DRM
http://badvista.fsf.org
These posts address the presence of Digital Restrictions Management (usually called Digital Rights Management) in Microsoft Windows Vista.
daily12006-12-20T00:35:40ZDon't give Microsoft the remote control http://badvista.fsf.org/blog/don-t-give-microsoft-the-remote-control <img src="images/DRM-semaphore.png" />
<p>If you put Microsoft at the center of your home entertainment system,
be prepared to hand them the remote control, literally.</p>
<p>Following reports that digital television viewers were blocked from
recording the new season of NBC's "Gladiators", Microsoft confirmed
that it is preventing users from recording the show. They claim
they were acting on behalf of NBC, and are in line with regulations
set by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in disrupting
computer usage based upon the so-called "broadcast flag" that was
transmitted alongside the show.</p>
<p>A Microsoft spokesperson told CNET News, "...Windows Media Center
fully adheres to the flags used by broadcasters and content owners to
determine how their content is distributed and consumed."</p>
<h2>What is the broadcast flag?</h2>
<p>The broadcast flag is a sequence of information transmitted alongside
television programs as a kind of digital order telling viewers to not
do certain things, such as record the show or share it with a
friend.</p>
<p>Many of the large media companies and the FCC tried to make obeying
the broadcast flag a law. However, the Electronic Frontier Foundation
took the FCC to court, and US Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC had
exceeded its authority, and that no such law could exist. Despite this
ruling, it appears that Microsoft has decided to work directly with
media companies to implement these rules anyway, restricting how and
when you watch television.</p>
<p>Building such a system is no trivial task. To do this, Microsoft has
gone to great lengths to restrict users from saving a television
program to their computers, we call this kind of functionality an
"antifeature," because it takes more work for Microsoft to prevent the
user from saving the program, than if they were to leave just the
default behavior alone. So instead of letting you record programs as
you normally would, it locks you out and deletes the show before you
can save it.</p>
<p>However, Microsoft hasn't just made a little tweak to their software
to do this -- they have compiled an entire system built upon
antifeatures. This antifeature platform is integrated into their
Windows Media software and forms the basis of their Windows Vista
operating system, and they are working hard to convince companies like
NBC, that Microsoft can be in control of how and when you get to watch
television. As creepy and as ridiculous as it may sound, this is their
business strategy, and by getting this control, both the television and
movie industry and computer users will be tied to Microsoft software.</p>
<p>Don't be fooled into their claims that they are following regulations
by the FCC -- the court ruled that the FCC has no power to make such
regulations. This is also claimed as a measure just to stop
unauthorized file sharing, yet what Microsoft is doing is trying to
make sure that they are on every end of the market, from how it is
delivered, to how you watch it. As Ars Technica reporter Jacqui Cheng
puts it, this is not about Microsoft preventing people from sharing
files without permission, "[i]t's about the ability to strictly
control how we consume content"[2].</p>
<p>Microsoft wants to have that control, and this software is the way
they are trying to get it. Software that is designed in this way is
known as 'DRM', which stands for 'Digital Rights Management', and yet
it is really just another way to restriction how consumers interact
with things on their own computers and devices. Because of this
restriction, we refer to DRM as 'Digital Restrictions Management'.</p>
<h2>The alternative to DRM: free software</h2>
<p>By far the best way to avoid DRM, is to refuse to use software that is
infected with it. Better yet, you should choose software that tries to
do the opposite of DRM -- software that gives you complete
control. This kind of software is called "free software," and it is
based upon the idea that software carries certain freedoms to you:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The freedom to use the software for any reason you wish -- including
to the ability to hit the save button when you* wish.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The freedom to examine how the software works and make changes,
similar to a car engine -- you can remove the bugs or soup it up.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The freedom to share the software with your neighbor, like
photocopying a newspaper article or sharing class notes with a
classmate.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The freedom to share your modified software with other people,
