Deeplinks Blogs related to Trusted Computing
Why Would MS Do Hollywood's Bidding?
Deeplink by Fred von LohmannYou might be asking yourself that question, if you've been following our series on Microsoft's trusted computing and DRM strategies. No Microsoft customer wants DRM-crippled operating systems, hardware, and video content.
Hollywood, on the other hand, wants ubiquitous DRM. And, wielding DRM and the DMCA, major movie studios can shut Microsoft out of the lucrative digital video market if it doesn't play ball. In that game, consumers will inevitably lose.
Hollywood is saying, loudly and to anyone who will listen, "unless we get content protection that satisfies us, our next-gen high-definition video will not be on your platform." Since there are only a handful of major studios who control 90%+ of commercially important film and TV content, this kind of cartel threat is relatively credible.
In the past, this would have been an empty threat, since someone could just build a device to play their content, whether they liked it or not. Not so since 1998, thanks to the DMCA. Now, if Hollywood encrypts its content, tech vendors need to get permission before they can build a device to play it.
Let's review what's happened since 1998 thanks to that big legal shift:
(Read on for more after the jump.)
Your General-Purpose PC --> Hollywood-Approved Entertainment Appliance
Deeplink by Derek SlaterEdward Felten has an extraordinary post detailing how Microsoft is giving Hollywood explicit veto power over the functionality of the upcoming Windows Vista operating system (formerly known as Longhorn). How explicit? Check out this excerpt from the Microsoft white paper:
"Other companies are free to invent their own [encryption for outputting video content] ... but security considerations mean that there is a high bar to meet before a new cipher can be approved for use....
The evidence must be presented to Hollywood and other content owners, and they must agree that it provides the required level of security. Written proof from at least three of the major Hollywood studios is required."
With its entertainment industry accomplices, Microsoft is turning your general-purpose computer into a toaster -- a content-vending appliance that obeys copyright holders, not you. As Felten explains, your PC will cost more and do less.
It will also make criminals out of more and more legitimate technology tinkerers and average users. To modify practically any part of your PC and use the software or hardware of your choice, you'll have to circumvent DRM in ways that may violate the DMCA.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's new DRM will do nothing to prevent widespread infringing distribution of copyrighted content -- the illegal activity that the restrictions are supposed to target.
The white paper discusses only a handful of ways Microsoft intends to make DRM ubiquitous. If you haven't already, check out Staff Technologist Seth Schoen's recent four-part series on Microsoft's security and lockware strategy, exploring the dirty details of the latest developments and their impact on your ability to control your own computer, create or use interoperable products, exercise your fair-use rights, and protect your privacy and computer security:
Part 1: "Microsoft Trusted Computing Updates"
Part 2: "The Dangers of Device Authentication"
Part 3: "Protected Media Path, Component Revocation, Windows Driver Lockdown"
Microsoft Sells Out the Public on CGMS-A
Deeplink by Derek SlaterStaff Technologist Seth Schoen, EFF's resident expert on trusted computing, recently attended this year's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC). This is the final post in a four-part series in which Schoen provides detailed updates on the status of Microsoft's security and lockware strategies for Windows. The outcome of these strategies will affect to what degree people using the platform and "trusted" PCs can maintain a desirable level of control over their own computers. Previous posts can be found here, here, and here.
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Although the Digital Millennium Copyright Act gave the public a raw deal, its reach is not unlimited. The DMCA's scope is expressly limited by the so-called "no mandate" clause, which establishes that technologies that deal with unencrypted, open standard media formats are not restricted by the DMCA. These technologies are unregulated even if the entertainment industries dislike them and even if they do not obey those industries' preferences for restricting users. Absent additional legislation, the copyright holders have no right to control general-purpose technologies -- like computers, sound cards, or software -- that deal only with open standards. That's why the Motion Picture Association of America has long sought new "technology mandate" legislation to go beyond the DMCA: to impose the broadcast flag, to "close the analog hole," and to regulate file-sharing software. Without such legislation, MPAA argues, the public will continue to have access to at least some avenues for making unauthorized uses.
