Blogger Objects To Accusations Surrounding Vista DRM 244
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.'"
The problem with Ed Bott's response (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that playing audio on Vista cripples the network and I/O badly, Guttman's assertions appear far more credible.
Re:The problem with Ed Bott's response (Score:4, Insightful)
Especially unannounced / unapproved updates. Your machine may have been patched while you read this.
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I doubt it.
Especially since all my machines run Ubuntu or Mac OS X.
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Not here. Autoupdate is completely and totally disabled on this machine
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/15/2040259 [slashdot.org]
Stealthy Windows Update Raises Serious Concerns
FTFA (Score:2)
for instance, Guttman claims you can't play HD DRM'd content on a DVI port as fact. That is complete and utter rubbish, as seen on this example http://www.samsung.com/au/products/monitors/tft/tvmonitor/275t.asp?page=Features [samsung.com] - where it clearly states HDM is playable through a DVI connector.
That's just one example. This ZDNet guy has actually tried out HD content on Vista and is objecting because of actual real experience to the contrary of what this Guttman guy only 'theorises'.
A bug with audio + netw
Re:FTFA (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the article summary attacks Guttman for claiming that HD can't be played over an analog port. Both are wrong here. DRMed HD can currently be played over an analog port because few discs enable the ICT (Image Constraint Token), but it's just a matter of time before the ICT starts getting flipped on and analog outputs start going to half resolution. I've heard rumors that some cable systems enable ICT for all cable content already.
Note: When I say "DRMed HD" I am referring primarily to the most well-known sources of DRMed high def content, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Both have these limitations among others.
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Um, how is this MS' fault though? By building a system to conform to spe
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connecting BDP-300 player to dvi capture card resulted in no video. so we booted the player with component connected, then connected HDMI to a DVI converter, back to a DVI converter and to hdmi once again for the hdmi capture card.
I then captured about 30 minutes of Casino royale to my mac editing station.
What happens is that the BDP-300 has a small bug, if you connec
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Re:FTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not an ordinary bug, as in wrong implmentation in code / hardware of a technically sound architecture. The network stack in Vista uses 40% CPU time for simple file transfers - up from 15% in XP and 9% in Linux. This proves that the design deision to rewrite the BSD-stack was a flawed approach, and not a BUG
Secondly, it is not necessary to probe the audio hardware and software 30 times a second, as is done in Vista. That overload on system resources is again not a bug, it is DEFECTIVE BY DESIGN .
Unless Microsoft can demonstrate superior performance with Vista on identical hardware, users will conclude that DRM is such a burden on resources, and avoid using Vista as long as they practically can. This isn't FUD, it's FACT.
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As for the audio-stack implementation, maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. I've never had Windows crack up multimedia under load, whereas I do regularly in Linux. But, if you will, I'll take that as just me.
To the point at hand though, DVI adaptors work fine for HD protected content. Fact.
Re:FTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it highly unlikely that they can fix this. After all, if they could, why ship with the reduced performance in the first place - remember, the network performance reduction was put on place intentionally as a hack to get around other flaws. Also, let's not forget that they also worked on WinFS for years, and still failed to deliver. Finally, Microsoft has a reputation of saying anything to help drive sales; in other words, they could be lying.
Re:FTFA (Score:5, Funny)
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".
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You mean: Microsoft could be speaking the truth, much like the crooks at Media Defender? Very unlikely, given the surreptious Updates that did not get noticed by anti-virus packages.
I'd posted on this a few days back:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=299847&cid=20634945 [slashdot.org]
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The answer is one: Microsoft.
This wouldn't be such a hot
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I find it amazing... (Score:2)
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Straight from a senior developer at MS who worked mostly on the audio system in Vista.
Summary version: they ARE fixing it, because it IS a bug and NOT an intentional hack.
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I find it highly unlikely that they can fix this.
Uh, why ? Based on the explanation of it from Mark Russinovich, fixing it should be fairly easy. A static limit that should be variable and a minor implementation bug that doesn't deal well with multiple interfaces.
After all, if they could, why ship with the reduced performance in the first place [...]
Because the impact zone is tiny. The vast majority of Vista users would never - will never - notice the problem. It well and truly falls into the "know
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[...] users will conclude that DRM is such a burden on resources, and avoid using Vista as long as they practically can. This isn't FUD, it's FACT.
You give too much credit to users.
