expand in the server operating system area, even though those of us that work with their servers believe that the product is inferior to such systems as Solaris. These monopolies have also kept them in the game with money-losing XBox, MSN/Live, Zune, and Origami. They are also growing in the PDA/smartphone space, despite BlackBerry / PalmOS / Linux being much easier to use and better suited for those environments. I concluded that the office monopoly was now the key to their whole business at http://lnxwalt.wordpress.com/2007/01/21/whose-finances-are-on-the-line/ and http://lnxwalt.wordpress.com/2007/01/20/whats-wrong-with-choice/ . This is why they are pushing so hard for the OOXML that no one else wants. Not businesses, not governments, not consumers, not competitors.

Remember, they have saturated their core markets, while most of their initiatives (Origami, Plays-For-Sure, Zune) are going nowhere. This strategy that Bruce talks about was successfully used when a railroad owner decided to become a steel tycoon, and got a major steel company dependent upon his railroad for transporting supplies and output. The railroad simply stopped carrying to and from the steel plant and in short order, was able to purchase everything lock, stock, and barrel.

The 'own the movie industry' theory may be a slight overstepping of the boundaries of Vista, but I think Bruce got it right in general. It seems that many people are regarding Vista in a utopian, all-else-equal context.

If you're a Mac or Linux user, you consider them options for the desktop; the fact is that they're really not for 90% of users. If they were, how come they have 5% market penetration?

Users won't "reject" Vista. XP took a while to pick up steam and Vista will too. Maybe it'll never sell as well as XP, but if it takes a huge hit, Microsoft will adapt. Similarly, Hollywood will adapt if they see their market share of distribution eroding. In 5 years, Vista 1.x will be the only upgrade path to Vista 2.x that anyone wants or needs.

If necessary, intermediate markets will emerge, like perhaps middleware that helps Vista "see" the "right" hardware. Where there's a line of code that does something no user wants, Microsoft will patch it or some hacker will "patch" it.

These markets all have evolved and they continue to:

- The RIAA crowd hasn't moved quickly, but they're still making money off licensing to Yahoo! Music.

- Apple rolled sinking desktop market share into a lucrative MP3 player market: Apple was nearly last to the market, but who even calls it an "MP3 player" anymore? Now Apple wants you to believe that you need an iBook and a VW to listen to your music.

- When it's financially viable, read: enough people don't want to buy Vista, Red Hat will make changes to their kernel that will allow XP binaries to execute directly. Linux is an application compatibility layer and one more partnership deal away from becoming a viable desktop OS for the mainstream.

Diversity and adversity are opportunity.

I am usually with you, but why is it when people talk about MS its like all freedom is ending? Seems to me that MS is putting in stuff so big entertainment will allow stuff on it. The minute that big-e decides with Jobs that DRM is not worthwhile, then all that non-DRM stuff will play on Vista, too. Move along .. nothing new to see here.

Ummm, maybe its just me, but I care way more about the INCLUSION of seamless preboot full-drive encryption in vista, then anything to do with high-def entertainment content.

@ quincunx

Funny. I knew it was you by the secone line.

I don't get it. Just 4 years ago, 4 brains from Microsoft came out with one of my favorite papers on DRM ("The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution", http://www.bearcave.com/misl/misl_tech/msdrm/darknet.htm) which basically said DRM was a waste of time which would drive customers to the ever-present "darknet". Schizophrenia?

I don't see what all the fuss is about people. Vista is a terrific improvement over XP. Quit your moaning and go back to work!

Peter Marreck: MS mean well; for instance in '92 or so Gates railed about how software patents would crush free enterprise in software. Bottom line, these days the back room is so much more accomodating than us vile consumers.

I am certainly no Microsoft apologist, yet it's obvious that Vista's so-called "Protected Media Path" DRM scheme was simply added to the OS to satisfy the media industry conglomerates. Of course MS wants to use its next-gen operating system to monopolize media markets, so in order to ensure that media distributors are comfortable with all of the new media-centric enhancements in Vista, MS had implemented a "secure" combined hard/software channel to lock down premium content.

I run Vista, and have had *no* problems whatsoever with this. My PC is by no means a bleeding-edge Alienware monster, yet I haven't observed ANY performance slowdowns or other issues that could in any way be connected to Vista's PMP.

How do I avoid these problems? I avoid protected media. I do not own a single digital media file (audio or video) which has a single byte of DRM added to it. I do not own any HD/Blu-Ray high-definition discs. And anytime I watch a regular DVD on my computer, I ensure that AnyDVD or Region-Free CSS is running in order to circumvent any older copy-protection schemes which may in any way interact with Vista's built-in DRM support.

MS can wire as much DRM into their OS as they want: it's irrelevant to me. I have no need to buy any new hardware that is "supported" by PMP in order to enable protected content because I refuse to buy ANY protected content.

Furthermore...any and ALL DRM schemes can, and most assuredly will, be cracked eventually. Both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD flavors of AACS have been cracked already, and at *least* one security investigator, Alex Ionescu, has already announced that he has circumvented the Protected Media Path (http://www.alex-ionescu.com/?p=24).

I do agree that DRM is a completely unnecessary hassle that consumers should not in any way be burdened with, yet most consumers simply do not *care* about DRM--they are not aware what it does, what problems it causes, what legal and ethical issues it raises....Hell, most of 'em don't even know what the anagram stands for! As long as folks can download songs from iTunes for a buck a track, most of them simply will not give a damn that they, as consumers, do not ultimately own the material they paid for. Nor will they care if entrenched DRM schemes produce security threats, as public ignorance of security issues is notoriously widespread.

The battle against DRM will not be won by stirring up public outcry (unless another Sony rootkit fiasco comes about--and, believe me, soon enough another will), but by hackers and crackers who routinely dynamite holes in DRM schemes again and again and again...until it finally becomes apparent to software manufacturers and media distributors that DRM is completely ineffective at stopping "piracy."

"Vista is a terrific improvement over XP. " - Kylie Manders

What, pray tell, does Vista do better? Is it the appearance of the interface that you like more? Is it MS Marketing's claims of (once again) being the most secure MS OS ever (a mark many other such MS OSes have failed to meet after similar claims)? Is it the reduction of the amount and type of hardware that it fully supports? Is it the slow-downs for certain classes of applications? Is it the drain on memory that it causes? Is it the reduction in the number and classes of software that will function properly on it?

Yes, please, tell me what Vista does that you think is better.

@Peregritz,

But the hackers and crackers won't solve the problem for the very reason you pointed out: most folks don't know about DRM.

