Blogger Objects To Accusations Surrounding Vista DRM

Technical Writing Geek writes "Self-described 'professional paranoid' Peter Gutmann of the University of Auckland has become the most widely quoted source of information on DRM and content protection in Windows Vista. The trouble is, according to ZDNet Blogger Ed Bott, Gutmann's work is riddled with factual errors, distortions, contradictions, and outright untruths. From the lengthy piece: 'As Gutmann would know if he actually understood how HD hardware works, Vista will indeed display HD content on this monitor over the D-Sub and component video outputs, which are capable of outputting 1080p and 1080i signals, respectively. In the future, a content provider might choose to constrict the output to these devices, but that decision would apply only to a specific piece of media, and it would have to be disclosed on the package, giving the buyer the opportunity to choose not to purchase it.'"

Oh, in THAT case.

[Anonymous Coward]

That makes ALL the difference I suppose. I guess as long as the box is supposed to say you're getting screwed, then it's OKAY to get screwed. I mean, if that's the only format available to your honest consumer, the Take-It-Up-The-Rear Edition Gold, now with new and improved Paying the Middleman Features, then it's just plain good business, right?

....Right??

Re:FTFA

[clickety6]

in other words, they could be lying.

I take strong exception to your statement that Microsoft could be lying and I think you should withdraw that remark immediately... or at least cross out the word "could".

Re:The problem with Ed Bott's response

[Idaho]

Especially unannounced / unapproved updates. Your machine may have been patched while you read this.

I doubt it.

Especially since all my machines run Ubuntu or Mac OS X.

Re:Thread hijack

[Anonymous Coward]

An unqualified anecdote is not a bug report. If you want to get a solution to a problem, you need to provide details.

Put more simply: Prove it.

What model laptop? What DVD software did you use, and what version? What DVD did you try to play? Are they set to the same region?

Without details, you've done nothing more than Guttman has done. His paper is full of anecdotes gathered from the web with little to no supporting data, from which he extrapolates all manner of outrageous conclusions.

Re:FTFA

[Digz]

Microsoft... be lying?!? But Talk Like a Pirate Day isn't til tomorrow!!! :)

Re:Whole article, not 5 pages

[greginnj]

Gutmann is a clever writer, and he's able to string together nouns, verbs, technical terms,and acronyms in ways that sound persuasive. In this three-part series [...] I'm going to dig deep into Gutmann's work and show you just where he got it wrong.

It should be illegal to string together nouns, verbs, technical terms,and acronyms in ways that sound persuasive.