AMD's New DRM 382
DefectiveByDesign writes "Remember how AMD said they'd make use of ATI's GPU technology to make better technology? Well, not all change is progress. InfoWorld's Tom Yager reports that AMD plans to block access to the framebuffer in hardware to help enforce DRM schemes, such as allowing more restricted playback of Sony Blu-Ray disks. They can pry my Print Screen key from my cold, dead fingers."
Re:print screen? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:AMD. (Score:5, Informative)
So I am guessing you used a P3 for all these years and just now upgraded to a Core2Duo.
AMD isn't known for making hot running chips Intel is. I also guess you haven't heard about Intel's trusted platform...
Plus this is just a rumor.
Man you can jump high enough to reach any conclusion you want too.
Re:AMD. (Score:5, Informative)
This is a non-story really, because this is called "curtained memory", and it is a part of the TCPA specification. TCPA hypervisors can prevent programs accessing memory at a level that you, the user, cannot circumvent. At least, not without breaking the "trusted" nature of your system and stopping some applications from executing.
Given AMD's commitment to TCPA, shared with Intel, ARM, MIPS, IBM and most other processor manufacturers, it is no surprise that they are allowing the GPU memory to be curtained. Your next CPU is defective by design.
Re:Power to the empire (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why do this? (Score:3, Informative)
And I'm usually not really sure which one would be more fitting.
Re:Why do this? (Score:3, Informative)
That's why AMD is doing this.
Which would be more unpalettable to consumers: Not being able to watch their High Definition DVDs on their new laptop, or not being able to save the frame buffer? Most consumers don't care about the latter.
Not for long. (Score:4, Informative)
HDCP [wikipedia.org].
Who doesn't consider Taiwan "free"? (Score:3, Informative)
Taiwan, speaking broadly here, isn't that "unfree." It's not like PRC/mainland China, anyway.
Sure, they're not exactly a libertarian data haven, but I don't think you should be tarring them with the Russia/China brush. (I mean, they didn't get medieval and had a basically rational, collected response, when they had a bunch of Neo-Nazis hold a rally [mofa.gov.tw], which would probably land you in prison in many "free" countries in Europe.)
They're a secular, representative democracy, with a strong respect for individual rights. Yeah, as a nation they have some not-too-savory stuff in their collective past involving the treatment of the native population, but you could say the same thing about the U.S. or Australia or any number of other nations. Frankly, I think Taiwan deserves a lot more U.S. support than it gets (although, I suppose these days, they might not want it).
Re:Why do this? (Score:3, Informative)
You're an idiot if you think this began 7 years ago. It's been happening all my life and I am sure it didn't start in the 1960's. Look through the cypherpunks mailing list archives whereever they are these days. Loss of freedom in the US has been a long slow process for a looooong time.
Not blame MS? Heresy! (But seriously...) (Score:3, Informative)
I can understand PC manufacturers wanting this -- as someone else puts it, a nightmare for (say) HP might be "Only Dell computers can play Blu-Ray!"
And thus, if AMD supports it, and Intel doesn't, Dell will either buy AMD chips exclusively, or advertise their AMD offerings as being Blu-Ray compatible, while their Intel offerings aren't. Meaning that, in this sense, AMD has to support it for the same reason Dell does, except they don't even have to directly market this to consumers.
So, I can see hardware manufacturers rushing to support this, because they actually have competition. They could form a somewhat-illegal oligopoly by deciding to not support it -- neither Intel nor AMD -- but that buys them nothing. Whereas, if AMD supports this, and Intel/nVidia doesn't -- which seems likely -- then AMD could indirectly make money (through Dell selling AMD stuff as "Blu-Ray compatible").
I don't like it. Many here on Slashdot are fond of saying "Businesses exist to make money," as if that's an excuse here. AMD could certainly take a risk and simply develop the tech, but never sell it on a single chip until Intel does something similar.
But what does this have to do with Microsoft? With no competition, can't they just deliver a big "FUCK YOU" to the record labels and refuse to support this shit in their OS? At this point, it becomes irrelevant for AMD or any hardware manufacturer to try anything, as Windows won't support it. Without cooperation from Microsoft, it seems like it would be a lot harder to build a hardware/software platform on top of Windows designed to lock anything in.
So, what are they afraid of? "Fine, only MACS will support Blu-Ray!" Is that actually a threat? Linux would be even more laughable, here...
I mean, I can understand why they did it -- they cooperate with corporations, not individuals. Oh, and they want to make sure they get stuff for the Zune store, and there's really no reason for them not to...
Still, notice how Steve Jobs has managed to get EMI's stuff DRM-free. I'm sure if Microsoft even tried here... "Remove your DRM if you want this stuff to work on Windows."