Vista Security The 'Longest Suicide Note in History'?

rar42 writes "The Inquirer is reporting on an analysis of Vista by Peter Gutmann — a medical imaging specialist. This isn't the usual anti-Microsoft story — just a professional looking at what is going to happen to his computer if it is upgraded to Microsoft Vista. From the article: 'Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called "premium content", typically HD data from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost,' says Gutmann."

Unnecessary Decline?

[P(0)(!P(k)+P(k+1))]

From TFA:

If I do ever want to play back premium content, I'll wait a few years and then buy a $50 Chinese-made set-top player to do it, not a $1000 Windows PC. It's somewhat bizarre that I have to go to Communist China in order to find vendors who actually understand the consumer's needs.

At first, I shared some cognitive dissonance with Gutman; China, however, is governed by Chinese and for Chinese: they're allowed to act in their own best interests.

The U.S., on the other hand, is beholden to parasites and corporations; and compelled into an unnecessary decline.

Well then don't use it

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

You're not supposed to use a consumer grade OS for mission critical apps anyway. So if you went with a vendor that builds its apps on such an OS, then you are at fault.

I'd prefer a less pre-loaded stance

[eschasi]

This writeup would be more useful if the author could maintain even a marginal pretense of objectivity. His constant use of loaded images ("grenade", "suicide note", "violate the laws of physics") works against him, and this butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth gem actually gave me a sad laugh when seen in context with his full note:

This document looks purely at the cost of the technical portions of Vista's content protection. The political issues (under the heading of DRM) have been examined in exhaustive detail elsewhere and won't be commented on further...

By "elsewhere" he must mean "in other sentences in this document." His facts, which he rarely backs up, are extremely suspect given his inability to separate his prejudices from his presentation. Considered as a persuasive essay, I'd give it a D. Which is not to say that I like DRM. It sucks, and Vista may become an unparalleled disaster because of it. But the author is far more adept at scoring points than he is at making his points persuasive.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[ravenshrike]

China, however, is governed by Chinese and for Chinese

*cough* I think you meant by Chinese Corporations for Chinese Parasites who also happen to hold government positions.

Re:Dupe from Friday

[SpaceLifeForm]

In this case, dupes are a good thing.

This attack on your freedoms needs to become widely known.

If they dupe this every other day until next June, it is good.

biased analysis, with a crunchy core of truth

[Anonymous Coward]

The tone of the article and analysis is very slanted, but the one basic statement that cannot be argued with is the following:

"...spend time implementing large amounts of anti-functionality when it's already hard enough to get things running smoothly without the intentional crippling."

The days of PCs as a general purpose, low cost, programmable machine are done if content protection at the hardware level becomes reality. Things *barely* works as it stands, you can't add all this complexity and intentional obfuscation and think it will continue to work.

Re:Priorities

[diegocgteleline.es]

We sure know the priority isn't security either

In fact, if they only wasted the half of the time they wasted in DRM in security improvements...

I mean, if you read the DRM protection [microsoft.com] work...they completely redid everything that could break DRM, they break compatibility, they're even planning systems that need to re-do the hardware to require encryption on the *system*bus* just to keep hardware hackers from stealing contents at that place and hence making the DRM useless.....

If they had wasted all those efforts in improving security...vista would be the most secure consumer os available

I don't know if that's all a good idea...

[Svartalf]

...but from the PR standpoint, it's a WIN. I'm all for discouraging Windows use, but I'm also one for personal
choice. And if it means someone has to give people crutches in the short-term to score points in the long run
so be it.

Re:I'd prefer a less pre-loaded stance

[elgatozorbas]

Sometimes you are just not supposed to be objective.

Why not?

Some topics do not invite that form of discussion. Is the Earth flat? I don't think anybody expects you to present the supporting opinion in equal length. Did holocaust happen? Again, not really a question in need of giving equal space to both sides. So why 'Is Microsoft crooked and do they intentionally cripple their product to harm consumer and competition?' needs any more discussion...