The goal of DRM is not to stop "pirates," it's to increase the cost of copying to the consumer --- intermediate producers aren't the problem being solved. For example, DVD's are copy protected. Of course, a little custom hardware will allow any pirate to produce limitless copies, and at the consumer level, plenty of tools are available to DeCSS. Even though the consumer has a legitimate (if not legal) right to back up a copy of a movie he bought, this requires a knowledge of the available tools, and a not insignificant time investment. So, when the kids go and scratch a movie, he goes out and pays another $20, when lack of DRM would have allowed him to buy a home DVD copier.

Changes won't come about "naturally." They require political effort, which is unlikely today to happen in the US.

DRM will die, not because of any great ethical cause, but because there is no real financial reason for it to exist. Microsoft doesn't profit from DRM but it is an obvious and continuing loss (continual development required as each DRM version is cracked.)

Contrary to what the RIAA/MPAA like to claim, most people are fairly honest and the occasional home copy or download doesn't translate to an actual loss (the presumption that every unofficial copy prevented is translated to an actual sale is both stupid and insulting.)

DRM does nothing to prevent bit-level copies nor off-the-books production runs on DVD production lines.

The hardware "dongle" died because it didn't protect against any serious threat and was difficult and unreliable to use. DRM is just a software dongle.

@quincunx: "Oh, please. Markets don't form monopolies unless there is a government to prop them up. That propping up is called 'intellectual property', and against reverse-engineering (i.e. violation of other peoples' use of their physical property). If not for this, DRM would be strictly reserved for proper uses (yes, there are some)."

In fact, MARKETS don't form unless there is a government to prop them up. If necessary, they create that government (the Hanseatic League, for example), as part of forming. Thus, the government is inherently part of the "market environment", and manipulating the government and its laws is inerently a "market activity" - both for business, and for "the people" (a critical part of the market).

Claiming that some theoretical ideal "Market" will do such-and-such, if "the government" just leaves it alone, is ridiculous. Whatever form it takes, the regulatory-and-protective-services (colloquially known as "the government") in which a given market operates, and upon which it relies, is an essential aspect of that market. Some forms of government may produce "more vibrant" markets than others, but all markets are inherently tied to some form of government. Otherwise, you wouldn't have any basis of value (money) for the market to operate with. (I am presuposing that a pure-barter economy with no inherent trade-stability because of rampant piracy/briggandage and unmitigated fraud does not really qualify as a "market" in the way the term is generally used.)

Laws which limit the powers of corporations are NOT "anti-market". They are PART of the existing market and marketplace - as are the laws which allow corporations to exist and function at all.

This, then, brings us to the topic of regulation - specifically, regulation of trade. As stated, government is necessary for there to be any persistent market. The market itself demands the creation and enforcement of trade regulations - what do you think "trade guilds" have historically been all about? At the very least, traders demand that some entity protects them against robbery. If they are simply "allowed to protect themselves", then the private security forces they develop and employ become the de-facto police-force/government in the areas where they operate. It's insepperable and inevitable.

One of the key advancements of Democracy is the tacit understanding that "the people" are a critical component of "the market", and both should and do have a say in how "the government" works to promulgate that market. Typically, an individual is ineffective in enforcing his/her will on a large collective. Most modern businesses are collectives (corporations).

One way to effectively compete against businesses is to form one or more collectives that represent the interests of (segments of) "the people": representative democracy. These collectives of "the people" make their desires known by influencing the regulations imposed by the government. This is all inherently part of the market in any democratic society.

Corporation can and do manipulate both the government and popular opinion, in order to promulgate regulations they find favorable. Many people (ocassionally Bruce among them) simply recommend that we "the people" use our own collective power in this arrangement to promulgate regulations in our favor. In general, I concurr.

This is all a big security issue, because ultimately that is what a government is for: establishing and maintaining whatever security is necessary for a society to both develop and continue existing. Currently and historically, one of the requirements for a society to thrive is the cultivation of "a market", in terms of resource-exploitation, goods production, services, and trade. Thus, the "health" of "the market" IS a security issue within that society. But ignoring the consumer half of that market is probably not a wise security choice, over the long run. Armed revolutions are generally bad for security when they happen, but they ARE the ultimate "market correction" - and they historically happen when collective businesses (including commercial governments and most forms of
plutocracies) are allowed to run rampant over the the rights of the populace.

Our current "market-driven" economy is driving our society ever closer to being yet another plutocracy. The fact that "the rich" is mostly comprised of inhuman entities (corporation and over-budgeted bureaucaracies) only makes it worse - even fewer people enjoy the "full" benefits of society.

Your postings often seem to have a strong "anti-government" stance. However, while I see many flaws with our (indeed, all exiting) government, it just can't happen that we will EVER exist without any governement for any significant period of time. Even one person acting as a sovereign individual is inherently a Monarchy (or a perfect Democracy, if you want). Two or more people who regularly interact for any significant period of time are automatically going to form a government of some type. Even if it is not formally codified, it will exist; "understandings" will evolve, and "traditions" will become entrenched as effective law regulating their interactions. Thus, rather than propose "no government at all" - which condition can only exist in the total absense of any people at all - we should probably look at optimising the government we will perforce have. Under our current system, we do this (admittedly, rather inefficiently) with legislation. What laws do you thing need to be enacted/changed/repealed to get a suitable "security environment" for your chosen constituency? Myself, I am far more interested in the protection of "real people" than I am in the totally artificial entities we call corporations.

It might include features you don't want. But it surely includes features you do. However, many of these can be re-created in Windows XP.

My latest blog entry highlights some of these features/enhancements that can be made to XP to match Vista.

Everyone has a choice, Bruce. The problem here is that in order to switch platforms, the user has to 'not be lazy'. The switcher has to learn about the new OS. In the case of Linux in all its flavors, the user has to *gasp* do some reading! I haven't used a Windows machine outside of work since 1996. My life is great! An earlier poster said your comment about 'being stuck' was a copout. I agree.
Switch.
And who needs 'premium content' anyway? Go read a book. Go for a walk. Talk to a human being. Sometimes we have to disconnect from these computers and be real people. We survived without them for quite a while.

We gripe and complain, but nearly everyone will still go out and buy it. Just like the folks with placards protesting a new Wal-Mart. To the average consumer, we're just a few little gnats on a summer afternoon.

Are we going to boycott Vista? No. Are we going to stop working for companies drowning in Microsoft products? No. Are we going to walk the streets of Redmond with "No DRM!" signs? No. Will most of us be using systems running Vista by this time next year, regardless of embedded DRM schemes? Yes.

URL for blog entry is:

http://20thcenturyhistorian.blogspot.com/

@UNTER

'Please name any markets that were not supported by a military force.'