similar to how mathematics and science have worked for centuries.</p>
</li></ul>
<p>Now you may not be a computer programmer, or know how to understand or
change computer programs, but there are plenty of people out there who
do, and they are likely already making the kinds of fixes and changes
you'd like to see, or are often part of a community willing to make
those changes for you.</p>
<p>There are thousands of free software programmers, and many thousands
of free software programs, and even complete free software operating
systems. You usually won't find annoying antifeatures in a program,
and if there were one, you can rest assured that other programmers
will have removed it by the time you get to use it.</p>
<p>Conversely, software that doesn't give you these freedoms is software
you cannot control, and we think that kind of software doesn't belong
on your computer. We say, 'free software, free society' -- with free
software, if we are each in control of our machines, then we are all
in control of how we use them and what we use them for.</p>
<p>And, don't let Apple fool you into thinking that they are the
alternative to DRM and Microsoft, they, too have their own DRM schemes,
and seek to control the world in their own way, from branding their
DRM music player, to entrenching the world in their proprietary
formats and DRM music purchasing programs.</p>
<p>The alternative to Windows and Apple is software that you control,
software that is guaranteed to give you all of the freedoms you need
to be in control. Free software.</p>
<p>There is a good chance you are already using free software, directly,
such as using the Firefox web browser, or indirectly, by visiting a
Web site that is sending you web pages with the Apache
web-server. However, there are also entire, user-friendly operating
systems that you can install on almost any laptop or desktop
computer. So, if you are running Windows or Mac OS, consider replacing
these with a free software based GNU/Linux operating system, such as
gNewSense[3].</p>
<p>Using free software will take the control out of Microsoft's
hands. With free software, you are in control.</p>
<p>[1]: You can read Mako Hill's article on antifeatures,
here: <a href="http://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2007/fall/antifeatures/">http://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2007/fall/antifeatures/</a></p>
<p>[2]: It should be noted that this writer refers to a person that
shares files as a "pirate," we think this is a bit of an extreme
description that should be avoided.
<a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080514-nbc-vista-copy-protection-snafu-reminds-us-why-drm-stinks.html">http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080514-nbc-vista-copy-protection-snafu-reminds-us-why-drm-stinks.html</a></p>
<p>[3]: gNewSense, a free software distribution of GNU/Linux <a href="http://www.gnewsense.org/">http://www.gnewsense.org/</a></p>
No publisherjosh2008-11-21T16:50:13ZCOREBlog EntryWindows' Genuine Disadvantage http://badvista.fsf.org/blog/windows-genuine-disadvantage <p><b>Recently it emerged that Microsoft is removing the "kill switch" from
Vista.</b></p>
<p>When you install Vista, Microsoft claims that you consent to being
spied upon, through the "Windows Genuine Advantage" system. This
system tries to identify instances of copying that Microsoft thinks
are illegitimate. This system includes a "kill switch" which allows
Microsoft to remotely deactivate your copy of Vista. This
deactivation, whether deliberate or by accident -- as has been the
case in some 500,000 cases already according to a study last year --
locks you out of your computer, and forces you to contact Microsoft
to get access to your files.</p>
<p>While they may have now ostensibly removed the kill switch from
Vista, they have not updated the hostile license they say you must
agree to in order to use Vista. Vista still restricts your freedom,
because freedom at the whim of someone else is not freedom.</p>
<p>Vista still enforces Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) --
technologies that companies like Disney, Warner, Netflix, Universal,
Apple, Sony, Amazon, Fox and Microsoft are trying to impose on us all
in order to have control over how our computers are used.</p>
<p>The public backlash that led to the kill switch in Vista being
"removed" is a sign that people want software freedom. Today,
Microsoft cannot offer people what they want. Thankfully, all is not
lost -- free software distributions of the GNU/Linux operating system
offer that freedom today. One lesson we should all take from this is
that if we speak loudly enough, and demand software freedom, it can
have results. But we also shouldn't be fooled -- Microsoft has just
hidden the kill switch behind its back, still claiming the authority
to use it. More pressure is still needed, and the only thing that
