CPRM Smokescreen 105
John Gilmore separates the chaff from the wheat with his look at the new copy-control proposal. See our previous story if you missed the bait-and-switch, as drive manufacturers attempt to include copy controls in all hard drives.
Re:Stockpiling (Score:2)
Quick question... (Score:3)
Re:The difficulty? (Score:1)
If you look at the Constitution and at rulings such as the one in the Betamax case, you'll see that copyright in the United States is supposed to be about public benefit, NOT private benefit. If numerous people disobey copyright laws, this may well be an indication that the laws are too restrictive (given the technology around today), rather than an indication that obnoxious police state measures are called-for.
The outfits who are calling for copy protection are generally the same ones who favor strong monopolies for themselves and their friends, no matter the cost to the public.
come on people (Score:1)
Re:More on CRPM (Score:1)
But they want to control the extent of the piracy - it's a tool when they can control it and a threat when they can't. So they create "keys" that go on the back of CD boxes and other such "copy-protection" systems, the goal of which is not really to protect, but just to make it that little bit more difficult so that some people will actually go out and buy the stuff.
Then of course them make millions off the lemmings who have no choice but to register because they need the online support to circumvent the obscureware interface.
But now that they've got the market penetration they need, they may well decide it's time to capitalise on it, and they can do this by implementing a system which forces you to register the software over the internet with a unique key before it can be used, for example (oh, wait, they've already proposed that...). In other words, if it's useful we'll use it, and when it's use has run out, we'll label everyone who does it as a criminal who has been shamefully stealing their revenues from us for the past x years.
Had they been truly against the pirating of their software from the start, I'd have more sympathy, but as they've used it to spread their progeny like a virus, I find it hard to shed tears for them.
Re:More on CRPM (Score:2)
On a similar note, but closer to home, as long as kids and students who can't afford MS products pirate them, the MS monopoly is strengthened. If they could no longer pirate them, they'd be forced to move to cheaper (free?) alternatives, which might increase market conciousness that there
Both the original poster and the register are well aware of this argument
Jules
Re:I honestly don't get it... (Score:2)
It's the bigger companies (IBM might be an example, but I'm not pointing the finger; I don't know what their corporate strategies are on this issue) which can see a market for appliances with content-management (smart car radios which allow you to transfer a limited number of your own personal CDS as long as they are yours, etc...) that have an interest, I suppose.
As we move into a technological environment where the barrier to copying music is lower and lower, where it's easier and easier for "normal" people to copy music to/from their friends, the car, the internet, the industry is searching for new revenue schemes.
I understand their search, I don't think this is the right way, but I must admit I don't know what
Jules
Re:Sigh (Score:1)
SENSE (Size of disk + sector size)
POWERON (start the drive)
POWEROFF (stops the drive)
FLUSH (make sure cached data is on the media)
and EJECT (eject removable device)
Cheers,
--fred
Re:Looks pretty generic to me (Score:1)
This field contains a 128-bit value identifying the generic functionality supported by the device. The generic function vendor shall ensure that the GUID value is unique
Its the PIII over again, only this time in the hard disk rather than the processor that has the ID tag.
Umbrella standards (Score:5)
I think, most of people didn't exactly "get it", why adding a "standard" for unknown "generic" function can be a significant step to organization of CPRM schemes behind the scenes, so I will try to explain it. The "real" standards usually are pretty restrictive about what can be added to the protocol while it's still considered to be compliant. Say, if something claims that it talks SMTP, it can't demand that before "HELO" a client must send a credit card number, or the system won't work -- even if someone will make such a thing, no other SMTP client will work with that, and that system will be declared to be just as nonstandard as if it talked, say, one of internal Microsoft Exchange protocols. In some situations protocols allow extensions to be made in some backward-compatible way -- depending on the purpose of the protocol they may be allowed or not allowed, and if they are allowed, usually there is a requirement that all systems that support extensions MUST ("MUST" in capitals because it's used in the meaning, the word has in the standards texts) support the original protocol to avoid any kind of incompatibility. That was usually the rule when/where ptotocol standards were created to facilitate communication (say, first thousand-something RFCs) and not to be the base for "compatibility wars" (say, what ITU does).
Then large number of extremely vague and easily extensible "umbrella" standards appeared -- they usually involved some "wrapper" that can be easily pulled over anything, no matter how undocumented, proprietary or simply convoluted. Bright example is XML. The standard itself is very simple -- it defines how one can format the data, and, if the need will arise, how to make something that will allow to verify if there is a formatting error. What data is there, how it should be processed, what standards handle that, and who control those standards, is left to the "user". In some places it was justified -- one may want to use some standardized parser to save the trouble of using lex and yacc, so yes, there is a reason for this "umbrella" (I should add, weak reason because standard is awfully inefficient, and "poisoned" by overbroad requirements where they don't belong). But look, how it is used. Someone needs a "standard" for his data. He makes XML schema or DTD (and maybe publishes it), and some internal description, what the data means (and usually doesn't disclose it completely, leaves himself a "freedom" to change the semantics of the data, or simply writes that part in some ambiguous, illiterate way). Now he claims that he is using "open", "standardized" XML -- and indeed, with all its shortcomings, XML standard is defined in a very strict manner. More, DTD or schema very strictly defines, how to "verify" the format (but not the semantics of the data). But since XML is a "wrapper", and true format that he uses is defined in his internal or incomplete document about his internal semantics, all kinds of dirty tricks are possible. Developer can at will add, remove and change various rules and functionality that applies to semantics of the data (and more likely it will just happens because of his implementation's bugs -- there is no way to formally verify it), and different implementations, made by people who read XML standard, DTD or schema, and incomplete/confusing published part of semantics description, won't interoperate with "the original". Or different versions of implementation can appear, and while old and new versions all satisfy the standard, new version will stop interoperate with others' implementations, or will secretly get some new, harmful functionality. All that will be hidden from others because they know how wrapper works, but don't know, what mechanism is actually handling the data, and what is the true, complete definition of the semantics of the data.
