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Aboriginal Archive Uses New DRM

Posted by kdawson on Tue Jan 29, 2008 06:07 PM
from the serving-the-suser-for-a-change dept.
Social Networks The Internet
ianare writes "An application that gives fresh new meaning to 'digital rights management' has been pioneered by Aboriginal Australians. It relies on a user's profile to control access to a multimedia archive. The need to create profiles based on a user's name, age, sex and standing within their community comes from traditions over what can and cannot be viewed. For example, men cannot view women's rituals, and people from one community cannot view material from another without first seeking permission. Images of the deceased cannot be viewed by their families. These requirements threw up issues surrounding how the material could be archived, as it was not only about preserving the information into a database in a traditional sense, but also about how people would access it depending on their gender, their relationship to other people, and where they were situated."
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Submission: Aboriginal archive uses new DRM by ianare (1132971)
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  • Why wouldn't they simply build user and group permissions into the servers that host the archives and call it good?

    If TFA (which went 'splat' on me when I tried to reach it) is implying that the files need DRM to solve what is essentially an administration problem (user & group permissions), then something's fscked. Otherwise, methinks the summary is more than just a little misleading, no?

    /P

  • How is this DRM? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2008, @06:13PM (#22228474)
    This doesn't sound like DRM. It sounds like access control.

    • Re:How is this DRM? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Penguinisto (415985) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @06:18PM (#22228554) Journal

      This doesn't sound like DRM. It sounds like access control.

      Depends on how they assembled it. If it's some sort of self-contained website-on-a-box, then yeah, it's probably a local DB (MySQL?) and local PHP with perms based on the profile info.

      OTOH, if they rigged it as one big fat binary, then the access controls locked into the binary is similar in concept (though nowhere near as complete as true DRM which looks for a key, IMHO).

      /P

    • That was my reaction, but they call it a "website that's not online". However, from the sounds of it, the users probably don't own the computers, so I would still call it access control.

      If it is DRM, itt appears to have a major advantage of most systems: the users want it to enforce its rules.

      she noticed that people turned away when certain images came up on screen. . . .

      "The way people were looking at the photos was embedded in the social system that already existed in the community," she said.

      "P

        • I don't want to walk in on someone in my bathroom, yet I still keep locks on the door. Sometimes things need protection from stumbling upon them accidentally.
    • It isn't DRM and and it is barely worthy of notice.
    • Or maybe DRM is access control, only wildly farcical in it's intent and design.

      Access control - Sensible way to keep data secure and allow straightforward heirarchies of access (read only, write/modify/delete, execute).
      DRM - Batshit insane coked up record company exec spin on access control containing nutbag crazy ideas (read it sometimes, don't copy it even though you can read it, self destruct in five minutes, install rootkit to spy on you, etc etc). Defective by design.

  • not your ordinary DRM (Score:3, Insightful)

    by oever (233119) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @06:16PM (#22228532) Homepage
    Strictly speaking, I'd say this is DRM. But it's not DRM as we know it.

    The archive, housed at the Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre, contains photos, digital video clips, audio files, and digital reproductions of cultural artifacts and documents.


    So this is simply a website with user management. Not everybody is allowed to see everything. This is different from DRM as Microsoft advocates it, where people would not be able to save these pages and images unencrypted onto their machines. Because, you know, they might mail them to somebody of the opposite sex!

    It's highly unlikely that this website really relies on complicated DRM schemes (which would require Vista).

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by MrKaos (858439)
      I know some Koori's, that's how first Australian's (the politically correct term in Australia for Aboriginals) refer to themselves. If you want to see what some of there cultural stories look like check this site out [abc.net.au].

      So this is simply a website with user management. Not everybody is allowed to see everything.

      Exactly. I think that if there is an off-line aspect to it then either a custom application that only allows those verified to access/download images OR gpg and a ring of trust as a solution more an

      • Re:not your ordinary DRM (Score:5, Informative)

        by downundarob (184525) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @08:59PM (#22230040)

        I know some Koori's, that's how first Australian's (the politically correct term in Australia for Aboriginals) refer to themselves.

        Actually the Aboriginal people of the area known as New South Wales call themselves Koori, the people of Queensland call themselves Murri, the South Australian's are Nunga, WA far west (around Perth) are Nunya, whilst in the Top End (Darwin Region) there are Larrakia, Tiwi, Mirar and Yolgnu, People of Central Australia call themselves Arrente, Marla etc. Whereas I am a Balanda (in the local language).