will work in the end is for Microsoft to release their software under
a license that respects the freedom of computer users.</p>
No publishermattl2008-02-06T16:07:26ZCOREBlog EntryVista SP1 Preview http://badvista.fsf.org/blog/vista-sp1-preview <p>Word is out that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is in Beta mode. Reviewers mention that it is relatively unchanged, i.e., it is still running as a giant piece of proprietary malware, but, that it is running a little bit faster (one report takes a shot at it claiming that it is almost as fast as Windows 98). Unfortunately, Service Pack 1 still leaves Vista designed to restrict what users can do with their software. <br /></p>
<p>So, my advice is: don't wait for Service Pack 1. Despite the free software worlds constant battle to acquire hardware specifications (often reverse engineering them) in order to develop free software drivers, GNU/Linux still supports far more hardware than Vista ever will. One of the reasons for this is because Vista needs certain hardware requirements to implement Digital Restrictions Management schemes and Trusted Computing schemes so that the hardware and the software can restrict how you can use your software, your data, and all of your multi-media content. I'm not sure you can run GNU/Linux on a shoebox, but you certainly don't need a top of the line machine like Vista requires. Most distributions run on anything from your old 12-pound laptop from the early 90s to the latest and greatest super-computer cluster, as well as most everything in between. When you install GNU/Linux, you decide if you want to stay on the cutting edge and be a "beta tester," or you can choose to run a heavily tested and stable version of an application. GNU/Linux is not designed to restrict the user. <br /></p>
<p>In fact, free software carries freedom to the user. Microsoft claims absolute ownership over their software, but, with free
software, you have all the same rights as developers do to use, to
change, to share (even to sell) the software to whomever, and for
whatever purpose you see fit -- and, as long as you continue to pass along those same freedoms to everyone else, it will always be free software. So, don't wait for SP1, install your favorite GNU/Linux distribution today, and be a part of a thriving and respectful community that values your freedom of choice and your freedom to do what you wish with your software, your data, and your multimedia content. <br /></p>
No publisherjosh2007-10-12T16:52:04ZCOREBlog EntryFree software for a free society http://badvista.fsf.org/blog/free-software-for-a-free-society <p>
Our <a href="http://freesoftwarefreesociety.org">joint statement</a> with Friends of the Earth International, the Green Party, People and Planet and the New Internationalist calling for a free society based on free software has now been signed 600+ more times over by activists around the world.
</p>
<p>
If you haven't yet, please <a href="http://freesoftwarefreesociety.org">add your signature</a> to the statement calling on activist groups and individuals of all stripes to reject Microsoft Windows Vista and pursue free "as in freedom" software like GNU/Linux. Help us demonstrate how much support there is for a digital world without arbitrary restrictions on the freedoms we need to be effective agents for political change.
</p>
No publisherjohns2007-09-05T21:13:35ZCOREBlog EntryMS Vista, degenerative technology analysis (part 1) http://badvista.fsf.org/blog/ms-vista-degenerative-technology-analysis-part-1 <!-- -*-mode:nxml-*- -->
<!-- $Id: ms-vista-degenerative-technology-analysis-part-1.html,v 1.1 2007/04/04 21:29:15 johns Exp $ -->
<!-- by Oliver Day -->
<!-- Free Art license http://artlibre.org/licence/lalgb.html -->
<p>One commenter on digg.com asked what the sense of my article is. Is it just
that Microsoft Vista will introduce new levels of encryption to the playback of
HD content? I wish it were as simple as that. And this goes way beyond the idea
that consumers will have to pay for the extra components on the video cards
which will not be used if they don’t play HD content. It goes way beyond
the fact that pirated HD content is already <a
href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070115-8622.html"> available </a>
which invalidates all their efforts to date. The real issue that warrants your
attention is that Microsoft has teamed up with the entertainment industries
(RIAA + MPAA) to create an operating system that can control what you do, where
you do it, and how you do it. The real issue is that they are collectively
pushing degenerative technology which is causing a cultural backslide.</p>
<p>The new features which create “pipelines” to secure audio and
video ensure that consumers can not play movies or music on devices that are
not approved. More then ever, the industries who produce the entertainment
consumed by the masses treat those very same people as potential criminals.