This is the example how usually good feature of the standard -- extensibility -- can be counterproductive or even serve some sinister purpose. ATA standard is very strict. One can't easily add some completely unrelated functionality and claim that he is still compliant. So if someone will try to add a command for keys handling, he will make something other than ATA device, and no one in his right mind will place that thing where ATA hard drive is supposed to be. If the standard body will just extend the standard openly and say "This is a new command for copy protection, and now this is the new standard that includes it", it will be obvious that standard body is performing a sabotage of the standard that it is supposed to improve, and a lot of people will just vote against it. So the next best (or worst -- depending from the point of view) thing is to add the ability to extend the standard behind the scenes. Someone uses a "generic" command to control the disk rotation speed for power-saving reasons? Fine! Someone uses the command to erase all the data using some special eraser coil, to make it impossible to recover a disk that contained very sensitive data? Fine! Someone uses it to implement copy protection? Fine, too -- the standard says that the purpose and functionality is completely under vendor's control, and standard body isn't handling this.
Of course, the next step will be the creation of another "standard body" -- with closed membership, with only "interested parties" involved. And that body won't be responsible to anyone, it won't have to publish anything, and there will be nothing to prevent that body from issuing another standard -- how "generic" interface should be used for, you guessed, copy protection. Because whatever they will do, will be still compliant with the standard, accepted by the "public" standard body. Then they can publish copy-protection standard openly or keep it closed, patent it or keep it dangling in the air "trade secret", tie themselves by contracts or expect each other to support it willingly -- the end result will be that the next generation of ATA devices made by large companies will have copy protection implemented. And "public" standard body will have a heck of a problem reversing the loophole, once companies tasted the blood of imprisoned data.
Re:The difficulty? (Score:2)
What could possibly be wrong with allowing the originator of a piece of data to control its distribution.
"
Two issues,
1: I create a piece of data and my hard disk forbids me to copy it / play it / turn it into cream cheese.
2: I purchase a piece of data to play on hardware owned by me in my house and my hard disk forbids me to copy it onto other hardware owned by me in my house.
(1) already occurs with minidisc and DAT machines - analog recordings are marked as copyrighted and you are forbidden to copy them digitally even if you are the rightful copyright holder.
(2) is planned - purchase music for your PC, another copy for the laptop, one for the car, one for your walkman, another for the stereo in the lounge etc. etc. etc.
My response to your comment would be
"
What could possibly be wrong with allowing me to purchase a hard disk which would allow me to read and write data as I choose.
"
CPRM and similar schemes are easy to defeat (Score:2)
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Re:I honestly don't get it... (Score:2)
I go on game show Y, which is on cable channel X.
I ask somebody to record game show Y for me. He uses his CPRM Tivo.
How do I get the recording of my appearance on game show Y?
Fear of liability, maybe? (Score:5)
Maybe they are afraid of some day being sued for contributory copyright infringement.
The 9th Circuit Napster ruling has changed the law. [eff.org] It used to be (Betamax case) that if your product had substantial non-infringing use, you were safe. The Napster decision now makes it so that if you have some infringing use, and you know that your product may be used to infringe, and you fail to do something about it, you are liable.
Thus, in the new legal climate, if they can do anything to cut back on infringement by 1%, then they must (or else they'll have a billion dollar judgement against them in the 2004 case of RIAA vs Seagate).
Just an idea. I'm probably wrong, but isn't a good conspiracy theory?
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Re:I honestly don't get it... (Score:2)
Sorry it wasn't clearer.
Crackers (Score:2)
I disagree (Score:1)
People will postpone or cancel their upgrades - their earnings-growth and stock-price-enhancing upgrades - if they know that they are also paying for it in blood. Moreover, they will reliably pursue the better, liberty-enabled option if it is presented to them. DIVX (the players, not the software) never went anywhere, and region-free DVD players are much more popular in the regions that don't get the first releases than they are here in Region 1 (where I have yet to even hear of a DVD I wouldn't be able to play).
We must continue to fight to educate the public - the battle will only be lost once we despair.
-Renard
Bad RAM: Mr. Perens is with HP (Score:1)
Sorry about the mis-statement.
I honestly don't get it... (Score:4)
What do the storage device manufacturers get out of this CPRM effort? Why are they willing to play along?
With past ``usage-prevention'' efforts, such as the DAT initiative, ultimately legislation required storage device manufacturers to build compliant devices. It seems to me that CPRM will only make it harder and more expensive for drive manufacturers to build and support their product, in exchange for functionality which is not obviously useful and is obviously harmful to their customers, both retail and wholesale, at present.
What am I missing here?
Re:Two points.. (Score:2)
Users who have their Napster accounts blocked receive a message when they log on to the service that refers them to .Copyright.net's Web site. There, they are told specifically why they were kicked off Napster and offered copyright-protected versions of the Orbison songs, which cost less than a dollar. These specially encrypted versions can be sent to other users, but they can be played just twice, at which point a message invites them to buy a copy.
It sure looks they would love to use a drive specific encryption on their 2 plays for a buck scheme! Notice how they didn't call a Napster MP3 copyrighted, but called the encrypted file copyright - protected. I thought all copyright stuff was copyright protected. I think they should have used the proper term here, Copy Protected! This is the future unless we refuse to buy it. I don't want a dongle hard drive! I want to use my RIO.
Get used to it. You will have to buy the CD to rip the MP3's for your RIO and indash MP3 Player.
Distortion. (Score:4)
Re:come on people (Score:2)
What is the big deal? (Score:1)
Re:The difficulty? (Score:4)
Because it makes copying inconvenient, without doing anything to protect copyright.
Nothing, but that's not what copy protection accomplishes. Look at the DVD CSS situation: it doesn't give the originator any influence over how their product is distributed (as the MPAA themselves attempted to show in court, with all their "demonstration" of how to pirate a movie), but it does have a severe effect on the market for players, so that there is a chokepoint (DVD CCA) to create a player monopoly.