What do you mean by 'supported'?
What do you mean by 'military force'?

'Honestly, I can't think of any larger than a few guys trading jade, and those were eventually subsumed under govt. organized markets.'

All were subsumed by force since there is no free area left on the earth - but that does not prove that force was necessary to run them.

In fact, if they weren't running well, there would be no point in expropriating them!

@ W^L+

'It is very true that government activity has propped up Microsoft's monopoly. Or more to the point, government INactivity.'

I consider it's overall enforcement of IP laws, anti-tinkering laws, and its own use of MS products (indirect corporate welfare) as much bigger interferences.

'Court documents show that Microsoft violated anti-trust laws (the Sherman and Clayton acts) repeatedly, yet has only been slapped in the face.'

Violating those laws is a good thing - since they are inherently ANTI-COMPETITIVE.

' In the case of Netscape, for example, they inserted special code into Win95 to cause browser hangs and crashes. They also paid OEMs to include IE / not include Netscape with the computer. They used special OS hooks to make Word and Excel work better than WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and Quattro Pro. If you believe that all of these competitors *suddenly* stumbled at the same time in the two or three years after Windows 95 came out, perhaps we can find a therapist for you.'

Yes, you are correct, they did do all that , but they did not threaten anyone with violence - something only the gov can do legitimately.

BTW, why is it that these companies could not get around these software restrictions imposed on them by MS?

Why that would involve hacking around the restrictions - making 3rd party patches and distributing them. But that would be illegal! So you see whose at fault again (the State). I don't need a therapist. People just need to see the invisible middle finger of the state when it is lurking in the background.

'Remember, they have saturated their core markets, while most of their initiatives (Origami, Plays-For-Sure, Zune) are going nowhere.'

Market share is NOT monopoly.

'The railroad simply stopped carrying to and from the steel plant and in short order, was able to purchase everything lock, stock, and barrel.'

I have no idea what you are talking about. Is this an actual episode from history? This can't be a general case otherwise the railroads would subsume the steel companies - but they didn't. I'll have to look into that.

@ Bruce

'Funny. I knew it was you by the secone line.'

Any chance I can get a real response on any points I make?

Do you or do you not support using the court to expropriate any given compay and then use the procedes for political coffers (the only feasible outcome)?

The DRM in Vista was not put there 'at the behest of the music industry'. It was put there because Microsoft wants to lock in the customer to Microsofts business model. If Microsoft marketing did not want DRM, it wouldn't be there no matter what the music industry said. This is Microsoft doing what is best for Microsoft. The sad thing is that it is not at all what is best for Microsoft in the long term.

@quincunx:
What do you mean by 'supported'?
What do you mean by 'military force'?

Simply, I can't think of any historical market that did not exist without government backing, without an army protecting the market place from people who didn't want to play the game going on in the market. Even the few guys trading jade carried clubs, or had their buddies hanging around with a few.

I would like to have a counter-example. Otherwise, I have to doubt that it is even possible to have a functioning market without somebody protecting it with guns. In the same way that all organisms have immune systems: I'd like to see a functioning organism without one, if someone suggests that immune systems are unnecessary to a functioning organism.

Is there an realistic alternative for organizing markets and protecting them, or are you suggesting that they can spontaneously organize, even though there is no evidence that any ever have?

@Geoff

Hardware dongles are alive and well in high-end software - particularly software that has a limited market such as medical / industrial vision systems, etc. Typically the market for this kind of software is small, and the dollar cost is high - several thousand $ per license.

@oasisob1

If you're expecting average/novice computer users to put in the additional effort to run Linux or some other alternate platform you're in for some serious disappointment.

Until Linux becomes dumb user friendly, anyone who purchases a PC will be "stuck" with Vista.

Nielsen numbers say the Canadian digital download market grew 120% last year, dwarfing the market growth in more Digitally Restrictive markets like Europe (80%) or, worse still, the copy-gestapo spooked market in the United States (65%).

So why, asks the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, are foreign music labels still pressuring Ottawa to stifle fan-sharing?

"The CMCC sees the 2006 sales numbers -- and the continuing success of the private copying scheme -- as a sign that there's no need to change Canada's copyright laws to enable record companies to sue our fans. Our music download market is growing faster than those in the US and Europe. To us, that seems like evidence that the Canadian government should focus on empowering Canadian musicians and protecting Canadian consumers from potentially harmful technology."
[ source: CMCC Congratulates Industry on Unparalleled Growth : http://www.musiccreators.ca/wp/?p=215]

I have been using Linux as my primary desktop for about 10 years now. I have not regretted it. If I want to watch a movie, or change formats on media, or view a file I got off the net, I can. I don't have to ask permission from anyone. If I buy a new system, I can move the drive in a matter of minutes. I don't have the downtime of having to get permission from Microsoft or anyone else. At work, I have to use XP. It is crippled compared with Linux. If Microsoft had spent 1/10th of the time they spent trying to lock in people to their OS fixing the glaring problems in the OS, it might not be so bad. (The command line is still the frickin DOS shell for gnu's sake!)

DRM, as applied to consumer content, does not "manage" any rights. It restricts them, pure and simple.

The FSF people may be crazy Free-as-in-Libre Software Zealots, but their idea to call this nonsense Digital "Restrictions" Management is dead on. Please consider doing likewise.

In other news, I refuse to buy any content I cannot back up without loss of quality. I refuse to buy a player that doesn't understand free A/V formats. I'm running Linux because there's enough ugly closed-door shenaningans going on in the world out there and I don't want the same thing on the computer in my home.

Among a lot of other reasons.

So there.

"Microsoft's bundling deals with computer manufacturers mean that it will be increasingly hard not to get the new operating system with new computers."

We recently tried to order some DELL Inspirons and were told that they only ship with Vista.
Since MS obviously plans to give little choice to the consumer, I guess they have learned how to release stable, tested software. I'm not sure where they learned it.. certainly not from experience.

I'm sure there are people who would like to get familiar with Linux, but are not at all interested in installing it on their computer. The "LiveCD" makes it possible. Choose one of the many flavors of Linux as a LiveCD, download the .iso file, burn it to a blank CD then reboot from that CD. The flavor of Linux you chose will auto-detect your hardware, set it up and present you with a default desktop.

Here is a list of LiveCDs to choose from:
http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

Among them are some very good options, some very bad options and some mostly pointless "me too" distributions. They come bundled with an assortment of software. KNOPPIX is a good place to start since it will not touch your hard drive unless you specifically tell it to. It runs only from the CD and from RAM (setup as a ramdisk and merged with the file system on the CD.)

All it will cost you is some bandwidth for the download, the price of a blank CD and some time.