No, users won't avoid using Vista because of performance or DRM issues, because Vista comes/will come preinstalled with their shiny new computer that, being faster than their old computer, will mask the relative lack of performance Vista has compared to XP. As for DRM, many will be pissed, sure, but they won't go through th
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Oh! So that means the userbase of Windows Vista consists entirely of stupids? I would imagine that atleast 20% of all PC users have some knowledge about Operating Systems, hardware, standards etc. Quite a sizable no. in fact - and I cannot imagine they
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Oh! So that means the userbase of Windows Vista consists entirely of stupids? I would imagine that atleast 20% of all PC users have some knowledge about Operating Systems, hardware, standards etc. Quite a sizable no. in fact - and I cannot imagine they will be easily brainwashed like you describe above.
Being generous, I'd say your estimate here is at least an order of magnitude too high.
Heck, even if you extended to the people who *think* they know about operating systems, but don't really - the kind of
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This is not an ordinary bug, as in wrong implmentation in code / hardware of a technically sound architecture.
In fact, that's *exactly* what it is. An implementation that produces less than ideal results in certain circumstances because of incorrect/bad assumptions.
How is that *not* a textbook example of a bug ?
The network stack in Vista uses 40% CPU time for simple file transfers - up from 15% in XP and 9% in Linux.
What ?
This proves that the design deision to rewrite the BSD-stack was a flawed app
Re:FTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm quite prepared to agree that M$ can't design a good piece of X to save their Y, but I'd have to know the individual designers to be able to claim that they designed something like video streaming in such a broken fashion on purpose.
There is no pro-fuctional purpose in probing the audio and/or video hardware 30 times per second. The only reason it is done is because the order came down from on high that DRM
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I'm taking suggestions on how much bullshit and FUD I should put in!!!
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As I think I said on the original article, it is VERY common in system design to prioritise certain components of the system in favor of others, when it will improve the user experience. I have worked on a bunch of SoC's and northbridges and they all have bus priorities you can tweak, the recommendation is basically that ethernet is not as important as audio or video, since
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Re:The problem with Ed Bott's response (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't imagine wanting to get into the whole HD thing, it seems rife with unforeseen pitfalls, misleading marketing, devices with built-in crippling that can be turned on at random by the vendor, arbitrary and capricious limitations and a general air of out-of-control bureaucracy with the consumer at the mercy of people who treat him like a criminal. (A lot like Vista now that I think of it.)
I'll keep my 18-year-old 26" RCA TV and low-end Toshiba DVD player... it works just fine, thank you.
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I would guess that's how it's supposed to work. The problem is that the DRM has to be embedded so close to the metal that you'll never escape its effects.
And the hackers will still break it in a week.
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But what are these mysterious effects? Nobody seems to have seen them, aside from the proclamation from the masses that every bug, vulnerability or crash in Vista is because of 'teh DRMz'.
This brings up another problem... (Score:2)
Ah, closed source strikes again!
If this is the argument you wish to use, then any individual with a modicum of intellectual honesty cannot accept either paper, because, after all, both are just speculation.
Vista 'will' or 'will not' display HD content (Score:5, Insightful)
I would point out (Score:4, Interesting)
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buy media without drm? (Score:2)
This is not about your choice, this is about a MS choice. Gutman is explaining with a lot of text why he does not like it. And botte ed is picking on 4 points in his long text that could be explained different than the general point Gutman wan
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In both cases the creator of content puts restrictions on the use of that content.
In all the cases I have the option of finding an alternative - a different OS, different movies, different source code.
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I'm sorry, this is wrong why exactly?
If the laws are good in theory but stupid in practice (and they are), they will in practice be broken.
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The next guy in line should have the opportunity to do their thing.
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Except that the media cartels [google.com] remove that choice, too, by not providing that content in non DRM formats. You point out that we don't have to buy their media, which is true, but in most industries "my way or the highway" is generally not considered much choice.
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Re:Vista 'will' or 'will not' display HD content (Score:5, Informative)
It's also worth noting that the only software players capable of playing BluRay and HD-DVD discs on PCs are the commercial products PowerDVD and WinDVD. Both of these players restrict output to something like 900x500 if the player detects that anything other than HDMI is being used. The discs themselves and the OS are not responsible for this decision. Both PowerDVD and WinDVD decided on their own to restrict output on HD-DVD and BluRay if HDMI is not in use. None of the movie studios have objected to this policy. So while the discs themselves and Windows Vista are not restricting HD content output, the only players available are restricting this output. None of the currently available HD-DVD and BluRay discs have turned on the flag on the disc that restricts output if HDMI is not in use, but that could change at any point in the future.