If CPRM ever gets off the ground, it's not hard to guess how things will work out. Products that rely on it for copy protection will still be widely available among pirates. And programs that regular everyday users use to backup, scan for viruses, upgrade hard disks, etc., will only be available from deep-pocket developers that can purchase some kind of license from a central authority.
And it will cost everyone money, without getting them anything useful in return.
Have you ever seen any form of copy protection that protected copyright, and that didn't inconvenience users?
It controls distribution, not copying (regardless of the erroneous conclusion you might get from the filename).
That's right, they do. None of the anti-copy protection sentiment (except from the commies) is intended to remove anyone's right to sue pirates for copyright violations.Copying is usually not a copyright violation, though.
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Re:come on people (Score:2)
Besides, what do you think will happen if this goes in there, and the movie and music industry starts pushing software vendors into putting support for this into important encoders and players (such as Windows Media Player), forcing the user to use a device with this functionality enabled, or not be able to store the data at all?
Sure, there will be encoders and players that couldn't care less, but if the average Windows user insists on having it on their drive so they can download the newest movie clips or songs, then harddrive manufacturers will put it on their drives.
It may not end up on every single disk, but it can certainly become a nuisance enough if it is implemented on many enough drives.
Re:Why are we always on the defensive? (Score:1)
what _You_ can do (Score:1)
-within the next few years this initiative or one very similar will become the standard and harddrives will have some secret scheme to stop copying or whatever.
-Someone will certainly subsidize the distribution of these "enhanced" HDs because certainly no one will pay _more_ for a feature that doesnt help them.
-THEN
either the industries scheme will be in place and they will be able to decide what data is ok for you to store on a HD
OR
some people will figure out a way to render safe these enhanced HDs and at least one of them will release the code or method. So, once again people will be able to use their own things as they like not as some corporation thinks they should.
SO, what _YOU_ need to do is start hacking NOW so that people will have the skills and curiosity to figure out how things work when these HDs become standard so that YOU can solve a problem for humanity.
Support the EFF (Score:1)
John says: $800 plus airfare and accomodations to two cities is a bit too steep for me, but I hope some slashdotters can make it and help steer the vote towards sanity. Otherwise, at least join the EFF [eff.org] (please!) and support their many efforts.
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follow the money... (Score:5)
The U.S. runs almost a trillion dollar trade deficit every year. Money is flowing out of the U.S. fast. For now, who cares? But longer-term it's a problem. To reduce this trade deficit, the U.S. needs to increase its exports. There are really only 3-4 big industries where the U.S. is competitive enough that they export much more than they import. One is the software (and to a lesser degree hardware) industry. A second is agriculture. A third is aerospace/military equipment. And the fourth big one is the entertainment industry. At the end of the day, the U.S. Congress is going to do what most seems to help American economic competitiveness, and at the moment, that means giving the entertainment industry whatever protection they need.
Is the DMCA really a hidden trade barrier then? Good question...
--LP
Disclaimer: I am not an economist. The argument above lacks obvious caveats in an attempt to retain simplicity and clarity. Harder statistics on exports by industry might confirm or refute the above analysis.
Re:come on people (Score:1)
Re:Stockpiling (Score:5)
The people driving these changes are not naive, and they are not going to promote a 'secure architecture' which can be defeated by flashing the BIOS. From the TCPA FAQ [trustedpc.org]:
The FAQ is pretty mealy-mouthed about what they're really up to. The least useless document I found on the site was TCPS05 - Integrity Metrics & Authenticated Boot (pdf) [trustedpc.org] - a bloated, powerpoint-derived pdf that could be summed up in 4k of text.
Anyhow, you ask for evidence that the 'Generic' ATA proposal is CPRM in sheep's clothing. I think that the big piece of circumstantial evidence is the fact that the proposal surfaced so recently after CPRM was killed. Maybe T13 is a dynamic, fast-moving group that fields a major technical proposal every day, but I somehow got the impression that they're a slow-moving tortoise which cranked out CPRM over an extended period.
If that impression is correct, then the timing is suspicious.
Re:The difficulty? (Score:1)
I much prefer the term "Communist" or "Socialist" to the derogatory "commie" - Please spare us the McCarthy inspired slurs. Communism is a viable option when discussing political futures. It is a matter of employing a system to achieve our goals. Stop and think about which system is most likely to meet your goals (and what are *really your* goals).
The present state of Western Democracy is clearly the result of Capitalism. This is no secret. So dont sit back and defend Western Capitalism while scorning the inevitable product of its use which is Collusive Monopoly (RIAA, MPAA, The CPRM $whores$,) and Plutocracy. Most things people whine about on
Re:Will people go for this? Doubtful. (Score:1)
I don't think the consumers will make any difference in this, unless the Slashdot population is a sizable portion of the storage device purchasing demographic (Not very likely).
The purpose of hardware (Score:1)
Join the T13, dude! (Score:1)
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease,
but no one will notice.
Re:Quick question... (Score:1)
Re:Why are we always on the defensive? (Score:1)
If the world does turn into a totalitarian dictatorship, armed insurrection may be justified, but in the meantime I think that this would be a bad idea. It would merely inflame public opinion against us without really accomplishing anything - there would always be somebody willing to step into their shoes to continue the fight against us decent peace-loving people.
I agree somewhat with the poster who said that the war is essentially won and we're just waiting for the dead body to fall. I say "somewhat" because we do want to limit the damage that the RIAA, MPAA, etc. can do before they're irrelevant.
Re:Looks pretty generic to me (Score:1)
Re:I have a new resistor (Score:1)
God Bless Andre Hedrick (Score:2)
is doing his best to squelch this, by counter-proposing [insecure.org] more mandatory features for the spec
that will let the host operating system turn off the nasty CPRM commands at the drive.