Linux will never capture a large portion of the home user market until the Linux geeks figure out that the reason their OS is largely incomprehensible to Windows users is their own basic terminology. MS users know what "install" means. When you start talking about "mounting" something, they think you're referring to taxidermy or Viagra. Oh, sorry. I forgot. Gates probably has a patent on the word "install".

"With 95% of the operating system market, where else would Hollywood go?"

Hollywood would only be too happy to go, period, as they really didn't want their content on those pesky PCs in the first place. If all people did was slide the shiny little disc into the shiny little region-encoded DRM-protected DVD player they'd be estatic.

Maybe we should take a page from the RIAA playbook and charge Microsoft (RIAA) a "carbon tax" or "resource consumption tax" or "systems reliability tax" that reflects the cost to society of the overhead of DRM. Much like RIAA wants a cut of every CD-R media sold.

It's a classic externality, right? Microsoft (or RIAA) doesn't have to bear the cost of all this hardware overhead, so it doesn't enter into their economic decisionmaking process.

Bruce,

Could you expound on how it's going to continually drain your computing resources ("Vista continuously spends CPU time monitoring itself, trying to figure out if you're doing something that it thinks you shouldn't.")? As I understand it the DRM "features" are irrelevant performance-wise unless you're attempting to play back protected content. Absent protected content, no performance impact.

I agree with your assessment of what the real battle is, but I don't think impaired performance is a valid argument.

Linux _is_ ready for the desktop. Here's the thing; someone further up the page asked "if Linux is so ready for the desktop, why does MS have 95% market share?". The answer to that comes in two parts:

1) Linux (as a desktop OS, the server ads from HP and IBM don't count) has no marketing department.

2) Linux, as a rule, doesn't come preinstalled as a desktop OS (I say "as a rule" because there are places to get it preinstalled, but not from a shiny Dell catalog for example).

More people don't use Linux because they either don't know about it, or because they can't install it. Guess what...

They can't install MS Windows either.

Are these issues that need to be dealt with? Of course...but deal with the actual problem and not some stupid "Linux isn't friendly enough" FUD. Have you people (who say that) even seen the new versions of KDE or GNOME?

If you level the playing field by getting Linux installed and set up with all the A/V codecs and desktop shortcuts, etc., by someone who knows what they're doing -- just like what a user gets with a pre-loaded copy of MS Windows -- then you have no problem.

All my desktop professional applications are Windows-only. Microsoft has an even bigger hold on users through its huge family of Windows-only application developers. I really have no choice.

"Yes, some people will shift to Macintosh and some fewer number to Linux, but most of us are stuck on Windows."

@atanas entchev

"I really have no choice."

There is always a choice. And sometimes, all of the available choices will involve a sacrifice or compromise of some sort. The idea that we have an inalienable right to only be faced with choices where at least one outcome demands neither is perhaps the single largest problem that we have these days. Microsoft knows that the vast majority of its customer base will take in the proverbial shorts rather than suffer a greater inconvenience to attempt to influence the company's behavior. And it relies on those customers to pressure others into complying. And many do, because the pain of being screwed around by the Evil Empire is more palatable than the pain of having to look for and learn new products, or give up a convenient feature.

Microsoft might have a gun to the heads of most computer users, but it's the users themselves with their fingers on the triggers.

@quincunx

"Any chance I can get a real response on any points I make?"

Bruce just gave you the 'real response'; next time try listening a bit more (hint - humility, not confidence of the ignorant) and remember whose blog this is.

Spot on John. Windows is only user friendly if you don't have to do anything technical or under the hood.

For thet 90% of tasks that Joe and Jane Consumer use a pc for, Linux works just fine. The current media king, Flash, is available for Linux and Firefox 2 renders almost all web pages with ease. For the more technically adept, you can install all Windows media codecs on your pc to view any movies or DVD's.

That being said, what Linux lacks is a focused, cash backed effort to get it into consumers pc's. and I'm pessimistic that this will happen, at least in the US. There's always Europe, though.

That's why I got my new PC in December. I wanted no part of Vista specifically because of DRM. I don't trust Microsoft and I don't trust Hollywood when it comes to my pc. I expect people to have all kinds of problems just because of the drm features.

please get your facts straight, this article is such BS

take this article and wherever you say Microsoft replace with Apple

Might as well be at least a little accurate

@ UNTER

"Simply, I can't think of any historical market that did not exist without government backing, without an army protecting the market place from people who didn't want to play the game going on in the market. "

I can't answer your question because it's framing is a contradiction.

How could an army protect the market, when the army is funded by expropriating from the market?

The army and its leader is already not playing the market rules.

@ Anne

The main problem with your comment, is that you infuse governance & the State (what I called government) into one concept, but they are different.

I am in no way opposed to governance.

The State is that institution that claims a legal monopoly of the use of coercion in a given territory.

It has its being by the systematic robbery of the population: Taxation, and counterfitting. The State never comes into being from voluntary consent, but always from force.

The only difference b/w the State and a bandit gang, is legitimacy. Legitimacy that must be preserved by duping the public over and over again.

'Whatever form it takes, the regulatory-and-protective-services (colloquially known as "the government") in which a given market operates, and upon which it relies, is an essential aspect of that market.'

I completely agree with this statement, because you are unwittingly supporting my anarcho-capitalist position.

If the form taken is a monopoly institution then you have a State.

If that form is itself a competitive market for regulation&security then you have Anarchism.

'Otherwise, you wouldn't have any basis of value (money) for the market to operate with.'

Ah, but the truth is exactly the reverse.

Government is just about the last entity you want to define money. Because it will debase it and counterfit it to the maximum extent it can get away with (oh yeah - and then blame it on the market).

If you believe that free market money would involve too much fraud, then why couldn't the State just protect against money fraud as it does for other fraud? Why did it have to monopolize it? Because it wants to do the fraud!

'Laws which limit the powers of corporations are NOT "anti-market". They are PART of the existing market and marketplace - as are the laws which allow corporations to exist and function at all.'

Corporations existed long before the State got into the act of perverting it.

Both laws that give it the power & limit the power are anti-market. We should reject the initial one that create the need for the latter one.

'Currently and historically, one of the requirements for a society to thrive is the cultivation of "a market", in terms of resource-exploitation, goods production, services, and trade.'

There is no government unless those things are already taking place. The government subsits on expropriating the products of other people, thus it has no existence unless a market is already functioning.

'The market itself demands the creation and enforcement of trade regulations - what do you think "trade guilds" have historically been all about?'

Trade guilds were the middle class' expropriation of the poor.

These trade guilds were actually fully backed by crony businessman, because mandatory high labor costs, cartelizes the market for them!