  • It seems obvious that people could just register fake accounts with different details just to access info their real profile won't give them access to.

    • Re:Easily hacked? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Takichi (1053302) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @06:23PM (#22228618)
      Great, just what the internet needs. More dudes pretending to be chicks.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by KublaiKhan (522918)
      Just a case of necessitating identification information upon registering the account. Could do it with a trusted-registrar scheme, where the village elders vouch for the details of those under their jurisdiction.

    • Re:Easily hacked? (Score:5, Informative)

      by networkBoy (774728) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @06:25PM (#22228646) Homepage Journal
      Of course they could. But to draw a parallel, in Aztec society there were no doors. A horizontal bar across the entry way, however, acted as the most secure lock imaginable, because of cultural norms. Basically the same thing here about making a fake account.
      -nB

    • Re:Easily hacked? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ArsenneLupin (766289) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @06:34PM (#22228768)

      It seems obvious that people could just register fake accounts with different details just to access info their real profile won't give them access to.
      You're missing the point. As other people have already pointed out, unlike with normal DRM, in this system, the users actually want the rules to be enforced on them. It's more to protect them against accidentally viewing stuff that they're not supposed to while searching for other documents.

      Consider it like the 127.0.0.1 goatse.ch line in your /etc/hosts file.

  • Before complaining consider _why_ this was done (Score:4, Insightful)

    by qaramazov (265399) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @06:25PM (#22228636)
    Before complaining about DRM, RTFA and spend a bit of time thinking why this was done. The culture in question has a complicated set of rules about who can and cannot see certain images, rituals, etc. The anthropologist wanted to show them to the larger world without violating the rules of the culture that produced them. But wasn't the only reason: the restrictions also allows you the visitor to better understand the culture. Why? You might think that the best way to experience that culture to be shown all of it at once, but you should consider that men who live in this culture never get to see certain things. Think of it as a simulation of a culture. Use it to reflect on the assumptions you make about who is entitled to what information.

  • Now instead of getting random users to see goatse, users will be trying to get specific people to view a pic of their now-dead grandma hosted on flickr.

    Most of the traditions we have in a non-network-connected world were created and exist because of barriers that now have much less meaning. While I commend them for holding their traditions, it seems a bit misplaced.

    First off, people online are going to make friends and connections based on personalities and interests, not physical proximity to their tribal

  • Not user/admin access rights (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jonnythan (79727) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @06:28PM (#22228686) Homepage
    A file that can be viewed by your friend can be emailed to you. Simple userland permissions is trying to replicate.

    DRM will only let the person whose profile is signed in view the image, whether it's emailed or whatever. It's a very different thing.

  • Not an uncommon issue for archivists (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Selanit (192811) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @06:43PM (#22228848)
    Archivists typically have to respect the rules of the communities they serve regarding access to materials. Sometimes that means, say, putting a bunch of somebody's steamy love letters under lock and key until all of the named parties have died off. Other times it means managing intellectual property rights. And sometimes you run into cases like this one, where the cultural rules regarding the material are more involved.

    I still think my favorite example was a living history project - the researchers involved had been recording traditional stories. One of them was an explanatory myth about why it snows. The problem was that there was a strong tradition requiring that the story be told only when there is snow on the ground. There's a doozy of an access control problem, unless you take the cheap way out and declare that there is always snow on the ground somewhere.

    • Re:once again (Score:5, Insightful)

      by K. S. Kyosuke (729550) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @06:22PM (#22228610)
      I've read TFA. It seems to me that this is just the result of the very will of those people to respect their own traditions and that this whole thing was made only after it had turned up that they would not accept the archive as easily without provisions for preventing potential embarassment. They seem to be doing it willingly. I'm not sure it's about superstition, it's just about social habits. You think it's silly? Fine, you have the right to have an opinion, but I'd say it's their business. And I don't feel there's a harm, unless TFA is grossly inaccurate, concerning the situation there.
      • Given your comment, I'm wondering...

        Can't they respect their own traditions without imposing technologically enforced access controls? What do they do when someone uses hard-copy information, or, to take an example from the article, a man viewing woman's rituals?