Re:Vista 'will' or 'will not' display HD content (Score:5, Insightful)
And the fact that Bott subsequently tries to dismiss the whole thing as a triviality, even in the face of the obvious future use of this misfeature, really does call his objectivity and credibility into question.
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In other words Vista will display HD images but only in un-DRM mode, and if you try to pay a movie that you have bought and paid for but which has the flag set for 'trusted output path' or whatever they call it, Vista will refuse to display it.
Indeed. Just like every other player on the market will refuse to play it (or degrade the output).
Which is, I think, the point Peter Gutmann was trying to make.
Gutmann is disingenuously blaming Vista for this problem, when it is in fact the content providers who
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Any bets that the restrictions will be in the packaging, so you'll have to buy the thing before you can see them, at which point the store will refuse to refund your money because you opened it?
Please don't link to blogs "debunking" stuff... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see how listing 4 errors would constitute as a debunking of a paper, much the less when after a cursory glance the last one is patently not debunked. The blog is trying to debunk Gutmann when he says that the DRM system is overcomplicated and might cause problems. The blogger basically says computers are fast enough to handle the DRM and equates Gutmann saying "polling every 30ms" with executing a single cpu instruction every 30ms and concludes it's not taxing at all.
Of course the "play audio and don't expect your gigabit card to work fast" easily disproves his whole counterargument.
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Of course the "play audio and don't expect your gigabit card to work fast" easily disproves his whole counterargument.
How so ? It has nothing to do with DRM.
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I'm going to go with "funny."
This has got to be some kind of meta-commentary on debunking. Either that or the commenter doesn't read what he writes. A third possibility, likely since this is Slashdot, is that when one needs to bash Microsoft, 2 + 2 = 5 if it needs to.
Oh, in THAT case. (Score:2, Funny)
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??
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Actually most countries copyright laws give the consumers the right to do whatever they want with the content for personal use. DRM is violating that right.
No, "most countries copyright laws" allow for consumers to do things that would otherwise be breaking copyright law, for "personal use". Different situation.
Anything you have may be taken away. (Score:2, Interesting)
Giving Microsoft the benefit of the doubt (Score:4, Insightful)
So what happens when Microsoft starts supporting industry standards is that the technical side gets it as right as they can while the sales side is selling clients the moon. All of a sudden, clients get their wildest dreams answered. In reality, that's not happening. But since MS has got that bad reputation, they make an easy target for anyone with an axe to grind. Small variances from the truth can be made with impunity for these complainers, because everyone already assumes the worst from MS.
By the type of comments I expect to see in this thread, most people have already made up their minds one way or another. Since this is Slashdot, they will obviously be negative towards Microsoft.
Re:Giving Microsoft the benefit of the doubt (Score:5, Insightful)
If Microsoft has a bad rep, after all these years of second and third chances, it's because they've earned it.
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I don't care whether it's the marketing department, the lawyers, the programmers or the janitor who are at fault for MS releasing crap.
The fact is that they release crap far too often and that's the one thing I care about.
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I wish I had mod points!
It's not just "defective by design". It's proprietary software, vendor "lock in", and forced upgrade paths with the triannual or quadrannual "Microsoft" tax. Along with the general complacency that comes out of Redmond, not to mention denial when SERIOUS problems are pointed out.
I've been thinking about leaving Windows for a while. I finally managed to get ubunt
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Microsoft has used up it's and everyone else's share of "The benefit of the doubt", and that was before 1990.
There's none left to be had, anywhere.
Talk about being a monopoly. What are all the poor Senators and Representatives to do?
- End Tongue in cheek mode -
Okay, now that that's said, we can proceed.
MS has pretty much used up it's share of sympathy from the masses.
Windows Vista should never have been released. Ever.
They should have chucked it up as a mistake, taken it apart and
The blog misses the point (Score:2)
Wrong assumptions (Score:2)
There's A Larger Problem... (Score:2)
It has problems both with and without DRM.
Either way, it's going to undermine Microsoft. With so few people willing to make the move from XP to Vista already, this won't help.