'At the very least, traders demand that some entity protects them against robbery.'

If they demanded protection against robbery, why did they demand to get robbed (taxed)?

' If they are simply "allowed to protect themselves", then the private security forces they develop and employ become the de-facto police-force/government in the areas where they operate. It's insepperable and inevitable.'

Uhm, not really. They don't have legitimacy, they key ingredient. A private security force that went beyond self-protection is not seen as a 'government' by the more numerous population. Bandit gangs always have to come outside that society, and are never seen as self-defenders.

'One way to effectively compete against businesses is to form one or more collectives that represent the interests of (segments of) "the people": representative democracy.'

Another way is to remove their privileges. It is my belief that removing problems is better than adding another one to compete with the other.

'Many people (ocassionally Bruce among them) simply recommend that we "the people" use our own collective power in this arrangement to promulgate regulations in our favor. In general, I concurr.'

But you 'the people' are not going to get the largesse of the ad-hoc expropriation. What will actually results when the government goes after a company is:

a) people lose their jobs (either them, or their clients).
b) Money goes to lawyers, and to the gov in general.
c) No user will get anything in return.
d) And to the extent that the product was useful, the customers lose out.

Who benefits? Not 'the people'.

'Two or more people who regularly interact for any significant period of time are automatically going to form a government of some type. Even if it is not formally codified, it will exist; "understandings" will evolve, and "traditions" will become entrenched as effective law regulating their interactions.'

Exactly! But it doesn't follow why these 'understandings' or codes of conduct must be monopolized by one institution.

'Under our current system, we do this (admittedly, rather inefficiently) with legislation.'

Legislation is a zero-sum game, that must constantly be fought. Legislation is a perversion of Law. Real law is discoverable by human reason, not modified and appended by a rotating set of special interests.

'What laws do you thing need to be enacted/changed/repealed to get a suitable "security environment" for your chosen constituency?'

All of the ones that contravene the natural law. That is, all those in any way shape or form that violate the non-aggression axiom. The foundation of security is private property. You can't have computer security without physical security, which is why discussion must always come back to it.

Being that the State is the systematic violator of private property, we can never get it until it is simply abolished.

@ Anon

"Bruce just gave you the 'real response'; next time try listening a bit more (hint - humility, not confidence of the ignorant) and remember whose blog this is."

I didn't realize that a brush off was a response.

I must have gained too must confidence since I have yet to be shown to be ignorant. I would appreciate being shown to be ignorant, so that I can gain some humility.

When you figure out how this stuff actually works you can make a more informed post about it, until then I would still to cryptography. :)

http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/archive/2007/02/12/572649.aspx

Chris L

@quincunx:
I can't answer your question because it's framing is a contradiction.

How could an army protect the market, when the army is funded by expropriating from the market?

The army and its leader is already not playing the market rules.
================

No, that's not a contradiction. Outside any game, there's always a meta-game about the rules of the internal game. This is the system that enforces the rules, and by definition it must fall outside of the rules of the inner game, in order to avoid an internal recursion.

Of course, you end up at the bottom with a self-recurring system, which wraps up Gödel's nightmare, or you fall out to physics. It's a question of levels.

My question is simply empirical: has there ever been a system where, in your terms, the market wasn't being run by the bandit? The bandit likes the market, there's all kinds of nice effects of the market that the bandit can tax, organize, etc, which he couldn't do by the direct application of force.

Are there any examples of markets with no bandit? Or is it, on the ground, evident that the bandit is part of the market, just like the cartel running the NFL is part of football, even though they don't actually play by the rules of football?

Bruce--

I debunked Peter Gutmann's original article right here on December 28. I'm sad to see that you're still referencing it uncritically.

I'm not arguing with the basic thrust of your comments here. I just think you should be more careful in selecting your references. Gutmann's article was grossly irresponsible, biased, and simply false in most of its specific claims.

Here's what I wrote then:

What follows are some comments I wrote up for an email list I'm on.

I'll skip the summaries and start with the introduction.

Gutmann writes:

"This document looks purely at the
cost of the technical portions of Vista's
content protection."

He should have said "complexity" because almost nothing he describes has a direct or necessary relationship with cost. There are complexities involved, but they're pretty much insignificant especially by comparison with Gutmann's hype.

"However, one important point that
must be kept in mind when reading this
document is that in order to work,
Vista's content protection must be able
to violate the laws of physics,
something that's unlikely to happen no
matter how much the content industry
wishes it were possible."

This point sounds important but he never backs it up, so I'll skip it too.

"Since S/PDIF doesn't provide any content
protection, Vista requires that it be
disabled when playing protected content."

I believe this is wrong. I'm pretty sure Microsoft and the content creators aren't going to prevent people from playing high-quality audio over USB speakers and Bluetooth headsets. I'm pretty sure that digital audio may be transmitted at CD quality levels (stereo, 44.1 KHz, 16-bit samples).

"For example PC voice communications rely on
automatic echo cancellation (AEC) in order
to work. ..."

This is a very interesting point. If it's okay to get the downsampled CD-quality audio, AEC should still work just as well. If not, people may just have to give up on doing full-duplex voice communications while simultaneously using the PC to play protected high-def content. I think perhaps this is not a big problem.

"Alongside the all-or-nothing approach of
disabling output, Vista requires that
any interface that provides high-quality
output degrade the signal quality
that passes through it."

This is grossly overstated because it implies this happens all the time. It's true only when the content is protected and the selected output is inherently insecure.

In practice, once secure hardware gets out there, most end users will never see this problem.

In the meantime, yeah, Microsoft and the hardware guys shouldn't claim to support protected HD content if they don't have a complete solution.

"For example the field of medical imaging
either bans outright or strongly frowns on
any form of lossy compression because
artifacts introduced by the compression
process can cause mis-diagnoses and in
extreme cases even become life-threatening."

This is grossly irresponsible and tantamount to invoking Godwin's Law. No medical-imaging system in the world is ever going to use the kind of content protection that Microsoft and the MPAA care about, and no medical technician would ever overlook the sudden downsampling-and-supersampling of medical imagery. Nobody's going to die.

"Elimination of Open-source Hardware Support"
"Elimination of Unified Drivers"

These sections are ridiculous. The only thing the open-source software movement won't get is enough information to let them violate the intellectual-property rights of the hardware vendors and content creators.

Users will be able to get closed-source drivers where there's enough demand. Nobody has the right to expect anything more than that.

"This means that a report of a compromise of a
particular driver or device will cause all
support for that device worldwide
to be turned off until a fix can be found."