As a Register article [theregister.co.uk] puts it:
For those interested in this CPRM nonsense, there's a good page at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/17009.html [theregister.co.uk]Re:for some reason.... (Score:1)
This touches on something that I've always wondered about. The forces of evil (RIAA, MPAA, etc.) are not the only rich and powerful organizations in the world. Is there no rich person who fights for freedom wherever there's trouble? What happened to the dot-com millionaires?
I hesitate to make blanket statements about my own future political decisions, but if I ever had a couple million dollars, I would be sure to befriend my local congresscritters, make them aware of my views, and contribute to their campaigns in order to help them propagate my views.
Re:More on CRPM (Score:2)
Re:Will people go for this? PROBABLY (Score:1)
Then, one day, people will realize that back in the 'old days' they used to be able to record music they bought, they used to be able to make copies of software, they used to be able to strip out commercials from tv shows and they will raise holy hell and it will only take one or two opportunistic politicians to realize that their time in office will be greatly lengthened by championing the people against the media giants.
It will succeed and there will be a backlash. Stay tuned.
MjM
Re:The difficulty? (Score:1)
Agreed. Why not try a Communist-based economy *and* strive for small government that maximizes personal freedom? Why not allow Libertarians their goals of personal freedom? Plutocracy is the real evil here - and as you agree - this is a result of capitalism. Personal Freedom is also 'my goal'. Mainly I see entrenched plutocrats as assaulting freedom.
I dont see how these are mutually exclusive.
Re:The difficulty? (Score:1)
Again - Agreed. The 'economy' is presently being used as a tool to undermine rights everywhere. MPAA buys DMCA and BonoCopyrightExtension. Logging companies devastate the commons. Nike spends 90% of their budget on 'mind control' (marketing) while employing children in the Philippines...
These 'human rights' need to be protected - and if the Plutocrats in Government are only interested in supporting business efforts/visions (WTO, WIPO, FTAA, WorldBank etc etc) then who is going to look after Human Rights, Peace and The Preservation of the Commons? What the 'vote with your dollars' crowd dont realize is that it will never be 'profitable' to maintain standards of these kinds. They only 'add to the cost of the product' if XYZ Corp. decides to - if their is no direction for them *all* to act this way (Government Legislation) then we will continue to see the wholesale of Everything(TM). If we are going to replace Democracy with Economics we need a formula that will force XYZ Corp's profits to *decrease* if they violate the environment, act anti-socially and ignore human rights and violate other elements of a healthy society*. Until then, I cannot see any way _except_ to continue enacting legislation.
*I understand and accept your premise that "not everyone's goals are the same" but Im sure we can generally agree that rape, murder, theft, exploitation, profiteering, anti-competitive business practices and a few other basics are generally agreed upon. Everything else should not be of concern to the government. IP Law would be abandoned & Lawyers would be in trouble if *I* were the fascist dictator...
my opinion about copyright protection... (Score:2)
There's satire in this post.
Sigh (Score:5)
This reminds me of an idea I had kicking around (Score:4)
You start allowing this kind of control, and it seems like they could eventually start running your life in an indirect manner.
What if they got these things to "tattle" on you as well, if you tried to circumvent it?
Just a few random thoughts to chew on...
Trojan Horse or foot in the door ? (Score:1)
It s about control.
whatever the justification, once they make
it acceptable to go into your machine for any reason, it is easier for them to do it for a host of Others.
Institutions,Corporations, Cultures, Systems call
them what you want will always take as much control unto themselves as you let them.
Add these plans for
and their future brethern will have a sinister synergy that adds up to 1984.
It may all in place by 2004.
Looks like Orwell was only off by 20 years.
Again?!? (Score:2)
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More on CRPM (Score:5)
Best part:
Q: So why is Microsoft against this, if it prevents wholesale "piracy" of its software in developing nations?
A: Um, can you ask us another...?
--Shoeboy
Stockpiling (Score:1)
Exposure (Score:1)
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Re:Stockpiling (Score:1)
Surely everyone wants a pentium6 motherboard that has both a RIAA and MPAA chipset.
A mothboard that checks every song you download on napster against what cd's you have bought off cd.com and if you havent bought it already it charges it to your credit card
Mruhahahahaha
I'll patent it and make millions
-------
Drink Coffee - Do Stupid Things Faster And With More Energy!
Looks pretty generic to me (Score:4)
The message is a bit sensational, but I just don't understand where he gets the "single custom function", when in fact the proposal sets aside 8 of the 1-byte command codes, and whatever functionality the manufacturer would introduce under a particular code could easily access many custom functions, along the lines of the "Set Features" command (code 0xEF in my copy of ATA-3).
Intuitively it does seem like a bad idea to set aside a block of 8 command codes (of the 256 possible) and a group of 8 bytes from the 512 byte device ID data, with no functionality specified.
Besides, there's already plenty of "vendor specific" appearing in the ATA spec. For example, the "Download Microcode" (code 0x92) is a blank slate. So is "Format Track" (code 0x50). The device ID has several "vendor specific" bytes, but they're mostly obsolete data.
It would be tricky and a bit risky to build copy protection (or some other vendor's feature) on top of these things, some existing (perhaps old) applications use those ID bytes. Some software may generate those requests (eg Format Track), so the drive would need to be "smart" and not actually format tracks when the parameters (all vendor specific, not defined by the ATA spec) indicate a copy control operation. Of course, the software would also need to be "smart" and check the device ID data to make sure the drive really has the copy control features built onto a command like Format Track, as legacy drives might actually do something a little less desirable with that command (the RIAA would probably be pleased, as a pirate would lose his copy, and a legit consumer would have to pay again!)
I'm sure this slashdot story will get a lot of folks rilled up... but before you go leaping to conclusions, ask yourself what evidence is actually presented to establish that this is really a conspiracy? Not much... the only words I could find were that this proposal was ill-conceived to provide generic functionality (the "single custom function" comment), when in fact it appears to be a very reasonable way for a vendor to implement lots of custom functions, up to eight if each command is assigned a single function.
