Microsoft Vista: The view from up here is... blurry?

[8-5-8]

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html]Article

Don't pirate software? Think DRM won't really affect you? Think again.

The article, though being a cost analysis and rather long, sheds some light on how copy-protection will limit the capabilities of your computer hardware, often without prompting you or letting you in on the fact that your HD playback isn't HD at all, due to deals Microsoft has made with the RIAA and MPAA to protect their "premium content".

Basically, if you want to use your new Vista PC as a media center, and you stick that shiny new HD-DVD movie in the drive to play on your $2000 HDTV, the resulting playback is likely to look no better than it would on a TV you bought for $10 at a yard sale.

Why?

So any copies you make of the content on the disk will be of degraded resolution (if it plays at all) to dissuade people from pirating movies and music.

So the big question is, why is MS pushing the media center concept if their software is going to cripple the media you play from it?

[8-5-8]

And I may be over-reacting, but something isn't right with the way they are planning to implement copy-protection. It's almost... Orwellian.

[cigar no baka]

Ok then no way am I going to use MS Vista. I've been using Windows as an OS since I had my first computer (3.1 anyone?), but if they're going to hijack my shit, they can go to hell. There are other OS out there, after all.

[SkinnyDan]

I see this situation as almost comical. It's like these companies and groups don't have a clue, this "protection" scheme that MS is implementing only hurts the law abiding citizens. What makes them think that those that pirate movies and music won't being using pirated copies of vista that have this "feature" stripped out. It seems that these groups, especially RIAA and MPAA, are so worried about protecting "their" products that they forget the people that they are selling them to. Maybe when the current youth generation is old enough to run these organizations things will change, but I really doubt they will until then.

-Dan

[chadth]

I thought I would revive this thread based on some recent news. The truth about DRM is that it only raises the bar. At some point, content must be decrypted for viewing. At this stage in the process, both the decryption key and the content itself are subject to attack in memory. Once 1 successful copy of the decrypted content is made, you have defeated the entire DRM scheme. Having administrative rights over an OS allows you to access the most sensitive components of the OS, the kernel and memory. For DRM to truly work, you need to change this paradigm or create tamper-resistant/proof hardware dedicated to the task.

Blueray and HD-DVD DRM defeated:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01...y_drm_cracked/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/14/aacs_hack/
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/02...cracked_again/


-Chad