Slashdot Log In
Open Source DRM Solutions?
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Jan 21, 2008 11:28 PM
from the using-the-force-for-good dept.
from the using-the-force-for-good dept.
Feint writes "I'm working on an business platform for inter-company collaboration based on an open source software stack. As part of that platform I would like to integrate some sort of digital rights management for the documents in the system. The vast majority of articles about DRM are focused how good or evil it is to apply DRM to digital music or video. I haven't seen many articles address open source solutions for protecting business data like CAD / MS Office / PDF / etc. documents, which is a real need in business today. Can the Slashdot readership suggest some open source DRM offerings other than the Sun DReaM initiative, which hasn't had a release since Jan. 2007?"
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
We call it... (Score:5, Informative)
This coward is correct! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:We call it... (Score:5, Insightful)
"trusted computing" nonsense won't change anything. It's just another pile of inconvenience for the paying users that will be snipped out entirely for the bittorrent version. Sony and Microsoft have been doing their best to build tamper-proof encryption-based hardware systems (playstation and xbox series), and they're all defeated by a modchip soldered onto the motherboard - you let the tamper-proof hardware do its thing and decrypt the data, then you snoop the data right off the memory bus on its way back from the chip.
Hardware is no harder to attack than software, it just needs different tools. DRM cannot ever work.
Parent
Re:We call it... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not aware of a mod-chip for the PS3. Your summary of how mod-chips work is incorrect anyway. And there isn't an off-chip bus carrying unencrypted data around on a real TCP. Get a clue.
Sure, maybe a million-dollar lab can open the chip inside a suitable vacuum and snoop the internal busses; for most people that's out of range, and the kind of people who run million-dollar labs don't tend to allow their use just to warez the latest game.
There's a clear economic message here - can you see it yet? When the cost of breaking DRM is higher than the profit to be made, DRM wins. It doesn't have to be perfect.
Now get with the program - DRM is a clear and present danger to our way of life. Don't sleepwalk into it.
Parent
Re:We call it... (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a clear economic message here - can you see it yet? When the cost of breaking DRM is higher than the profit to be made, DRM wins. It doesn't have to be perfect.
Well it allows DRM vendors to sell DRM systems. The technical difficulty of breaking DRM has to be higher than the average executive at a record company.
However, there are at least four aspects to the problems for DRM to actually work as you have described, i.e. as 'resistance' that stops the kids from copying enough for them to get on the bus, queue at a checkout and go home again.
1. Politics: The majority of people don't believe in the propaganda of the content industries. Even those that think they do, don't appear able to act on their beliefs.
2. Communication: You only have to break it once, then the means of circumvention can be spread at the speed of Ethernet.
3. Physics: It is harder and slower to build and deploy restrictions than destroy them.
4. Sociology: The productivity of a grown-up working in an office with paperwork, clocking out at 5, family commitments etc, is far lower than some dedicated student working 24 hours per day to get their Blue-ray player to 'work'.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As soon as your encrypted file is transformed into sound (good old analog sound). I can copy it. The quality loss can become almost insignificant (for most people IMHO) if you have a relative good installation.
kids will soon rediscover what we used to do with K7 and other Analog medium if numeric-to-numeric copy becomes too hard. it will be numeric-analog-n
Re:We call it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Encryption is all about securing data so you can send it safely from A to C without B being able to read it. The problem with DRM is that B and C are the same person.
This reality will _never_ change despite what technology is being used. In order for our senses to comprehend the signal or heck even if it were sent as a direct data stream to our brain--the man in the middle is us and we can, if we so choose, mold that stream into whatever we want.
Parent
Re:We call it... (Score:5, Interesting)
The alternative is easier nowadays: Piracy - It Just Works. With sites like ThePirateBay and easy to use Bittorrent clients like uTorrent and the likes, and with fast net connections, pirating HD content is seriously becoming easier for average users than getting it in a legit way.