I'll agree that the generic custom functionality concept is a flawed idea, but this proposal is a reasonably well thought-out way to do it. Perhaps there is/was a conspiracy brewing, but it'd be nice to have some actual evidence of that before jumping to the conclusing and passing (mental) judgement on whoever made the proposal.
Indeed that's what standards are all about, discussing and accepting or rejecting proposals based on the combined wisdom of the participants in the process. That looks like what happened here.
Won't work. (Score:1)
Re:More on CRPM (Score:2)
Copy protection schemes will only help open source software especially if they are enforced overseas. Right now millions of people will never even try perfect office, smartsuite, open office or whatever because they can freely pirate ms office.
Once they are unable to pirate MS software they will be forced to look at lower cost and free alternatives. Almost overnight the market share of MS office will shrink to a managable level if not a downright minority when you consider worldwide figures.
The open source crowd ought to really back this thing and have it applied world wide. Super tight woldwide enforced copy protection schemes will either for MS to drastically lower their prices or will once and for all break the "they sent me a word 2000 file now I gotta upgrade" cycle.
Re:More on CRPM (Score:2)
Re:Two points.. (Score:2)
Notice how they word the "feature" as Generic when enabled implying the drive is non-standard when it is off or open?
Re:The difficulty? (Score:2)
I'm not a communist; I believe in free markets and private ownership of property. But I do not believe in intellectual property. My view is an increasingly prevalent one on the internet. You seem to disagree with it, but please don't claim that my view doesn't exist.
Correct under the current copyright laws. Since copyright is a completely artificial construct, why not extend those laws to prohibit all copying of a copyrighted work? That is clearly what the intellectual property cartel wants, whether they achieve it by legal or technical means. If such a law were passed, would your anti-copy protection sentiment extend to anti-copyright sentiment?
Re:what _You_ can do (Score:1)
either the industries scheme will be in place and they will be able to decide what data is ok for you to store on a HD
Surely that is backwards! It should be the files/content which dictate where they are allowed to be stored rather than the media/controller dictating what may be stored on itself. So that application may only allow copying/writing to a drive which has CRPM drive, but non-copyprotected content should be usable on any drive.
Re:Why are we always on the defensive? (Score:1)
Napster is something people won't give up without a struggle. Get more people using napster, that's what they want. When the RIAA shuts down napster, even more people will start using the open napster servers and gnutella. The RIAA cannot fight the REAL battle, because the REAL battle is against individuals. The real battle is against their customers.
So long as we can keep some semblance of napster running for the people, the RIAA can never win. The RIAA is right now fighting a symptom of their problem, not the cause. The cause is people wanting cheap, good music. This is not the most profitable thing for a busines to produce, so the RIAA doesn't want to provide what the customers want. Instead of trying to compete with napster's offerings, they are trying to shut it down. They are now faced with significant competition and like the trust that they are, they are fighting it vehemently.
You can send hate-mail, letter-bombs, even scorpions to the people responsible, it will have no effect. The venom will be ignored. Police will be called in to protect those responsible, and the whole effort be a failure.
Every day that napster runs is a day their monopoly erodes. It's a matter of endurance, if napster and friends can keep running long enough, the RIAA will lose on it's own. They cannot win.
Re:Looks pretty generic to me (Score:2)
The message is a bit sensational, but I just don't understand where he gets the "single custom function", when in fact the proposal sets aside 8 of the 1-byte command codes, and whatever functionality the manufacturer would introduce under a particular code could easily access many custom functions, along the lines of the "Set Features" command (code 0xEF in my copy of ATA-3).
It's because there is only one GUID to cover all 8 functions and no spec for any sort of bit slicing or featureset bitmap. Thus, the only thing you can do within the standard is add one extension set or another. So if you have set A which uses generic functions only 2 functions, there is no way to specify that you also have feature set B (also using 2 functions) without defining A+B =C and declaring C in the GUID.
If the idea was to truly support multiple extensions, the ID would be a struct (like PCI config space) so you could enumerate the features and determine which generic functions mapped into which feature set. Most likely, the extension would have a way to have more than 8 generic functions as well.
Since none of that is the case, it is a pretty good bet that this proposal is meant for exactly 1 generic feature. Since it would be very nearly useless if every manufacturer/model had a different one, it further stands to reason that somebody has a single feature in mind already. It must not be a very popular feature (for some significant group of users or manufacturers) if they feel a need to hide it's nature and intent behind the indirection of a 'generic feature'.
Currently, we know of a recently discussed feature (bug) that fits the description perfectly. So, it swims like a duck, it flys like a duck, and it quacks like a duck. I wonder what it is?
I wish I had still had moderator points.... (Score:1)
Just thinking about this is starting to make me sick to my stomach. I've said this before and I'll say it again - RIAA needs to keep their noses out of the hard drive business. They have no business messing with technology that really has nothing to do with them. What's next? Will Texaco require that all gas caps be locked so only they can open them and perform a full-service fill up? NO, for the same reason that I shouldn't have to tolerate CPRM - it's unnecessary.
Re:Sigh (Score:1)
More on this (Score:2)
Time, I think, to get the big guns to work: there exist organisations which have an interest in ensuring that the integrity and accessibility of their own data does not get compromised by trojan horses implemented at the behest of an industry cartel to enforce its selective and mischievous reinterpretation of the purpose of copyright. The big corporations. Believe me, when a purchasing officer is waving an order for a few tens of thousands of units, plus contracts for their deployment and servicing, then the suppliers tend to take notice of their preferences.
So if you have the (arguable) good fortune to hold a responsible position in the IT department of one of those behemoths, make a point of drawing the purchasing section's attention to what's going on. It won't do any harm, and may help to keep reaonably-sized manufacturing runs going for disk drives that haven't been hamstrung by Hollywood lawyers.