Disclaimer: I don't want to choose sides here. But apart from being subject to Godwin's law [wikipedia.org], your argument doesn't hold for 100%. Assuming that 'earth flatness' and 'holocaust realness' are in a set of undisputable facts (most people agree here. anyway: not the topic now), it is imho a subjective act to put the Microsoft stuff there as well. To the NRA the right to bear arms may appear as obvious as the danger of doing so may appear to others.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[StrawberryFrog]

China, however, is governed by Chinese and for Chinese

You meant to say: China, however, is governed by a few Chinese and for those Chinese.

they're allowed to act in their own best interests.

I'm not calling the Chinese government corrupt; I wouldn't know. But governing a county in your own best interest is generally neither good nor allowed, that is to say, it's illegal.

The U.S., on the other hand, is ... not all that different?

Re:Priorities

[zCyl]

I mean, if you read the DRM protection work...they completely redid everything that could break DRM, they break compatibility, they're even planning systems that need to re-do the hardware to require encryption on the *system*bus* just to keep hardware hackers from stealing contents at that place and hence making the DRM useless.....

The message is clear. They believe their monopoly can be best maintained by catering to producers, rather than to consumers. Consumer choice is not driving that market.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[edwardpickman]

Alright I hate wadding into this debate because it's pointless and no one is ever going to change their mind but when I hear Communist China being seen as a bastian of freedom because they think communist get free shit I have to weigh in. There is one great universal truth in economics, there's no such thing as a free lunch. If you take capitalism out of the mix several things happen. Yes you may have access to some things "free" that you used to pay for but it's not that simple. First off the magic media fairy doessn't provide it to the government it gets paid for by tax dollars. Guess who pays taxes? Ah but the content will be more plentiful and better. Wrong! The government exists largely to support itself. They'll provide the minimum they can get away with and it will all be government approved so free speech and the latest rap ablum won't be on the list. China can provide free content because they are stealing it from the rest of the world. Take the rest of the world out of the picture and you get episode twelve of the life story of Mao. Yes there will be some entertainment content but it will all be pro government and heavily controlled. Most of the more interesting films coming out of China were backed by Europe and or the US. What you get out of a true communist government is control of every aspect of your life and a subsistence living. You may have a guaranteed job and free entertainment but both will be minimal. I grew up in the latter years of the red scare. I'm not as anticommunist as most that grew up then but it's hardly an idea system. Look what happened when West and Eastern Germany reunited. It devasted the economy of western Germany which before unification was one of the very strongest in the world. China has had to allow some capitalism which is causing explosive growth. Eventually to maintain that growth they'll have to start protecting rights or they'll become a victim like they have been victimizing the rest of the world. How good do you feel paying $10 to see a movie so the Chinese can pay a $1 for a DVD? Your money is paying for their entertainment. Ha Ha you don't pay you download. Well guess what the ones that do pay are paying for your entertainment. Mod it troll it's normally what happens but it really makes me sick hearing that a country that executes political prisoners is more free than the US because they look the other way on copyright laws. They aren't looking out for the needs of their citizens they are leaching off the rest of the world, period. You don't need free entertainment you want it. There's a massive difference. Remember no free lunch? If you don't want to pay and I get sick of paying for you there simply won't be any new entertainment. Pray to the magic media fairy all you want. Money drives entertainment and when the money goes away the investors will all go back to realistate and the stock market.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[mjc_w]

But the way corporations get money is by spending money to get the power to do what they want. Corporations want power as much as politicians of any creed - they just have less scruples about how they will get it.

Re:Priorities

[Dunbal]

Consumer choice is not driving that market.

      Consumer choice never drives the market in a monopoly situation. You get what I feel like producing, and you pay what I feel like charging. If you don't like it, tough.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Simply put, without big countries there would be no wars.

Countries are simply an institutionalized form of tribalism. In their absence you still get religious warfare, economic warfare, ethnic warfare etc and so on. When hominids were barely off the trees, they immediately self-organized into tribes and proceeded to murder each other over ... just about anything. This is the "natural", genetically influenced, animalistic state of affairs. Peace and prosperity on the other hand are something that requires cognitive efforts to overcome these primeval tendencies. The current sorry state of global affairs, a result of millenia of "progress", should give you pretty good idea of the difficulty of that task.

Re:It was supposed to be a C3 O/S !!!!

[twiddlingbits]

If your Sun system has been up 2+ years it is at least 3 chip generations old and comparing that to your new Linux box is unfair. Try running Linux on a SUN Quad Opteron and I bet you'll find it kicks ass. They have some awesome benchmarks with Solaris 10 x86 and Linux on the Opterons.