Or will it? What if technology companies collaborate with Hollywood in locking up open standards, even without any legal obligation to do so? This prospect is looking increasingly plausible as Microsoft moves closer to supporting the Copy Generation Management System for Analog (CGMS-A). CGMS-A is an industry standard for marking video programming with metadata about the copyright holder's or broadcaster's preferences for whether and how a work may be recorded. The DMCA expressly provides that devices do not have to act upon or enforce such preferences; complying with CGMS-A metadata is a favor to Hollywood, not the law.
(Read on for more after the jump.)
Protected Media Path, Component Revocation, Windows Driver Lockdown
Deeplink by Derek SlaterStaff Technologist Seth Schoen, EFF's resident expert on trusted computing, recently attended this year's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC). This is the third of a four-part series in which Schoen provides detailed updates on the status of Microsoft's security and lockware strategies for Windows. The outcome of these strategies will affect to what degree people using the platform and "trusted" PCs can maintain a desirable level of control over their own computers. The first two posts can be found here and here.
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In the near future, when you try to install software to time-shift your favorite Real Audio webcast, your PC might disable all media player applications. Until you remove the software, your PC will remain crippled. Or perhaps you want to watch a downloaded movie on a wide-screen TV, but your PC might turn off its video card's analog output.
Welcome to the world of Windows Longhorn (now known as Vista) and the Protected Media Path, where Microsoft, copyright holders, and DRM licensors may grant or revoke permission to use your own computer and digital media.
(Read on after the jump.)
The Dangers of Device Authentication
Deeplink by Derek SlaterStaff Technologist Seth Schoen, EFF's resident expert on trusted computing, recently attended this year's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC). This is the second of a four-part series in which Schoen provides detailed updates on the status of Microsoft's security and lockware strategies for Windows. The outcome of these strategies will affect to what degree people using the platform and "trusted" PCs can maintain a desirable level of control over their own computers. The first post in the series can be found here.
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It has been difficult for most software that communicates with peripherals on the PC platform to answer two questions confidently:
(1) Am I talking to the particular make and model of peripheral I think I am?
(2) Am I talking to genuine physical hardware, rather than software that mimics its functionality?
(There are also other related questions that are somewhat more obscure; for example, "If I am talking to genuine physical hardware, is it physically installed in this computer as opposed to someone else's computer?")
Hardware vendors are now architecting systems that can answer these questions accurately. In so doing, they endanger the benefits PC users have long enjoyed due to weaknesses in device authentication.
(Read on after the jump.)
Microsoft Trusted Computing Updates
Deeplink by Derek SlaterStaff Technologist Seth Schoen, EFF's resident expert on trusted computing, recently attended this year's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC). Today we debut the first of a four-part series in which Schoen provides detailed updates on the status of Microsoft's security and lockware strategies for Windows. The outcome of these strategies will affect to what degree people using the platform and "trusted" PCs can maintain a desirable level of control over their own computers.
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The most important message at the 2005 WinHEC about Microsoft's trusted computing effort, now known as Next Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB), is that it is late and will not be included in Windows Longhorn.
In fact, Microsoft is not implementing support in Longhorn for the controversial remote attestation features of trusted computing hardware. That means that publishers and service providers will not have a hardware-based means of forcing people to use particular programs for interoperability, nor of stopping people from reverse engineering or altering software on their own computers.
Microsoft is, however, continuing to develop digital rights management (DRM) technologies that could be strengthened directly by the use of trusted computing hardware in future operating system releases. Those DRM technologies are currently highly vulnerable to pure software attacks, and making those software attacks fail is one of several possible future trusted computing applications. One of Microsoft's DRM initiatives is known as "information rights management" (IRM), perhaps an attempt to avoid some of the stigma the term "DRM" carries with consumers. IRM is already supported in Microsoft Office, and, indeed, has been the subject of advertisements which portray it as a feature for preventing inadvertent disclosure of sensitive corporate information.
(Read on after the jump.)