Re:Will people go for this? PROBABLY (Score:1)
And if that *one* app is Windows?
A lot of lemmings^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^hpeople would change.
security uses? (Score:2)
In fact, it seems to me that many hardware-supported information security mechanisms might end up having these two faces: on the one hand, you may be able to use them to protect your own data, on the other hand, people may be able to build an infrastructure around them that lets them control copying.
Ideas? Comments?
Re:Won't work. (Score:1)
Re:for some reason.... (Score:1)
Let's have a little faith in the free market. The government says you cant buy drugs. Think you'd have any trouble finding some.
All this does is place a premium on non-crippled hardware.
Re:Why are we always on the defensive? (Score:1)
"Posting anonymous for very obvious reasons."
You are Jack Valenti and I claim my five pounds.
Re:mod parent up. (Score:2)
yeah, but doesn't have this engeineer the RIGHT to be employed by such a company? And doesn't he have the RIGHT to deliver a great job? Those people working on it are NOT doing anything illegal, and publishing their names, telephonenr, etc. IS UNFAIR! lets say you program software which happens to be the same kind of software as I program. The you're a cause why i earn less money as i could. Does that give me the richt to publish your name, tel.nr. email-adress on /. saying you are a thief and you should be punished... WAKE UP
Please remember that legal, moral, and ethical are only sometimes the same thing. In many cases, they're not at all related, and in some, moral and ethical are diametrically opposed to legal. There are all sorts of things that are perfectly legal but that we refrain from anyway simply because we want to have friends and don't want to go through life getting nothing but dirty looks from others.
As for saying I'm a thief, you don't have that right because I stole nothing. You do have a right to say that I wrote competitive software that is cutting into your income. Furthermore, in that situation, I would write you a nice thank-you note for all of the business referrals you gave me!
Why is this proposed by hardware companies? (Score:2)
Who asked them to do it and why do the seem so keen on complying?
Re:Why are we always on the defensive? (Score:1)
It might be better to throw pies, like the entarteurs (sp?) who pied Gates. If they had shot Gates, I think most of us would feel only horror at their actions. But by covering his face in pie they achieved widespread publicity without physically harming Gates.
Re:The difficulty? (Score:3)
Here is a link to John Gilmore's Most Excellent Essay [toad.com] addressing your very question.
Schwab
Write-only disk drives (Score:3)
Too bad these idiots weren't around in the time Guttenburg.
Them: "Hi, we'd like to put this device on your new printing press that chucks out the lead after every printing, just in case you try to print protected material."
Guttenburg: "Fuck off."
Will people go for this? Doubtful. (Score:4)
ANY function stuffed into a disk drive would be compatible with this
spec, which means it doesn't define a standard at all. How exactly
would this promote interoperability among manufacturers? Or as the
committee chair asked, before voting against it, preventing it from
immediately becoming part of the standard, "Why are we doing this?"
Exactly. That dude realized that people are going to vote with their wallets on this one. Given the choice between a brand name, copy-protected drive or an unknown manufacturer's "open" drive, people will choose the more non-intrusive option.
This is one instance where consumers CAN make a difference, by electing not to go along with this strangely Orwellian notion of CPRM.
So What? (Score:1)
Currently, the majority of folks listen to their music for free. I stopped buying CD's when I got a radio. Now that I have a computer, I can buy CD's, encode them into mp3's on my hard drive, and listen to mixes through Winamp and X11amp. Guess what's going to happen when I can't do this because of CPRM? - That's right, I'll stop buying CD's, buy a radio, and listen to music for free again....
Face the facts, folks, we're programmers. We can find ways around any copy protection scheme. Here's one: write a C program to read a file (say, your CD media file) into memory, and then write it out to another file, (say, your hard disk file), and viola! CPRM is useless.
So what will CPRM actually do? It will make me buy fewer CD's. It will hurt the music and movie industry. But, it will give them the mind-candy they've been asking for - they'll think that no one will enjoy their media without paying for it.
Obviously, copyright is important to us. Without copyright, we couldn't enjoy the quality of music and video we have now. What we need is an open-source media initiative - that is, a media file format which prevents piracy while still allowing the user his fair use rights. Until the Free Software Foundation or some open-source initiative takes care of this, we can look forward to more of the CPRM type problems in the future...
Copy protection versus gatekeeping (Score:2)
I'm worried about hard drives that function as gatekeepers in telling me what legal software I can have on my drive: software such as Red Hat Linux and mp3's that I rip myself from CD's that I paid good money for.
Re:Write-only disk drives (Score:1)
What does the proposal mean? (Score:2)
So, the hard drive can contain a function. We don't know what that function will be. But at least hardware manufacturers are free to add one. (Only one function, mind you.) So while the actual function is not in the standard, all hardware manufacturers could decide to put in the same one at some point down the road. Are they thinking we'll be surprised when they decide to drop in a "CPRM" function in this little slot?
Of course, I could be completely wrong. I'm no technical expert or anything.
Re:Stockpiling (Score:2)
If there really were a conspiracy here, the changes you're anticipating would be in the BIOS, and for systems like Linux, they'd only be effective during startup. They'd have to go after projects like FreeBIOS (perhaps as anti-circumvention devices?)
But this all assumes that there really is a conspiracy going on in "a smoke-filled room". What, other than the sensational and very biased writing of John Gilmore, would lead you to believe that? It's a story on slashdot, so it must be true!! John says it's a plot against consumers and fair use (and uses sensational language to describe the conspirators) so it must be true.
Please re-read John's message once more (with a grain of salt this time), and try to find some shred of evidence that this is a conspiracy to add copy control functions. The only words that come close are:
This is John Gilmore's opinion. If you read the proposal below, you'll see it's wrong. I think anyone reasonably familiar with the ATA spec would come to the same conclusion. (I have implemented an open-source MP3 player with an embedded processor, in assembly language, that accesses drives using the ATA commands... link to the website above) That conclusion is that John's opinion is as accurate as staring right at the sun on a bright and sunny day and claiming it seems dark outside. The proposal sets aside 8 command codes, so a drive manufacturer could easily implement at least 8 custom functions per drive, and many more if they implement sub-functions, as the "Set Features" command that's already in the ATA spec does.