This is a clumsy lie. The only thing that has to be denied in the event of a crack is the ability of the compromised device to violate intellectual-property rights.

The truth hiding behind the lie is that this repudiation process could make enemies if it's invoked clumsily, inappropriately, or too often. This might happen, or it might not. If it does happen, the eventual result will be the relaxation of the content-protection requirements in order to protect the revenue stream.

"For example if there are unusual voltage
fluctuations, maybe some jitter on bus
signals, a slightly funny return code from
a function call, a device register that
doesn't contain quite the value that was
expected, or anything similar, a tilt bit
gets set."

Another clumsy lie. Nobody's building graphics cards with super-sensitive voltage comparators on the power-supply lines or bus signals. It's likely there will be software tell-tales. If these are badly implemented or exploited by malware, they'll be removed.

"'Cannot go to market until it works to
specification... potentially more respins
of hardware' -- ATI."

How is this different than any other generation of hardware? Sheesh.

"Apart from the massive headache that this
poses to device manufacturers, it also
imposes additional increased costs beyond
the ones incurred simply by having to lay
out board designs in a suboptimal manner."

Nonsense. This is like the old arguments against clean-burning engines. It turns out it's cheaper and easier in the long run to do it the right way. Plus, signals that can easily be intercepted have to carry encrypted data anyway. The only places that unprotected digital video could be intercepted are inside chips.

"Increased Cost due to Requirement to License
Unnecessary Third-party IP"

This section is also nonsense. There are hundreds of chips in the world that contain unlicensed IP-- because the functionality is disabled. At least as a first-order effect, the only chip costs due to IP licensing will be for chips that actually expose the licensed functionality.

"Unnecessary CPU Resource Consumption"

Completely false. The only thing that really matters here is the effort required to decrypt pre-authored content. Apart from a stopgap solution here or there, this will always be done in hardware. Gutmann goes on to admit as much in the very next section, too. Every graphics-chip vendor is putting 100% of the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray processing stack into hardware. CPU utilization will go DOWN with these implementations-- almost to zero, in fact-- not up.

Most of this section is just heartburn over the fact that marginal codecs aren't mainstream codecs. Oh, well. Better skill next time.

"Final Thoughts"

Well, that's pretentious. He never STARTED thinking clearly about the issue. It's all just knee-jerk mumbo-jumbo.

"In July 2006, Cory Doctorow published an
analysis of the anti-competitive nature of
Apple's iTunes copy-restriction system."

One thoughtless crank referencing another. Brilliant.

. png

(Originally posted by: Peter G. at December 28, 2006 12:12 AM)

To all those saying that Linux or OS X plays content just fine thank-you-very-much, the point of the DRM in Vista is that Linux and OS X *WILL NOT* play HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc just fine WITHOUT exactly the same draconian DRM that Vista has.

If that doesn't matter to you, then you're free to stick with Linux or OS X. But if that doesn't matter to you, then all of the DRM stuff in Vista will simply sit there, not being used.

So if you don't play HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs, then it DOESN'T MATTER whether you have Windows XP, Vista, Linux or OS X -- they all function identically. If you DO want to play HD-DVD or Blu-Rays discs (on a PC), then you have no choice but to use Vista because it's the only one with the DRM required to play them.

In short, don't boycott Vista -- boycott HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.

I have a first-hand experience with existing "content provider" mandated DRM staring me in the face.

My laptop (running XP) came with a region-limited DVD player. I can change the region a limited number of times - and it's already changed twice. I live in Region 4. During the next year I will be visiting: China (Region 6), Russia (Region 5), Europe (Region 2) and SouthEast Asia (Region 3). If I want to watch any locally-produced DVDs I acquire as I travel, I'll need to change regions for each DVD - except that if I do, my freebies will quickly run out and my player will be permanently locked down.

I will then legally own a bunch of legally acquired DVDs that I can't play in my legally acquired hardware. The content providers will have my money and I will have nothing: this does not strike me as equitable.

My only recourse if I want to watch my DVDs will be to break the regional encoding on my player. Which is, of course, illegal, but is what I will probably do.

Regional encoding is a grotesque historical example of how DRM can go wrong. It never achieved its objectives but the collateral damage from it just goes on and on.

I see nothing in any of the postings about Vista's DRM that persuades me that Microsoft have considered equivalent Catch 22 situations that they will impose on users. On the contrary, it's an externality to them and to the "content providers" and they've chosen to spend their effort trying to make sure I can't do to Vista what I plan to do to my laptop's DRM-crippled DVD player. They'll fail, but since they're not the ones footing the bill, they don't care.

BTW, avoiding Vista's DRM by turning to Apple or other commercial OS probably is not a good long-term strategy. If Microsoft get their system accepted, this will force other OS's to follow or be locked out. Just as happened with regional encoding. The fact that the DRM will be largely ineffective won't have any effect.

@ UNTER

'No, that's not a contradiction. Outside any game, there's always a meta-game about the rules of the internal game. This is the system that enforces the rules, and by definition it must fall outside of the rules of the inner game, in order to avoid an internal recursion.'

This doesn't make any sense if you escape into meta-physics land.

There are no people outside the market to enforce rules on the market. The people that control the apparatus of the state LIVE within the market system, they privately get their goods & services like everyone else. It is what they do in the name of the public that is criminal.

There is no game. Society is built bottom up, not top down. This may be difficult to observe since we've already come a long way.

But the most important thing is, not everyone follows the rules! And why they don't follow the rules is precisely because they realize how ridiculous they are.

'My question is simply empirical: has there ever been a system where, in your terms, the market wasn't being run by the bandit?'

Well since the most basic block of the market is two people engaging in mutually beneficial trade, and since society has never been the supposed Hobbesian state of nature (otherwise there would be no society), it is clear that yes no bandits are needed to oversee any exchange. Civilization is not created by bandits, but the common understanding among people that life can be improved through cooperation. Those people that do not feel that way and engage in banditry, are properly labeled so, and commonly repelled by people, associations, privately funded defense, and yes governments (but only if it is in their interest). There is no need for this activity to be monopolized.

'Or is it, on the ground, evident that the bandit is part of the market,'

Yes!

'just like the cartel running the NFL is part of football, even though they don't actually play by the rules of football?'

Cartels are not inherently bad - it is what they do that counts.

The market is not like football. Football is an actual game. The market is our means for survival and livelyhood. Football is just for entertainment.

@ Ctrl-Alt-Del

' On the contrary, it's an externality to them and to the "content providers" and they've chosen to spend their effort trying to make sure I can't do to Vista what I plan to do to my laptop's DRM-crippled DVD player.'

An externality is when a third party is effected because of the trade actions of the original two parties.