Wow, that's insightful

[Travoltus]

The world never had any entertainment before the dawn of DRM & copyright.

[sarcasm off]

Re:Wow, that's insightful

[HexRei]

No, but its not coincidental that modern copyright came into existence with the Statute of Anne, in the early 1700's, around the same time that the industrial revolution was being born, and the original Gutenberg Press design was being overhauled into a machine that could truly mass-produce.

When a single modestly-priced machine was available to reproduce any written work in the neighborhood of a thousand of copies per hour, it became clear that without a law to protect the original creator, a publisher with capital to purchase such machines could profit far more than the creator.

Granted, I'm against the US' current copyright laws, but the simple fact is that China IS rampant with copyright violation that does nothing but make the illegal publishers rich. It works for now because richer western nations (which are rich by VIRTUE of capitalism, as opposed to China's communist oppression which crushed China's economy until recent capitalist reforms) are supporting these creators of original works. If the whole world suddenly started pirating the way China does, these original creators would stop making works- there would be no incentive, and even artists need to eat.

Seriously, if you don't believe me, ask someone who spends a lot of time in Hong Kong. Piracy in the US is absolutely nothing compared to there.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[Heir Of The Mess]

Just a thought, but living in a world where we aren't brought up to constantly need mind numbing entertainment spewed at us any time we aren't working might not actually be a bad thing. It seems that people's lives these days are getting dominated by the need to watch fictional lives on tv or at the movies. I think this can lead to people having unrealistic expectations about real life.

I digress though, back to the Chinese. I don't think their economy will be as dependent on Intellectual Property as the US economy is, so the effect you allude to probably won't eventuate so long as the Chinese have such a competitive manufacturing base. Even if it was to be a problem, I don't think that businesses any where in the world care too much past making lots of money in the next year. The Chinese Entertainment industry though is still emerging. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the world over the next 20 years.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[BakaHoushi]

In the words of Douglas Adams:

People are a problem.

I think I just summed up this entire thread. As well as just about every news story on this (and any other) site.

or, you could...

[Kaenneth]

use Vista, but not DRM content...

Is there anything limiting the use of high quality, non-DRM'd media?

Mainly, I think it's a question of complance with laws like the DMCA, and not getting sued. if the RIAA sues hundreds/thousands of individuals for large amounts of money, do you think MS wants to have to defend a case that they 'aided' copyright violations?

I find it hard to, in the same breath, fault Microsoft for violation of the law for extending their markets, and fault them for not disreguarding the laws reguarding others IP.

Imagine what would happen to the market for iTunes purchases if Windows had the built in ability to crack iTunes content protection...

Re:I'd prefer a less pre-loaded stance

[quux4]

The content is designed to be viewed, therefore it can be accessed and someone will do so. There is no way to protect the content in question AND allow it to be decoded and viewed.

Technically, you are right. But as is common in the nerd gatherings, you've kinda focussed on the technical point whilst missing the overall goal. The goal of all that Protected Path stuff is not to eliminate piracy; of course that cannot be done. The goal is to reduce piracy; and this is accomplished when that 'air gap' is created. So now, pirate copies of that DRM'd media will need to travel the 'air gap' from monitor to videocam lens, or from speaker to microphone. That's gonna be noticeable to the end-users. Pirates will also have to do this airgap duplication at human playback rates, and in a quiet room (no busses driving by, planes overhead, etc) - no speeded-up duplication at hard disk copying rates over totally silent wires.

DRM isn't an attempt to break the laws of physics; saying so just helps lump you in with the people who have no problem with vastly overstating their cases as a matter of course.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[foniksonik]

you missed the point or corrupted for your own rant...

What he's saying is that the Chinese vendor knows that all you want to do is play the stupid media on your screen. Why does anyone want to use a Personal (general purpose) Computer to play HD content or games or whatever when a dedicated device can do it better, cheaper and easier... the fact that he references a Chinese vendor is simply a matter of liklihood that the manfacturer of the device would be in China (pretty good odds) not a commentary on anything else.

PCs should go back to being devices for people who need to do computing...