Microsoft isn’t kowtowing to demands; they are gladly aiding the
entertainment industry to fight a battle they themselves are waging. Piracy
affects anyone who distributes products under a restrictive copyright regime.
Unlike what many a blog commenter has tried to argue DRM is not free. There are
significant costs involved which I have tried to outline in my previous
articles in the form of additional hardware, resource usage, engineering time,
technical support, and PR spin to counter people like me who are against such
things. One commenter on the windowsvistablog was nice enough to extract all
six mentions of <a
href="http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/8/f/98f3fe47-dfc3-4e74-92a3-088782200fe7/TWEN05002_WinHEC05.ppt">who
is paying</a> for these restrictions. The consumer.</p>
<p>Yet if one were to conduct a survey among users I would find it difficult to
believe that anyone would list DRM high on their wish list. It’s
difficult to imagine someone asking for <a
href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Hardware_Wars_and_the_future_of_free_software">“computers
which run software you can’t see, can’t understand, can’t control, and which
reports to other people what is going on in your network without your ability
to interrupt or do anything?”</a>. Even if the payoff is the ability to play
back HD content from major studios. This is the leverage that Microsoft has
touted from the beginning and their hope is that consumers value this
“ability” so highly as to turn a blind eye to the degenerative
methodologies embedded in the very core of their new operating system.</p>
<p>Part of the adherence to the Advanced Access Content System (AACS)
specifications is the deliberate obfuscation of drivers and the withdrawal of
open hardware specifications. When an approved device is given a piece of HD
content the operating system begins negotiating with the device to verify that
it is real and authentic. To accomplish this, undocumented calls are made to
the device verifying that it is not a fake device intent on viewing unencrypted
frames of the premium content. How does this affect you? Dave Marsh responded
that “HFS uses additional chip characteristics other than those needed to
write a driver. HFS requirements should not prevent the disclosure of all the
information needed to write drivers.” What he doesn’t mention is
that the authors of the drivers for future video hardware are under contract to
obfuscate their code and keep their specifications closed. Closed
specifications affect hardware design for ALL operating systems. Free software
driver developers will find less and less publicly available documentation. One
of the commenters on my original post had a great response which I’m
including here.</p>
<p><a
href="http://badvista.fsf.org/blog/analysis-of-microsofts-suicide-note-part-1">“I
don’t care about ‘premium content’, neither copied nor
purchased, and yet I, as a software developer, have to live with the fact that
it’s hard to use 3D graphics cards using free drivers. Thanks to the deal
between the likes of MPAA-Microsoft-ATI, the situation won’t improve, it
will only get worse. “</a>
</p>
No publisherodayCopyright 2007 Oliver Day: You can redistribute this article and/or modify it according to terms of the Free Art License (http://artlibre.org/licence/lalgb.html).
2007-04-04T21:49:44ZCOREBlog EntryAudio recording of Gutmann's paper on Vista restrictions http://badvista.fsf.org/blog/audio-recording-of-gutmann-s-paper-on-vista-restrictions <!-- -*-mode:nxml-*- -->
<!-- $Id: cory-reading-suicide-note.txt,v 1.2 2007/04/04 15:19:25 johns Exp $ -->
<p>
Cory Doctorow <a
href="http://www.boingboing.net/2007/04/01/vista_suicide_note_p.html">at
BoingBoing</a> is doing a serialized reading of Peter Gutmann's paper, <a
href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html">A Cost
Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection</a>. If you haven't read the paper
yet, your procastination has paid off. You can now have it read to you. It's
one of the better resources out there for getting informed about all of the new
restrictions that have been smuggled into Vista.
</p>
<p>
Here's the <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast">feed link</a>
for the series, and here's the <a href="http://craphound.com/?p=1803">first
installment</a>.