Why the hell would Joe Consumer lay down the coin to have a "multimedia computer", only to find out he has to pay
Vista == Micro Channel (Score:2)
blind free market faith (Score:5, Insightful)
This is no good when the manufacturers form a cartel and decide that all devices will be locked this way, or when the content industry forms and decides that content will only be available for devices locked this way.
Then the free market can no longer express what the people want.
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What the people want is their media for free. The "market" is no longer about bringing the content to the people, it's about preventing people from easily getting to the content. "Free" market rules, supply and demand rules no longer apply. How can they when a "good" can be perfectly reproduced an infinite number of times by anyone with a CD/DVD burner?
These problems will continue until the middlemen/
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The free market can not express anything for the same reason that the invisible hand of the market is invisible: it doesn't exist and can't in fact exist.
TWW
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There used to be a time when protesting means that you had to forsake something. I wonder when it changed to mean that you still want to get everything you want, with a side order of protest.
EULA for media? (Score:4, Insightful)
Passing the buck... (Score:2)
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Except, as has been pointed out, Vista isn't actually CAUSING the restriction on some playback, they're only supporting it if the content provider that invests the money in p
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Your high definition video won't play in HD mode
Only if you bought DRMed video. You can always not do this. It's not the end of the world.
Microsoft-it's the hardware's fault, PC maker-it's the content provider's fault, Content Provider-it's Vista's fault. Anyone else want to dance?
You're the only one dancing, but only because you don't actually understand the situation at all. All parties are blaming the content providers, and the content providers are blaming it on "those damn pirates".
The choice given to Microsoft here by the movie industry was thus: listen to us and implement our DRM system, or your users can't play our stuff at high quality. End of story. Surprisingly, seeing as even Micro
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The "OWN" the desktop. They could have told the studios what to go do with themselves.
Microsoft added this DRM crap because they want to. They want to use this crap for their own agenda. They want to abuse the end users the same way.
It's like Satan making a deal with Hades.
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The "OWN" the desktop. They could have told the studios what to go do with themselves.
And then none of their users could have played the content. To the studio, the desktop is nothing. How many people buy DVDs to play them exclusively on their computer? VHS managed without PC-based solutions, so I'm sure that HD-DVD and Bluray (or at least one of the two) will survive if nobody could play that content on their PCs.
Microsoft added this DRM crap because they want to. They want to use this crap for their own agenda. They want to abuse the end users the same way.
This is hardly a rational argument. How is enabling users to play HD content an abuse? As I stated before, the option was 'allow it under their terms' or not at all.
In the end, i
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Microsoft has the clout.
No, they don't.
The "OWN" the desktop.
Irrelevant. Most people aren't consuming content from their desktop PCs - and they sure as hell aren't consuming HD content (the stuff that will actually be DRMed, eventually) from their desktop PCs.
They could have told the studios what to go do with themselves.
And ended up with a lame duck platform that couldn't play HD media. I bet that was a short meeting.
Why is this so difficult for people to understand ? Media players are commodit
So That's a Yes Then? (Score:5, Insightful)
So that's a yes then. In the event that special content gets displayed on Vista there is a DRM subsystem all ready and waiting to restrict it.
He's also debunking silly things like stupidly large monitors, and he fills an entire page with it:
Well no, but it is a daft size for the vast majority of people, as indicated when he wrote 'computer monitor'. You devoted a whole page to this?
Regarding code signing:
Again, he uses an incredible sleight of hand here. He doesn't deny that certificate signing is required, and talks about buying a certificate, which he notes are not controlled by Microsoft but are listed on Microsoft's site:
Bottom line, ergo, you have to have a signed driver for use in the kernel one way or the other. He doesn't deny that at all, and it's an incredible piece of trying to tell us that the emperor is actually wearing clothes.
Notice that he doesn't tell us what content he has tested here, nor does he deny that there is a DRM subsystem in Vista preventing playback on certain outputs given certain content.
I don't know what kind of a rebuttal this is supposed to be, but you don't need HDMI for gaming as Microsoft has stated. However, Microsoft have not ruled out providing a HDMI pack which inevitably would include content protection for certain kinds of content. He doesn't deny this.
He doesn't deny anything here, but merely tells us that a modern PC can handle all this.