Parent
Open Source DRM? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure we could (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm sure we could (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, that's the rub isn't it, OSS being conceptually antithetical to DRM. Most open source licenses (hi BSD guys) require contributing your own work back to the collective good.
I second the earlier idea that encrypting your data is the best option, and submit for review the existence of libcrypt [gnupg.org] as an efficient means of accomplishing said goal.
Parent
Real World Scenarios (Score:5, Interesting)
I.E. - Engineers and CAD designers are the only ones that can see pre-production drawings. Pre-production drawings are not accessible from line terminals, only engineering or conference room workstations. Line terminals can not print drawings, though they can print some other things. Line terminals and assembly people can't even open non-production documents.
Considering many electronics assembly shops have people on staff that used to (like, last week) work for a competitor the possibility of moles in real. So, prevent documents from being opened by non-authorized personnel. Prevent drawings from being printed, copied to removable media, etc.
I've had to deal with all of that in a manufacturing environment.
Parent
Re:I'm sure we could (Score:4, Insightful)
So when you share your name, address and credit card number (commonly considered 'personal data') with Amazon, under the 'information wants to be free' principle they can share it with whoever they want?
When you share your passport, National Insurance and driver's licence numbers, family details and NHS numbers [bbc.co.uk] with the MoD when you apply to join the armed forces, it's not such a big issue if they then (inadvertently) share it with the public?
The vast majority of your personal data will be shared with some person, company or organisation at some point. That's the whole point of having personal data in the first place. It then stands to reason that the definition of 'privacy' is that it is not then shared any further.
Parent
Unclear On The Concept of "Open?" (Score:5, Funny)
Do we have open-source Tasers? I'm also after open-source software to rig voting machines.
I look in freshmeat and SourceForge - but they mostly seem to be oriented to freeing people, not locking 'em up.
Too busy (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Too busy (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Unclear On The Concept of "Open?" (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
It's an oxymoron (Score:5, Insightful)
Also note: (Score:3, Insightful)
But that is pretty much the only way to give someone the source, but not the content -- assuming you are trying to protect content. If you are trying to prevent people from copying your code, then you completely missed the point of "open source".
I would very much like to see a followup article, or a clarification, or some comment by the guy who made this post, to find out j
Re:It's an oxymoron (Score:4, Insightful)
You are making the same mistake that people who insist on coming up with DRM schemes make...
A DRM scheme is an attempt at giving someone the encrypted file and the decription key, with the intent of protecting the content against that precise someone. GPG, on the other hand, is a scheme which attempts to protect the encrypted files from those who do not have the decription key.
It is not that difficult, really...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's an oxymoron (Score:5, Interesting)
DRM is a twisted variant of crypto. If Alice sends a message to Bob using GPG, Eve can't read it because she doesn't have the key. In this case, Bob is the intended recipient, and Eve is the unintended recipient. In the case of DRM, Alice encrypts software and gives it to Bob. So, if Alice doesn't give Bob the key, Bob can't use the software. If Alice does, then Bob can break the DRM, having both the key and the code.
So, in DRM, Bob and Eve are the same person. DRM is not only socially undesirable, it's sexually perverse.
Parent
Re:It's an oxymoron (Score:4, Funny)
hey now, keep your Judeo-Christian mores to yourself. Some /. folk like the idea of Bob and Eve being the same person.
Parent
Re:It's an oxymoron (Score:4, Informative)
Crypto works because you give the decryption-key to the intended recipient, but others don't know it, and can't easily guess it since it's a large random string.
But with DRM, you give the recipient the file *AND* the decryption-key, and then say: You may use this key to decrypt the file and display it on your screen; but not to decrypt it and print it on your printer ! (for example)
That is fundamentally impossible to enforce. The decryption-algorithm does not care what happens to the file AFTERWARDS.