</p>
<p>
<strong>UPDATE:</strong> You can find the OGG version <a
href="http://www.archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_74">here</a>. </p>
No publisherjohns2007-04-04T15:32:05ZCOREBlog EntryAnalysis of Microsoft's Suicide Note (Part 2) http://badvista.fsf.org/blog/analysis-of-microsoft-s-suicide-note-part-2
<blockquote>
<p>“Some argue that the consumer gets little or negative
‘benefit’ from this increase, this is false. The consumer gets
premium content on their PC”</p>
</blockquote>
<p> <em>Pete Levinthal</em><br />
<em>Software Engineering</em><br />
<em>ATI Technologies, Inc</em></p>
<p>This is a fair statement. Playing HD content from a Blueray or HD DVD disk
is clearly an advantage that end users would appreciate. So in the sense that a
benefit is an advantage I would say Levinthal’s statement is accurate.
However, benefit can also refer to “profit” which would make his
statement questionable. Considering that he mentions ‘negative
“benefit”‘ I think we should delve further into this
connotation. Profit is the positive difference between the amount spent and the
amount earned. So in purely mathematical terms the amount of “cost”
to the end user to play premium content must be lower then the amount gained in
the operation of HD playback for a profitable expierence. I believe it is safe
to assume what the amount gained is, HD playback. What isn’t so clear is
what the costs are. In the programmers universe cost is generally associated
with amounts of cpu cycles spent solving some problem. Thus if a programmer
writes a function for a program which needlessly recomputes values it is
considered “expensive”. An accomplished programmer can write
elegant solutions which do not incur much cost.</p>
<p>
Keeping the previous definition of “cost” in mind I think it is
fitting to look into what the premium content protection really costs a user.
From this analysis we can make a fair judgement on whether a user profits
overall from the ability to play HD content. According to the Microsoft
presentations <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/stream/output_protect.mspx"> here, </a> <a href="http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/8/f/98f3fe47-dfc3-4e74-92a3-088782200fe7/TWEN05006_WinHEC05.ppt">
here, </a> <a href="http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/b/9/5b97017b-e28a-4bae-ba48-174cf47d23cd/MED038_WH06.ppt">
here, and </a> <a href="http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/8/f/98f3fe47-dfc3-4e74-92a3-088782200fe7/TWEN05005_WinHEC05.ppt">
here</a> the playback of HD content requires no less then two rounds of
encryption/decryption before the video is sent to the display. First the video
comes from the original HD media in encrypted format and is decoded. That
decoded media is then encoded <b>again</b> using the AES algorithm and sent
across the PCIe bus. Once it reaches the other side of that bus it is decoded
and then sent across the HDMI interface to the display.</p>
<p>
The entire process is documented here in a presentation by Microsoft:<br /> <a href="/blog/images/Slide15.jpg"><img src="/blog/images/Slide15.jpg" alt="PVP-OPM" height="240" width="320" /></a></p>
<p>Based on my own valuation of HD content playback I would say that the price
is either near or exceeding the gain of watching content on my PC. Clearly the
price of these computations goes down every 18 months* by 50% according to
Moore’s law. This led to my earlier prediction that an affordable and
usable system running Vista is perhaps 5 years away. Before I close on this
installment I want to give a preview of the next piece I have lined up. This
image struck me and has pervaded my thoughts about this article.</p>
<p><img src="/blog/images/Picture%201.png" alt="Why Do
It" height="240" width="320" /><br /> This image from <a href="http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/8/f/98f3fe47-dfc3-4e74-92a3-088782200fe7/TWEN05006_WinHEC05.ppt">a
presentation</a> delivered by Dave Marsh (Program Manager, Windows Media
Technologies) captures how Microsoft frames this problem. Perhaps not
intentional but all too apparent in this image is their end user acting
deviously and maliciously hurting Hollywood, Microsoft, and probably
America.</p>
<p>* Wikipedia <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law">cites
Moore</a> as stating 12 months between the doubling of transistors which given
my previous statement would reduce the distance of a usable and affordable
system 3.3 years away. There are other references in the article that state the
chip making industry adheres to the “doubling every 18 months”. My
prediction was that of 3.5x current capacities for an affordable system to play
back HD content on a Vista PC.</p>
No publisherodayCopyright 2006 Oliver Day, Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License2007-11-27T14:03:58ZCOREBlog Entry