John Gilmore's "single custom function" clearly doesn't agree with the attached proposal, which ought to at least draw the rest of his writing into a bit of suspicion as to it's accuracy. In fact, the only evidence he presents that this is indeed a conspiracy is that the proposal isn't well suited to provide generic custom functions (and thereforrrrr... a witch, er... an underhanded conspiracy to embed copy control functions). In fact, it is well suited to provide several custom functions per drive.
The committee chair asking "why are we doing this?" is a valid question, and it is indeed unwise to write a blank check (at least in the interest of interoperability)... but if there really were some evidence of a conspiracy here, don't you think John could find some more interesting words to quote? In fact, the standards process is to evaluate proposals like this one, both for technical merit and that they are well thought out to make ATA-interface products interoperable.
Now I like a good conspiracy theory, but this just ain't one. You see, a conspiracy theory needs some shred of evidence (even circumstantial). This conspiracy theory lacks any evidence, and the claimed fact that the proposal was not a good way to introduce generic functions is clearly wrong, which only serves to take this entire fiasco out of the realms of "intriguing conspiracy theory" and into "biased sensational propoganda".
Like or (more likely) hate the MPAA and RIAA, please re-read John Gilmore's writing once more, and if there really is even one reason presented (other than John's suspicion and biased opinion) to believe that this really is a conspiracy, please post it.
And finally, I apologize, as this is my second slashdot posting today, both in this thread. I'm trying to cut back...
4c & friends are a little nearsighted (Score:1)
Think about it: back in the day, or at least back in the post 8-track day, it was absolutely thrilling to people that they could put their LP on the turntable, connect that to a cassette recorder, and get at least one halfway nice recording of the album before Junior used it for a frisbee. Not to mention the fact that the cassette could easily be carried to work, and shared with friends(with no risk of damage to the valuable LP). Indeed, when CDs first came out, some people predicted that they were unlikely to take off because people liked to make copies of their music and you couldn't get that CD quality on a cassette.
When consumer-priced VCRs became common, there was then some noise about copyright protection, but back then there was a much more sensible Supreme Court in the US, and in the Betamax decision [virtualrecordings.com] the court declared that manufacturers of VCRs (or VTRs in the Court's language) could not be held liable for copyright infringement because "findings reveal that the average member of the public uses a VTR principally to record a program he cannot view as it is being televised and then to watch it once at a later time." In a way, then, the Court held that recordings of television programming were within the rights of the consumer. In any case, the court explicitly held up the rights of the manufacturers to make devices which could possibly be used to infringe upon copyrights. IANAL (really) but it seems logical to extend this precedent to cover digital recording devices of various kinds.
So the manufacturers are now playing tidy with the copyright holders. Isn't it ironic that Sony, who after all made the Betamax, is now a major player in Hollywood, the source of many media copyrights, and various other evils? The problem with this is that there may come a time where it is so difficult for the majority of the people to afford the technolgy, and more importantly the liscensing, to view or listen to media that the very companies who are attemting to limit everyone's access to everything will be faced with a revenue stranglehold of their own making. Such sweet irony...
Why are we always on the defensive? (Score:5)
The obvious pattern is that these aggressors are never at risk while they attack us. They don't risk their freedom or property or prosperity while they fight to censor and ultimately to jail the free citizens. Therefore they become bolder with each attempt. At this rate, it doesn't matter if they win or lose a particular battle, because even when they lose they don't really lose anything.
How can we fight back in a way that really hurts them? How can we hit them so hard that they become reluctant to pursue this war?
Boycotting is useless. Even if we caused a 10% dip in sales, which would be phenomenally hard, I don't think we'd weaken their fanatical commitment to protect their privileged state.
Complaining to the aggressors is also useless. We are not going to open their eyes to anything - they understand the nature of this war quite clearly. So don't bother sending that carefully crafted email to the RIAA.
So what can we do? One thing that occurs to me is to bring this war home to the aggressors who are fighting it. We are being attacked by individual human beings, like Jack Valenti, Hilary Rosen, Leonard Chariglione, and an anonymous band of mercenaries who help them. And this might be the key. What if we strip away that anonymity, study the individuals behind these attacks, and do everything legally allowed to place unpleasant pressure on them?
An engineer who helps develop CPRM ought to be as much of an internet celebrity as Cantor and Siegel.
I think that the IP cartel relies on the services of many intelligent individuals who do not want to be famous on the internet for their participation in such a scheme.
This just scratches the surface. If we want to win this war, we must do something more than wait for the next assault.
for some reason.... (Score:5)
Funny thing is, that even though this was published, the corporations will still claim plausible deniability, and that this will still go thru.
(appologies in advance for the sentence structure/grammar, but I've been up for 32 hrs and am going for a well needed rest)
Lets all write our congress person! And then, we'll show them by boycotting the product - that'll show them!!
oh... that didn't work in the past.
I mean, we all bitched when
- we found out that DVD players had region codes
- the DMCA was being passed
- the us government said that linking was illegal,
- decss was declared illegal
- our right to fair use was rendered void, but our rights remained (i.e. copy protection on digital TV's and fair use)
- we found out that ms word docs had a UID
and so on...
A shitload of people refused to buy DVD players in order to "boycott" the industry - which is doing quite well without them (well those who haven't given in yet...)
Honestly, get real, this is america and you have no voice here (I smell flame, bring it on), unless you pay for the congress person's / president's election, or for the industry parties.)