Parent
Re:It's an oxymoron (Score:5, Insightful)
On a theoretical level, you can't both give an open-source program all of the information required to decrypt a stream, and still prevent it from decryping the stream in ways that you don't approve of. The end user has all of the information required to have full control over the process.
At some point hardware attachments may make open-source DRM possible by hiding some of the required information. Or we may reach some compromise of semi-open DRM. But until then, Open Source DRM appears to violate a fundamental law of information science, much like perpetual motion machines violate thermodynamics.
Parent
Talk about a contradiction in terms. (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM is about Alice/Bob/Eve cryptography where Bob and Eve are the same person. All DRM tries to work by hiding the Implementation - Universally, it fails.
Open source is about revealing the implementation.
OpenDRM. Just say Huh?!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Isn't that an oxymoron? (Score:5, Interesting)
Use encryption if you want safety. But you still can't prevent the people who have legitimate access from doing whatever they want to the documents.
Re:Isn't that an oxymoron? (Score:5, Funny)
Unless, and I think this is what he is after, you hire a group of armed commandos/Stallman look-a-likes (to keep it open source) to detail every end user of your media. With a gun to the head... making decisions about media becomes much more serious business.
Open Source Stallman Commando: Don't even think about putting that in your shared folder! If this ends up on bittorrent, it's a 7.62mm round right to the groin!!!
User: Oh my god... please don't kill me... (gets hit with the butt of the commando's rifle)
Commando: One more word and I swear I pull the trigger!
I'm not sure, but that may be the most workable DRM solution anyone has ever come up with.
Parent
RE (Score:5, Informative)
The only open source system I am aware is OpenKM[http://www.openkm.com/].
Open Source ECM (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
You're probably in for a disappointing search (Score:5, Informative)
Most people smart enough to program such a thing are also smart enough to know it can never work. People who do create/sell/push drm solutions are selling snake oil.
Your best bet is to use PGP and simply encrypt your data, and trade public keys with your intended recipients. And plan ahead - once someone can see it, assume they can always see it. The whole "revoking a key" bit is the snake oil part of DRM.
There is a precedent for open source DRM.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It is still an oxymoron.
If you see my comment [slashdot.org] posted shortly after yours, I mention OGG-S/Media-S. They are, at least, honest about their "open source" DRM system. In their FAQ they explain while it is GPL'd, you can buy a (closed-source) license so that it's anything other than a public-key encryption system. ergo: Open source DRM is an oxymoron.
Easy solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Yes, this exists (Score:5, Informative)
DRM makes it hard for people to leak a file. It does not spend very much effort, if any, on authenticating the initial owner of the file (for example, anyone who picks up a DVD can play it, although they can't copy it to a new DVD). In a business environment, you're usually far more worried about authenticating the file's recipient and making sure the original does not accidentally reach anyone else's computer, than about preventing a cooperative person from intentionally leaking the file. (In most cases, you do want to permit them to print, copy-and-paste, etc. the document. These would all be prevented by DRM because they all make it easy to leak the file.)
The other failing of DRM, as I'm sure you've seen discussed, is that it's crackable by mere cleverness. If you're going to permit someone to view a file on screen (or hear an audio clip over headphones), you can always take a screenshot (or recording) and leak that. HDCP and so forth make the screenshot harder, but nothing prevents you from pointing a camera at the TV. It will be low quality but it will be a leak. PKI, on the other hand, is only crackable by brute-force searches of the key space, or (unlikely though possible) sufficiently smart mathematicians.
DRM in a nutshell... (Score:5, Interesting)
Such a system is untenable with proprietary software (just need to find the right memory address), and absolutely impossible with open source software, as you can simply remove the line in the program that tells it what actions not to allow. (See xpdf). With proprietary DRM systems, the companies just hope it's difficult enough to decipher the compiled code of the proprietary programs, that it takes a while before someone finds the right spots in memory to probe/change, and publishes the details... Then, they make trivial changes to the DRM system, and call it a new, "fixed" version that everyone should start using quickly (before someone figures it out).