There is no extenality between you (the purchaser) and MS (the software provider).

'They'll fail, but since they're not the ones footing the bill, they don't care.'

They already foot the bill for the software. The investors will be footing the bill when it fails.

Bottom line, this is the last version of a microsoft operating system (win XP) that I will own or operate.

Any new computer or laptop I purchase will be without an operating system on demand or I will not make the purchase.

Simple choice. There are other operating systems available.

Bruce

Why, oh why, are you being just as much a kook as Gutmann? Peter is a crypto genius, maybe you are too, but please don't say your an expert on something you won't even try.

Run Vista for a while. Actually see it do all of these things you say it won't do. Rip a CD to unprotected MP3? Check! Play stuff from Bittorrent in WMP? Check! DVD ripping? OK, nope, but guess what? Mac OS X won't rip a DVD out of the box either. Linux will, if you have some form of DeCSS, which is exactly what will enable OSX and Vista to do it as well! DeCSS, Handbrake, DVDShrink, all of these violate the DMCA. That is something NO corporation like Apple or MS is going to touch.
Sure, Vista supports DRM like AACS, PlaysForSure, and the insane restrictions on CableCARD. Supported, not mandatory: Vista does not force DRM on unprotected content. But if it was DRM-free, it would be content-free. No provider would trust it. If it didn't peoperly enforce said DRM, it might actually be illegal. Blame bad laws, RIAA, MPAA, but NOT MICROSOFT. If you don't like the protection on CableCARD or HD-DVD, show it! Don't buy them! If you do still want them, you're not going to find a legal, supported alternative to Windows that will remove the DRM on them.

@quincunx:
This doesn't make any sense if you escape into meta-physics land.
=====

My statements weren't meta-physics. Just old fashioned cybernetics. The market is a "game" in that tradition. And it requires a context, that is enforced: by people, by conglomerates, by physics, etc. It's a game in that its a socially-constructed transaction. Of course, the rule-makers are not insulated in any real system, and you end up with recursions in the corners, but any sane system is going to minimize them -- so the King is not exactly a buyer since he's the taxer and minter, his soldiers have a special resource allocations system, yadda-yadda-yadda.

========
Well since the most basic block of the market is two people engaging in mutually beneficial trade, and since society has never been the supposed Hobbesian state of nature (otherwise there would be no society), it is clear that yes no bandits are needed to oversee any exchange.
========

Two people trading is not the same as a market, just like two cells is not a multi-cellular organism. The dynamics grow very quickly as the number of people increase: it's a factorial. Leading quickly to an inability for people to use the same set of skills and strategies for regulating their relationships. With say five people, I can track all alliances, all altruism, all cheating while asleep -- that's pre-wired. Once a real market is developed, numbering hundreds of people, I no longer know what's going on intuitively. Implicit rules no longer work; explicit rules and external enforcement become necessary.

So the answer I was looking for was of the form: in year X, there was a town of 10,000 people with a market every Tuesday, where there was no police, no taxation authority which functioned well for 125 years, and failed under the onslaught of the Y's. Or somesuch.

I've never been able to find a record of such, or had an example given to me. And with evidence going back almost 10k, I would expect evidence of such if it was practically possible; I doubt that it's even theoretically possible, but that's a trickier proposition.

@ UNTER

'The market is a "game" in that tradition.'

You can come up with all sorts of paradigms: cybernetics, biological, physical all you want, but none is useful for understanding what actually happens in the market, for that you need economics.

'It's a game in that its a socially-constructed transaction.'

No, you have the free will to reject the rest of society.

'Leading quickly to an inability for people to use the same set of skills and strategies for regulating their relationships.'

The market does not need to incorporate all the various types of relationships to work. You can get along just fine by not agressing against anyone, and if you do - then you have obviously established the fact that you may be treated the same way.

The only thing you need is to understand is simple justice: don't kill, don't steel. This is something that any functioning member of society understands (whether or not they stick to it).

'Once a real market is developed, numbering hundreds of people, I no longer know what's going on intuitively.'

Why would you have to know what everyone else is doing?

'Implicit rules no longer work; explicit rules and external enforcement become necessary.'

You have not established why this external force must be a monopoly.

If there are a hundred people, and one of them starts to attack me - anyone is free to defend me, and I'm free to ask for it as well as take up arms myself. Why is it necessary for one of these 100 people to be solely in charge of defense?

Why can't I make defense contracts by myself? Why can't I insure myself against aggression with anyone willing to provide such coverage?

'So the answer I was looking for was of the form: in year X, there was a town of 10,000 people with a market every Tuesday, where there was no police, no taxation authority which functioned well for 125 years, and failed under the onslaught of the Y's. Or somesuch.'

Market every Tuesday? People are engage in trade all the time. 10,000 would not survive if goods were exchanged only on Tuesday.

You must have not looked hard enough because there were a few.

Midevil Iceland and Ireland qualifies. I don't know about populations, but many Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, and Polish tribes also qualify.

BTW, there was no public police in the US until 1838 (Boston, IIRC).

>He should have said "complexity"...

Complexity always means added cost so it ends up the same.

>I believe this is wrong...
>I'm pretty sure that digital audio may
>be transmitted at CD quality levels...

Your beliefs are based on ignorance.
44.1kHz audio is not something you want
to hear from SACD or DVD-A disc.

>If not, people may just have to give up
>on doing full-duplex voice communications
>while simultaneously using the PC to play
>protected high-def content.

And that is exactly what many gamers do --
use voice chat in game, and listen to some
music in background. So if the music is 5.1
96kHz/24 bit, it will get downsampled and
even game audio will get further distorted.
Why would anyone sane want to accept that
given the money involved in setting such
high quality entertainment system is beyond
me.

>No medical-imaging system in the world is
>ever going to use the kind of content protection

Using power of 3D to render high resolution
X-ray scans is something many do today on a PC.
But if the video driver gets revoked...

>These sections are ridiculous.
>This is a clumsy lie.

Open source community will not be able to
implement decryption and hardware acceleration
of high-definition content because that part
of functionality will be considered violation
of hardware vendor's IP.

>Another clumsy lie.

People are already experiencing graphics
subsystem reboots under Vista so the only
lies seem to come from you so far.

>How is this different than any other
>generation of hardware?

It is because specifications are changing
at third-party will (Hollywood) and are
not governed by consumer interests or by
pure technicality.

>Nonsense.

No, _you_ are complete nonsense.

Hardware should be designed by engineers
and not by corrupted senators which are
on a Hollywood payrol.

>This section is also nonsense.