This standard will be passed - money was put into developing this and it will not be wasted - how much $ do you think the "RIAA" un officially gave the companies to develop this. (ironically, its probably not much, just paid for a party, booze, cuban cigars and hookers, but I digress)
These companies are not stupid - they realize that consumers are not going to stick with "small" 60 gig HDD's, but instead buy the 200 or 300 gig HDD when comes out. I wonder - if they are the same price, and the 300 gig runs faster etc... which one will you choose?
Even if you choose the fomer (un"protected"), the majority of the consumers will buy the larger/faster model.
95% of americans are sheep and will buy shit they don't even need. Anything that is marketed properly sells - _ANY_thing.
These 95% will create a market for the protected HDD's, which will be marketed under the premise of "protecting your data from hackers", "letting you listen to music on your pc" or some other stupid bullshit.
The 5% who want unprotected HDD's will whine, then realize that no one (or some super expensive / custom comapny) produces the unprotected hard drives. Finally they will buy the protected versions because they "need" to, or because a need will be created (want legal music? buy a new hard drive)
We are a consumer society, many of us will devour what is new - i.e. new dvds, music etc...
Those who want to "keep in touch with society" will do so - however it will be through sacrificing their ideals (i.e. giving out and buying a new protected hdd) or by commiting illegal acts (watching a divx encoded movie or downloading illegal mp3's)
Finally I say this;
The 95% will gladly exchange their rights for some security (someone has the sig that says they deserve neither)
Finding people who are willing to do this creates absolutism - and despotism. i.e. shit like this helped hitler, mussolini and the european absolutionist rulers in the 1700-1800's gain __absolute__ power - all these rulers also abused that power.
Oh... and the industry will NEVER say "whoops, lets take that back" once it has been introduced into the market.
Ironically North America is the best place to live in the world right, and is "leading" in civil rights et cetera.
Dunno what I'm suprised at, my confidence in humans has dropped quite a bit this week.
Fucking greedy lot we are, it's pretty disgusting.
A friend just returned from Indonesia, the police and army are shooting at each other because they both want to collect money from the refugees that are fleeing the massacres in their villages.
Beautiful ain't it? You should see some pictures of decapitated bodies, et cetera.
(sig doesn't really fit with this post)
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
marketing strategy (Score:1)
2. Become the only company that goes against the spec and actually allows the user some freedom
3. Rake in the cash
Really, I think this could start an interesting split in the computer manufacturing biz...those who do and those who don't.
Re:Why are we always on the defensive? (Score:1)
You are Jack Valenti
Hardly. He would never set himself up as a target, not even to provoke violence that would let him act out the hurt innocence. After all, despite all precautions, someone _might_ succeed.
While Jack is certainly evil, he is not stupid.
but disk GUIDs are needed in some form (Score:1)
All the zones and WWNNs etc really start to confuse when you have 00's of them.
The problem comes when the high spec. Enterprise devices filter in to the consumer channel which always happens eventually. So if you want to complain then go exert some pressure on the vendors from that angle, not as a consumer.
bof.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I honestly don't get it... (Score:2)
(/sarcasm)
Re:Will people go for this? Doubtful. (Score:2)
3 lb rubber mallets. Mash the drive, but don't leave a mark. I could do that all day...
--
Vested interests (Score:1)
As for the other companies, the reason is largely because due to conglomeration, the hardware companies are either a) content owners as well (Sony), or b) have content-owner/hardware-company hybrids -- like Sony -- as major OEM customers.
If Sony tells Hitachi/Seagate/whoever, "implement CPRM in your drives or Vaios will come with someone elses drives installed", and Sony accounts for a significant percentage of their OEM sales, and the drive still behaves as a normal drive -- so as not to impact their other OEM customers, they'll implement it.
Re:The difficulty? (Score:2)
The system that is most likely to meet my goals is fascism, with ME as dictator of the universe. Obviously, that would be impractical and and not very fair to everyone else.
The problem with socialism is that it is based on the idea that homogenious society has goals, that there is a consensus among everyone of what they want. This premise is wrong, because different people want very different things. Any time the government micromanages society or the economy, it is virtually guaranteed that someone is being victimized by having their own government being used against their own goals.
The solution is to get government out of the "goal business", and just stick to very basic and fundamental things (e.g. protecting human rights). Let people work to achieve whatever goals they have. That way, no one is forced to work against himself.
---
Re:follow the money... (Score:1)
I have a new resistor (Score:2)
All 12V power supplies will not be obsolete. I also happen to have the corner on power supplies with only 6 and no 12 Volt power supplies.
Pardon. I love voluntary but when voluntary just happens to coincide with private interests I cannot say it is involunary but I can say it is not in the public interest.
No private interest can possibly speak for the public interest. If the public agrees with the RIAA then the public can voluntarily institutes its own controls on itself.
If the public wished RIAA to exist there would be no Napster.
The law can not be used by individuals to control their private gains which people do not want them to have.
If RIAA vanishes and there is a dearth of new music then people will demand copy protection. Frankly I can not imagine people demanding boy bands and more Madonnas but I happen to prefer Mozart.
Problem with hacking is... (Score:1)
Like I said, people are sheep, and the problem is that most of them won't ask questions when this kind of control is implimented. They'll just go along with it with barely a grumble.
Re:oh my god (Score:2)
Re:for some reason.... (Score:1)
It's time to underwrite T13 members (Score:1)
In any case, it's not like joining, say, ICANN [icann.org], to be done from the comfort of your keyboard.
So, I suspect we're not all going to run out and do it. But, we can support some folks we trust to do so. My first thoughts are to ask Mr. Gilmore and/or Bruce Perens, if IBM's left hand would let its right oppose these doings. Noise won't help here, but a combine in the form of that supporting Damian Conway's Perl work [slashdot.org] should be possible. Can one of our existing organizations (YAS [yapc.org] or SPI [spi-inc.org] [if there's still anyone home at at the latter]) pick up the banking effort?
For myself, I pledge to donate USD100 to such an organization for this purpose. Are there seven others willing to step up to the plate? If so, we've got a membership in hand.
Re: (Score:2)