Depends on how you word it ;-). Why does Vista need to 'check the integrity of the vi
Ad hominem (Score:3, Insightful)
"have to be disclosed"? (Score:2)
No. No. and No. (Score:4, Insightful)
An excellent for-instance is the "secur-disc" technology that prevents copying. Go look at one of these boxes in Best-Buy. You will discover that "secur-disc" will prevent unauthorized copy of your copyrighted data to keep you safe! They don't mention that the average joe doesn't copyright or protect his DVD's. Nor do they mention that secur-disk invalidates the point of purchasing a dvd "Burner" - to copy DVD's, rip media, etc.
The technology was not put there to protect the consumer. The technology was not put there to simply "sit" and not be used. It was put there because hardware and media companies are demanding it. What is the alternative if you want a DVD and the only versions that have been released have this technology on them? You have none, aside from simply not watching the movie.
To go one step further, the average consumer doesn't read those labels, any more than the average consumer reads a Eula, or reads the FBI warning at the beginning of a DVD. You could claim that it is the consumers fault if they are not informed. I would beg to differ. In this day in age, everything from buying a Turkey sandwich at the local gas station to purchasing a game online has so many licensing agreements, privacy policy sign-offs, warnings, and other various "messages" that no one in public will ever look at them. We are so deluged with the warnings, messages, and reminders that we tune them out the same way we do commericals on TV - you simply have no choice.
Finally, nine consumers out of 10 don't know HDMI from component to DVI. They expect to be able to purchase a TV system and get a great picture - or purchase a computer and watch their movie. They aren't going to understand that if that particular media has a particular label on it then they need a specific DVD-rom drive, cable, monitor/lcd, etc for the anti-copying quality degradation to be prevented.
They need to do the smart thing. Ignore Vista. Stop buying movies and CD's. Stop going to the movies. Teach these people that they don't own you - it's the other way around.
Simpler is Better. (Score:2)
You know, he has several points that are worthwhile. Unfortunately, they're nitpicky little things; all of the underlying issues that can happen when those bits get switched are still there.
He's also right; 30 checks per second is terrifically insignificant. However, the code surrounding all this, to do that, is measurably more complex than it needs to be, and will undoubtedly have bugs.
It all boils down to the simple fact that a system has been designed to meet artificially complex goals that really are wo
Funny (Score:3, Interesting)
Now with regards to what I thought was funny. It's funny that Microsoft had to drop WinFS and other technologies from Vista because they either ran out of time or couldn't get them to work. Yet they had no problem what so ever tightly integrating DRM into every single nook and cranny of Vista. It is sadly apparent that from day one Vista was designed to treat the user as a criminal and treat the Entertainment industry as the customer and overlord of your computer. That Mr. Bott is the reason for the shitstorm about Vista and its DRM. All of your talk about "not turned on yet" and "doesn't impact your computer much" is cold comfort after what we have discovered about about Vista and DRM. Don't you get that?
If it CAN be done it WILL be done (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like how DVD producers *could* disable skip and menu buttons before letting you get to the disc menu, but don't worry, they won't do that except for things like copyright legal notices. Until some DVDs started forcing you to sit through all the previews on the disc, even if they're years out of date.
Just like how income tax was a temporary measure to fund the war, don't worry, they'll never make it permanent. Until now when we have taxes withheld automatically and the only argument seems to be should that amount go up slightly or down slightly.
Power to control is always argued in terms of slight increases for temporary times or only mild inconvenience, but eventually once it is in place and the sheep are used to it, it inevitably is used for that which we feared. I should point out I'm NOT trying to equate Vista DRM with government erosion of rights, those are rather different in scope and morality. However examples of restriction-creep abound, I merely pointed out 3 to illustrate my point.
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It's just another instance of DRM harming the consumer and NOT harming pirates. Pirates will just strip the DRM and watch it however they please. Consumers will have to buy equipment that is certified, and if something changes in the future, they may have to buy more equipment. (They -may
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Right - like anybody cares. Of all the RIAA suits, what percentage of downloaders are affected?
The point is you only need ONE GENIUS with the right equipment (which, being a genius, he already owns) to rip or strip DRM out of ANYTHING.
Once that one copy is made and put up on the Net ANYWHERE, if it is at all interesting to any significant number of people it will be EVERYWHERE in a matter of days or weeks. It may indeed be
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It should be illegal to string together nouns, verbs, technical terms,and acronyms in ways that sound persuasive.