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[cgenman]

Eventually to maintain that growth they'll have to start protecting rights or they'll become a victim like they have been victimizing the rest of the world. How good do you feel paying $10 to see a movie so the Chinese can pay a $1 for a DVD?

It's funny you mention that. I was in Thailand not too long ago, and the price of a legal, licensed VCD was about $1. Legal DVD's were about $40, because they were a luxury item that only the rich could afford anyway.

Companies charge whatever the market will bear. If movie studios think they can get $10 out of an American audience to watch a movie, that's what they'll charge. It doesn't matter what's going on in China, except to say that they'll throw up all sorts of technical and legal barriers to importing their cheaper goods from that region. Likewise, a new CD in Brazil can cost 3 - 5 dollars. Again, legally.

China and other less restrictive countries are looked upon as bastions of IP freedom because there are some major ways in which they are. India, for example, allowed knockoff drugs for a very long time on the grounds that it was immoral to value western company's exploitive drug pricing schemes above human life. Go to Taiwan and *gasp* you can get DVD players that will let you play movies you have legally bought and paid for in any region of the world. You can get CD's in other regions of the world where the corporations convicted of illegal price fixing actually compete with local music companies and pirate CD creators to come to a more reasonable cost structure. Heck, until a few weeks ago you had to travel abroad to get the cellphone you've purchased unlocked from that one restrictive provider.

All of the above seem reasonable, but are completely banned in the US. It's nice to go to a country where the huge companies do not simply write whatever laws they want, but have to contest with the needs of the consumer, who have alternatives to the restrictive legal route.

China is also not communist, but that's another issue.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[BillyBlaze]

Interestingly enough, with unlimited goods such as copies of existing data, it's the reverse: if left to their own devices, people will excercise their right to trade freely with one another, and the only way to enforce Capitalism is at the point of a gun.

You don't get it

[njdj]

I don't know why Microsoft is bending over for the media companies.

They're not. Microsoft has a monopoly. They can tell anyone to get lost.

But "compliance" with "requirements" of the RIAA and MPAA is perfect cover for their real game plan, which is to eliminate Open Source (Linux, etc). If Microsoft simply pressured hardware manufacturers (video cards etc) never to release specs, and also to spend billions making it impossible to reverse-engineer their programming specs, just to stop programmers from developing Linux drivers, they'd lose an antitrust action in court.

But by wrapping the plan up in the excuse that it's to meet RIAA and MPAA requirements, Microsoft has a perfect defense.

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

oh but vista is secure. microsoft has taken great pains to make sure the system has been secured from YOU.

oh, you mean you thought it would be more secure to keep you safe? heh. silly you.

Re:Wow, that's insightful

[mcrbids]

Granted, I'm against the US' current copyright laws, but the simple fact is that China IS rampant with copyright violation that does nothing but make the illegal publishers rich.

What? Are you retarded? Other than the 100-ish year lifespan, copyright law is the one (of three) branches of "Intellectual Property" that actually gets it right!

All copyright says is that whatever you right is yours, from the moment of inception. Simple and easy. What about that are you against?

If you want to be "against" anything, try patents (which make an idea that you might legitimately and independently arrive at owned by some other guy who came to the same or similar idea by whatever means before you) or trademarks (which all but cancel copyrights in some cases, because while the copyrights of a work might have expired, trademarks do not, so even if/when the Disney "Steamboat Willie" movie is no longer copyrighted, the trademarks of Mickey Mouse remain intact preventing "unauthorized" reproduction...)

Pick your fights, and fight about something where you might do some good. Alternatively, take the time to figure out what you're talking about before being "against" something....

Re:Not trolling....

[necro2607]

"The technology in Vista also doesn't PREVENT you from doing anything, it has the 'requirements' so that HDCP content CAN BE PLAYED, something NO OTHER OS OFFERS!! It takes away NOTHING..."

Whoa, wait a second...

From the Wikipedia page on HDCP [wikipedia.org]:

"HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc players allow content providers to set an Image Constraint Token (ICT) flag that will only output full-resolution digital signals using HDCP. If such a player is connected to a non-HDCP-enabled television set and the content is flagged, the player will output a downsampled 480p signal."

That sounds like it's taking away quite a lot. That sounds like it's making it so all of your HDCP-"protected" videos can only be watched at a maximum resolution of 640x480. Even worse, "downsampled" pretty much means "scaled down using some cheap commodity chip that pixelates the crap out of your video".

