[IP] No one on the planet will choose this voluntarily
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From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: May 18, 2006 10:37:09 AM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] No one on the planet will choose this voluntarily
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[Note: This item comes from reader Randall. DLH]
From: Randall <rvh40@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: May 18, 2006 6:46:15 AM PDT
To: cyberia <CYBERIA-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Dewayne Hendricks
<dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, JMG <johnmacsgroup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: No one on the planet will choose this voluntarily.
<http://htdaw.blogsource.com/post.mhtml?post_id=328782>
Friday, May 19, 2006 at 12:00 AM EDT
Blu-ray makes unexpected, three-way DRM choice for high-def DVD
Scott M. Fulton, III
August 10, 2005 17:18
Hollywood (CA) - In an announcement last night, the Blu-ray Disc
Association, led by Sony, representing one of two competing
high-definition DVD formats, stated it will simultaneously embrace
digital watermarking, programmable cryptography, and a self-destruct
code for Blu-ray disc players.
The BDA statement is unprecedented not only because its solution to the
nagging problem of digital rights management is to embrace every option
on the table, but also because Blu-ray appears to have developed its own
approach - in some cases, proprietary - to each of these three
technologies. Knowledge of this impending fact may have been what tipped
movie studio 20th Century-Fox last week to throw its support behind
Blu-ray, in a move that experts believe balanced the scales in Blu-ray's
ongoing battle with competing format HD DVD - backed by a forum led by
Toshiba - to become the next high-def industry standard.
The digital watermarking technique, which will be called ROM Mark, is
described in the statement as "a unique and undetectable identifier in
pre-recorded BD-ROM media such as movies, music and games." "BD-ROM" is
the proposed writable version of the Blu-ray format. Little else is
known about ROM Mark at this time, except that the statement describes
it as being undetectable to consumers. This is noteworthy in itself,
since a previously heralded watermark applied to first-generation DVDs
was notoriously defeated by someone writing over it with a permanent
marker.
One part of the announcement that had been anticipated by experts was
Blu-ray's embrace of Advanced Access Content System (AACS), one version
of which has also been adopted by the HD DVD Forum. This controversial
technology would require that disc players maintain permanent
connections to content providers via the Internet, making it possible
for discs that fail a security check to trigger a notification process,
enabling the provider to send the player a sort of "self-destruct code."
This code would come in the form of a flash ROM "update" that would
actually render the player useless, perhaps unless and until it is taken
to a repair shop for reprogramming. The Blu-ray statement noted that
certain elements of AACS have yet to be formally approved by the BDA.
The third part of the announcement that is perhaps most surprising, is
Blu-ray's adoption of a third DRM technique that appears to embrace some
of the ideals of one of the technologies that had been considered,
without actually licensing its methodology or its existing tools. The
BDA statement introduces what it calls "BD+," described as "a Blu-ray
Disc specific programmable renewability enhancement that gives content
providers an additional means to respond to organized attacks on the
security system by allowing dynamic updates of compromised code."
BD+ appears to be Blu-ray's version of a concept previously under
consideration called SPDC, which enabled the method for encrypting a
disc's contents to be included on the disc, rather than on the EPROMs of
the disc player. One of the perceived failures of first-generation DVD
was that its encryption mechanism of choice, called Content Scramble
System (CSS), was spectacularly defeated, with the result being that the
industry was forced to permanently and irreversibly support a
now-worthless encryption scheme. With SPDC, new encryption algorithms
could be adopted as old ones are cracked, enabling successive
generations of high-def DVD to be stronger than earlier ones.
Two months ago, the HD DVD Forum considered a coupling of AACS with
SPDC. But a scientifically accurate though politically imbalanced white
paper released by the creators of SPDC technology, Cryptography
Research, Inc. (CRI), soundly rebuked alternative DRM technologies, and
thus may have unintentionally played a role in SPDC's falling out of
favor with the original supporters of CSS, some of whom were HD DVD
Forum members. The Forum rejected "AACS+SPDC" for undisclosed reasons,
leading many to speculate that Blu ray would respond by embracing SPDC.
However, as SPDC was originally discussed, there would only have been
one encryption standard in use throughout the industry at any one time.
According to yesterday evening's BDA statement, BD+ would follow SPDC's
core principle, but instead allow each content provider to utilize
whatever encryption standard it sees fit at the time. "With these
enhancements," the statement reads, "content providers have a number of
methods to choose from to combat hacks on Blu-ray players. Moreover, BD+
affects only players that have been attacked, as opposed to those that
are vulnerable but haven't been attacked and therefore continue to
operate properly."
This last sentence is important, because one key objection that experts
raised to the pairing of AACS with SPDC was the possibility that, once
the single SPDC encryption scheme was broken, AACS could trigger a
signal to all players using that encryption scheme, rendering all discs
that use this scheme unplayable, perhaps prior to a system upgrade. The
BDA statement appears to distance itself from the CRI approach to SPDC,
perhaps to calm consumer fears that entire libraries of perfectly
legitimate content could be rendered useless due to someone else's
illicit activities.
The CRI white paper, incidentally, distinguished SPDC by contrasting it
with other DRM techniques such as watermarking. "Although some progress
is being made at improving robustness and efficiency," the white paper
states, "we are not optimistic that a practical and secure public
watermarking scheme is possible." Such comparisons may have worked
against SPDC's eventual adoption by Blu-ray in method as well as in
principle.
On behalf of the HD DVD Forum this morning, Toshiba's advisor to the
Forum, Mark Knox, released a brief statement: "Today's announcement by
the BD Group should not confuse anyone," states Knox. "HD DVD's content
protection system provides the highest level of advanced copy protection
to meet content owner's needs and the rigors of consumer demand." Knox
goes on to say that AACS - which now singularly forms the crux of HD
DVD's DRM - is the most advanced such scheme yet devised, and that HD
DVD's own membership continues to back that approach.
"We will continue to promote further penetration of the format," Knox
added, "while simultaneously seeking ways to eventually realize a single
format that delivers optimized benefits to all concerned industries and,
most important, to consumers."
Tom's Hardware Guide will present an in-depth analysis of the Blu-ray/HD
DVD format combat Thursday morning in its Business Reports section.
There, we'll speak with industry experts, including one prominent media
pioneer, in examining how the participants in this struggle may actually
have always been planning for its eventual resolution, and what form the
fruits of that resolution may take.
<http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/08/10/blu/index.html>
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>
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