The only thing DRM can do effectively, is to prevent the first opening of the file. After you send that first key (eg. via server), no matter what the DRM involved, the user can (trivially) strip the DRM off, and do whatever they want with the unencrypted file.
If that is what you want... I would suggest using public-key encryption to protect the file instead of a commercial "DRM" system. Either PGP or SSL (keys in combination with a password) can make absolutely sure only the intended recipient can make use of the file, even if others obtain copies of it. If you are expecting any more control over what others do with the file, you are simply denying reality.
All that said, here is one open source DRM system: http://www.sidespace.com/products/oggs/ [sidespace.com]
And if you WANT more... (Score:5, Informative)
Instead you should save your money and hire a lawyer instead who will draft up NDAs for you to have people sign in order to protect those documents/secrets you want tightly controlled.
Technical solutions will not cut it. They never will. You are throwing your money away.
Hire a lawyer, and only give the documents to people who ABSOLUTELY need it and is worth the time to get contracts involved with.
Parent
Have we not discussed this before? (Score:4, Insightful)
Point. Learn good computer security practices.
I want DRM to dissappear from this world forever/
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Convince your business not to waste the money. (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's what's become my business-side take on DRM: don't bother.
DRM systems set the bar too high for honest users who just need to get some work done, and too low for malicious users.
Corporate espionage in mind? Just make screen-captures. That won't work? Digital camera, anyone?
You can't make it work, principally because there's no way to both show and not show the same document to an end user. The security is only as good as your trusted users are.
You can also appeal to reason on financial grounds: the Hollywood studios are extremely motivated to make DRM work, have pored in millions and haven't hit on anything at all that prevents piracy.
If they can't do it, you probably can't either, and should probably focus on differentiating your content by making it sticky and extremely easy to use.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In the case of a web site, it could mean going from a login business model to an ad-supported model; with your content in the open instead of hidden behind a login, users are free to fall in love with it and return daily.
In the case of an analyst report, it could mean that instead of trying to protect the report to the hilt, you instead use wide a
Minimal DRM (Score:3, Informative)
There's basically two kinds of DRM in the world: DRM that's been broken and DRM that no one has cared to break.
So, that said, here's some python DRM you can use which I am releasing into the public domain:
(replace _ with spaces)
That is not logical. (Score:4, Interesting)
can we produce a filled emptyness?
can we produce a hard softness?
can we produce a rich poverty?
can we produce an Open DRM?
err... not really?
I understand what he wants.... (Score:3, Insightful)
In business there are things like trade secrets, documents, drawings and the like that you have to distribute to a jobber or some other outside entity to accomplish a task, but you really only want the outside entity to have them for the amount of time that they actually need them to get a task completed.
Typically this has been accomplished via NDA's or other legal agreements. It appears that in some instances they want more then a "promise" to destroy the information when it is no longer useful for the legitimate contracted purpose. Sort of like the old "This tape will self destruct in 10 seconds" gag from mission impossible.
The problem is that it really cannot be accomplished. You can use PGP or IronKey (tm) as others have suggested but that only prevents the material from being easily viewed by 3rd parties and does not address the "self destruct" desire.
I really cannot think of a way to make that happen. Every method that I can think of requires the destruct method to either be built into the data ( as a code block ) but even then something has to execute that code, and that is simply worked around.
It basically has to come down to trust. Either you trust the outside entities that you deal with or you don't. When I was in the military I had access to classified materials, and I was looked over from front to back top to bottom, my friends and neighbors were interviewed as well as my Principal from High School.
Sadly, I think the last 8 years of the current administration have re-enforced the notion of mistrust and it has found its way deep into the culture of corporate America.