Were you actually being serious when you were trying to make it seem like HDCP is a feature in Vista actually beneficial to users in any manner at all? Buying HDCP-"enabled" products is just paying up your protection money so you can watch your legally purchased videos at the resolution you paid for.

In fact, buying Vista or other HDCP-enabled products makes it that much easier for companies to prevent you from doing what you want with the media you spend your hard-earned cash on. Hey, it's your choice if you want to maintain the idea that DRM is a good thing, but somehow I have a feeling you're not going to feel so good in the end when you're locked into such crippled technology.

Re:Unnecessary Decline?

[Damastus the WizLiz]

Any Artist that has enough money to afford a mansion and several cars is getting plenty of compensation.

Re:if its a good OS, todays ver is the final

[dspisak]

"8 year old stuff still compiles mostly, its fluid."

Uhm, so is Linux the bedrock of computing or is it the agile warrior able to adapt to its changing foes? I'm a bit confused.

I don't know what 8 year old code you think would still compile against todays Linux. Between major changes from the pre 2.0 kernel days to now I can think of plenty of code that would break.

And then you've got your personal best friend in the world, a new version of glibc just around the corner to break things once in a while, but thats not Linux per se since Linux is just a kernel. But its all of the FOSS/FSF software that makes a Linux DISTRO.

Now show me a piece of 8 year old code that will compile on a current distro without barfing or having its ./configure script changed and I might begin to see your point. But I doubt your argument holds true for enough pieces of FOSS software to be truly relevant.

Re:No S/PDIF?

[Rimbo]

Don't need to borrow a Mac, I own four (one of which, due to a careless incident involving irreplacable single-malt scotch, is defunct). So now you're wondering, "Dude, you've got... Macs... up the wazoo... whyyyyy?"

The reason is, building a music workstation is a massive money and time investment. Money, because buying the proper cabling, software and gizmos is expensive. Time, because learning how to use that equipment properly doesn't happen overnight.

Since I really just do music production for a hobby (and the occasional vanity CD [cdbaby.com]), that means I invest in new software and hardware once every, oh, ten or twelve years.

We're in year 6 for the old system.

Because of the need for an entire industry to work together, audio interfaces change even less often than that. MIDI is still the only way to get control data to and from legacy equipment, and is thus a required portion of any setup. S/PDIF will be around for a long time because it's more than good enough for pro recording quality and it's a standard.

What's ironic is that DirectX had become such a terrific multimedia I/O system that Windows was becoming a much more capable system for music development than Mac (and it pains me to admit that). And both are light years beyond what Linux can do. Good LORD is sound ever a mess under Linux.

So the point is not just that I won't be buying Vista to replace XP on my music machine anytime soon; the point is that 4 years from now, when it comes time to replace my existing music machine, I will be effectively locked out of any Windows-based solution.

Of course, a lot can happen in 4 years. Maybe Microsoft will realize their error and un-gimp their OS by then. Maybe Linux will have a sound architecture w... I can't even finish that sentence, let's stick to reality. Yeah, the next machine pretty much has to be an Apple, provided Apple doesn't do anything goofy like this.

Re:You're all missing the point . . .

[serutan]

The issue isn't the ability to play HD content, it's that the author believes Vista's DRM-centric design threaten the viability of Vista itself. The numerous interlocking DRM measures impose design restrictions on everything from device drivers to circuit board layout. Versioning requirements will prevent device manufacturers from using generic approaches to anything. Small glitches that occur routinely will set off threat flags that will abruptly cause entire devices and subsystems (including motherboards) to either stop working or switch to minimally functional modes. (That was the source of the medical imaging comments.)

I think the author's general point is that the DRM that saturates Vista will cause so many things to break, that everybody from end users to hardware and software vendors will find Vista to be more of a pain in the ass than it's worth. In my opinion, some good might ultimately come from this. The general public was warned about the content industry running Congress, but it shrugged off Intellectual Property activists as "pirates" or socialists, and just sat there while the RIAA and MPAA literally wrote legislation. Tangible inconveniences, perhaps even large-scale disasters, will get people's attention where discussions of the philosophy of copyrights and patents did not.