Last time I checked video playback didn't
need HDCP or HDMI. It was and it still is
possible and in better quality with less
hassle over DVI. So shut the fsck up or
share that money you got from Microsoft
for propaganda with all of us if you want
us to share your distorted point of view.

>Completely false.

When have you last tried to play 1080p clip
on a high-end hardware?
Have you checked CPU utilization by any chance?

I think not. Let me clear something out for you:

1920 * 1080 * 3 = 6220800 bytes per FRAME.
6220800 * 30 (NTSC) = 186624000 bytes per SECOND.
186624000 / 1024 = 182250KB/sec = 178MB per SECOND.

So, even for a high-end CPU that is a considerable
amount of work. Next time check your facts before playing smart.

FUCK MICROSOFT

People need to TURN THEIR BACKS FOREVER on this company.

STOP using their products
STOP watching their advertisements
BLOCK their website from loading on your system
REFUSE to use Microsoft Windows
ENCOURAGE others to switch to other operating systems such as Linux
DO NOT give in to using Microsoft products again

People are waking up

Now it's time to go to the Governments and free the preloads at the OEMs and STOP Windows from being the ONLY preloaded choice!

STOP SENDING MONEY TO MICROSOFT

WHO CARES about Microsoft and if they will ever change, how many YEARS have you put up with frustration because of their products?

FUCK THEM stop using their products FOREVER

Just turn your back on them, the time is way overdue

JUST SAY "NO" TO MICROSOFT!

When people say:

"WINDOWS IS A GAMING PLATFORM"
"YOU NEED WINDOWS FOR GAMES"

IT IS BULLSHIT

It is because STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS continue to pigeon hole themselves through the CLOSED DirectX software

STOP developing for DirectX
STOP gearing your specs for DirectX
STOP making your graphics cards tweaked for DirectX

STOP DEVELOPING FOR MICROSOFT!

Don't you get it? Windows isn't the issue, DirectX is!

You want gaming on several platforms? THEN STOP CLOSING YOURSELF TO OTHER OPTIONS!

STOP DEVELOPING FOR DIRECTX!!!!!

The trouble is not so much Vista's DRM features for now but the precedent it sets in how my computer is controlled by a corporation.
So far MS is looking over my shoulder (WGA) but not too much interfering in how I use it.

Vista changes this model. Out of the box Vista allows MS to control what is and what is not working on my computer.
Quite frankly this allows them to change their business model from selling once and supporting it for free to sell once and support for money (patent in motion: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070129-8728.html).

As I see it this allows MS to even more to control what I do with my computer (which after all I bought myself).
Vista in my opinion is just a first step from Microsoft to see how far they can gain control over their users and lock them into MS.
Going forward what will stop MS from stopping certain software to execute in the name of security? As the majority of users will not complain and with feasible arguments against the government's probes of monopoly exploitation there is nothing to stop MS from taking over control of "Joe Average"'s computer.

And DRM ? Let's see, in a few months there will be Hi-Def players out there for most platforms (cracks to make them run on Vista too), the pirates will be able to produce Hi-Def movies and other entertainment that works better and smoother for "Joe Average" and actually Hollywood will make even less money thus causing stink in US legislation to protect them from the "bad" pirates.

Personally I like to buy my movies. But as I see it I will be forced by MS and Hollywood to get illegal copies just to have them working on my computer.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

And for Vista? Aye, time to learn about Linux and run dual boot systems. Linux to do the work and Windows XP for gaming.

> it DOESN'T MATTER whether you have Windows XP, Vista, Linux or OS X -- they all function identically.

I beg to differ here...

@Mary
>"STOP DEVELOPING FOR DIRECTX!!!!!"

do you remember the "good old time"? where you actually had do configure each game... and one third wouldn't launch afterwards?

hm... i think i like directX

"To all those saying that Linux or OS X plays content just fine thank-you-very-much, the point of the DRM in Vista is that Linux and OS X *WILL NOT* play HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc just fine WITHOUT exactly the same draconian DRM that Vista has."

Ehh... yes it will. It's as simple as:
1. Crack the HD-DVD/Bluray DRM.
2. Play the content on your favorite Linux media player. If we are lucky we soon have a player that does the cracking on-the-fly while playing.

Illegal in some countries that have DMCA and similar laws? Who cares? It's not like you are going to get busted for it, and it's not even immoral. Actually you are morally obliged to do it. Unjust stupid laws SHOULD be ignored and broken against as much as possible.

"do you remember the "good old time"? where you actually had do configure each game... and one third wouldn't launch afterwards?"

It was never so bad, and you still have to configure each game to a large degree. The only thing I can think of not requiring hardware config and did before is the sound card, but that is pretty much moot now directx or no directx. In both Windows and Linux you now use the sound card through the OS and it's sound system, not directly.

Besides, if a developer insist in having a middle layer between his game and the OS there is always SDL (libsdl.org) which is equivalent to DirectX but free and cross platform.

@Kesxex (and others): "Linux to do the work and Windows XP for gaming."

AFAIK, wine does a quite good job to run games under Linux. I have heard that people run World of Warcraft on a Linux system, for example.
Plus, there is Cedega (1), which is supposed to be even more compatible with even more games.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedega

The last version of Windows that I actually liked to some degree was NT 4.0. With 2k I spent time turning *off* features, and lots of them. With XP to run on x64 machines I turn *off* features to a fare-thee-well. My actual, useful, feature set is limited, and the only real improvements have been in addressing the actual physical memory and disk sizes that one can buy for a computer. I really don't like proprietary format types for media and spend time finding ways to re-encode them so that I am not stuck with just one format and take losses between them. The Open Source community has addressed this with various means and methods and my program code-base is slowly moving in that direction. For personal use that code base, however, does not encompass all that is what I seek to do from my system and having to become a LINUX/UNIX guru to go back to configuration files and such just isn't in the cards for me at this stage in life. WINE is helping and when I can get 100% assurance of all my usability needs *and* my code base working via it, plus the ability to do all my configuration needs done without ever, once, having to go back to a command line, then I will seriously consider *that* as a viable alternative.

It is *not* the efficiency of operations of Open Source operating systems that I am seeking. It is the ability for me to re-use existing, paid-for software in a relatively easy-to-use manner that is a prime requirement. I spend time turning off interface bells and whistles, and just want to be able to remember where I can set my configuration to be user friendly to *me* not to the LINUX coders. I appreciate all the hard work that has been done on *all* Open Source software and try to get donations to those pieces that I use, along with individuals who make their software available for free and ask for a pittance in return. That is a right and good way to do things. So long as I do not have to pull open a configuration file, remember command line syntax and obscure names and option switches for them, and the entirety of all of *that* can be hidden from view in a way that lets me use my system in the way I prefe