IBM TCPA (Score:3, Informative)
You need to define your business need first (Score:3, Insightful)
You should really first see if the disadvantages outweigh the benefits, from what I read you're simply after some method to protect information from disclosure. Well, encrypt it. Just don't use any DRM related solution because you're inflicting a serial chain of single points of failures on your business, and it'll screw any backup and recovery strategy as well. Just don't. You really don't know just how much trouble you're heading for.
From the trenches (long) (Score:3, Insightful)
I make a living selling copyable software which has no DRM or copy protection, so I'm taking a bunch of time to explain how I'm doing that in the hopes Slashdot minds will find it interesting. This isn't hypothetical, it pays my bills. I'm betting it will continue to do so...
The software is mostly plugins for Logic etc. (Audio Unit format) but I'm also getting some other tools together like an animation program. This isn't free software- I'll talk pretty freely about how I do what I do but I don't distribute the code, and I pick some software products to give away at no cost and other products to sell, never for more than $60 before VAT etc. (lots of my sales are overseas, I'm in the USA)
Almost every (every?) commercial plug-in maker uses DRM, sometimes insanely intrusive stuff. There's stuff that has to dial home in order to be 'authorized' and you only get 3 or 4 goes before it is shut off, there's stuff that uses one of several dongles (iLok is the most common but there are others), etc.
I use NOTHING- once you have the plugin, I expect you to use it, back it up for safe keeping, use it on whichever computers you need it, including the new Logic nodes for DAW clustering that Apple's come up with. There isn't a line of code in there to take the plugin away from you, ever. It's a matter of principle.
At the same time, I expect people not to copy these to their friends, put them on websites, anything like that. You are only supposed to get them from me. It's done through a variation on DRM by Kagi Shareware, who are my store-runners: they have a thing they'd like to see people use more, called Kagi's Digital Download Service. This could be open source if people wanted one like it- how it works is, a purchaser is given a temporary download URL. It's open for X downloads or X days and then it's no longer valid, so if someone posted one of these somewhere it would go dead quickly. The neat thing is, if there's a problem and someone emails me I can check my copies of the Kagi receipts, and see if a sale went through. If it did- the reply email contains a copy of the thing they bought- I don't have to wait for Kagi's systems to be fixed, because the customer only needs the plugin, not access to some authorization server.
This brings me to my point about DRM, one I take very seriously- I've been thinking about this for some time having been a Slashdotter from way back. (that's easily proved, at any rate
There are two ways you can get a person to do something- push them or entice them. DRM is strictly push-ville. The big assumption you make there is that the enticement is basically infinite- the person MUST buy your thing, or steal it, so it's all about getting really tough with them to compel them not to steal it.
I make a different assumption, and it's paying my mortgage. I may not be putting out lots of open source code (though anyone from an OSS project wishing audio tips is welcome to talk with me endlessly) but I assume the person must CHOOSE to buy your thing or steal it.
No matter who it is, they still must choose. It doesn't matter if they're 14, have never bought something before, and have found my stuff on an FTP site somewhere- even if the choice seems compellingly obvious, people CHOOSE to copy stuff that's not intended to be copied. (to use the non-thief terminology)
I get to make choices as well. For instance, current law is very friendly to me talking to such an FTP site and telling them, please remove those files now. It's easy to monitor, they'd have no real leg to stand on, and I'd be entitled to want that done since it's my stuff.
The site itself CHOOSES to include my stuff (if they can get it) or not to bother- or
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Passwords can be applied in any number of ways. You can base it on pgp keys, if you want to limit the specific people who have access to the documents; or, you can do a one-size-fits-all solution, just applying a password to a file, and giving that password to those who need access.
Recently I was considering a solution to a professional problem that included some sort of DRM[1], albeit of a temporary sort.
As a part-time translator, I have in several occasions worked for people who got their translations, but failed to pay up. Some of my colleagues have had even worse problems of that sort.
The idea was, if they don't pay, have the file self-encrypt or self-destruct. Of course, since they could easily just copy and paste the contents in a new document, all this is really moot. Actua