        What is the point of building an access control system like this?

        -- Terry

        • Re:Given your comment, I'm wondering... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by khallow (566160) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @06:52PM (#22228942)

          What is the point of building an access control system like this?

          You look at an example of why someone wants an access control system like this and you still have to ask?

        • to prevent accidents? (Score:5, Informative)

          by Reality Master 201 (578873) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @06:54PM (#22228968) Journal
          These kinds of taboos against men and women seeing one another, against talking about the dead, etc. are very common in the aboriginal cultures of Australia, and they take them very seriously. The Warlpiri language, for example, has a sort of sub-language called the avoidance register, used when people of certain familial relations need to talk to each other (a woman and son-in-law, for example) - the grammar's mostly the same, but the words are dramatically simplified, and often replaced with generic terms. And such phenomena occur in other cultural/language groups too - I believe there's something like it in Zulu.

          It seems odd to you, but it's also how they want to live. They're free to leave where they live (and many do), and those that stay want to live the traditional way.
            • When I said traditional way, I didn't mean in terms of the technology they live with, but in terms of the traditional ways in which people interact - culture. And I believe it was perfectly clean from what I wrote that's what I meant.

              Apparently you're an idiot, though.
              • I gotta say, when I clicked through on this story, I was mostly expecting comments along positive lines. This seemed to me as well to be an interesting story of how the old and the new can coexist in new models. I really didn't expect all this player-hating. Weird. I didn't realize we had so many technological absolutists here.

                For an interesting story with a similar theme, I suggest this Wired article [wired.com] from '99.
                • Interesting article.

                  I know I shouldn't be, but I'm still mildly surprised by the sheer number of slashdotters with no class, and no ability to envision a view of the world or way of living other than their own.

              • Re:to prevent accidents? (Score:4, Funny)

                by ChameleonDave (1041178) * on Tuesday January 29 2008, @07:30PM (#22229254) Homepage

                when was the last time you used a public restroom that was co-ed (and not single-occupant) ? They exist, but rarely.
                I don't think I've even encountered a public toilet that was particularly educational, let alone co-educational for multiple races, sexes, etc.

                • Re:to prevent accidents? (Score:5, Funny)

                  by frank_adrian314159 (469671) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @09:49PM (#22230400) Homepage
                  I don't think I've even encountered a public toilet that was particularly educational...

                  Well, I think that Larry Craig learned a lot in that airport restroom!

                • Have you never encountered a single sex school, either? They're restricted on traditional, but silly grounds. Educational institutes exist that bar my entry based on gender, I fail to see how this is different, except that it comes from a culture that you aren't totally immersed in, so you can see the seemingly silly restrictions. I promise you that when it's boiling hot, and you're going to work in a suit and tie, your cultural norms look fucking ridiculous to any Aboriginal still living a traditional lif

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by zeromorph (1009305)

          Can't they respect their own traditions without imposing technologically enforced access controls?

          Yeah, not like in our culture - where we don't need such stuff to enforce our tradition of , e.g.,keeping our kids away from pornography, horror etc.:

          "CIPA requires schools and libraries using e-rate discounts to operate 'a technology protection measure with respect to any of its computers with Internet access that protects against access through such computers to visual depictions that are obscene, child p

          • I'm sure someone who really wants to can easily circumvent their DRM, but that's not the point.

            It's not the point, yet. Here's a bet: Within a few years, members of this community will find reasons for accessing the information that is "forbidden" to them, and the efforts to remove the DRM will begin. There will be some aboriginal scholar, or teacher, or 14 year old aboriginal hacker who decides enough is enough and it's time for the information to be free. Soon, no more DRM.

            Digital data has a tendenc

            • Here's a bet: Within a few years, members of this community will find reasons for accessing the information that is "forbidden" to them, and the efforts to remove the DRM will begin.

              If they make the decision to do that, it will be because they have also made the decision to leave the community.

              The mores make the community, not the other way around.

            • Re:Given your comment, I'm wondering... (Score:4, Insightful)

              by Mithrandir (3459) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @08:50PM (#22229968) Homepage
              Depending on which set of research you wish to believe, they've been living this way for the better part of 40,000 years. Their scholars are not doing anything their social customs haven't done for a very, very long time. Whiteman scholars may already have access to everything, but that is not what they're concerned about. This is an enabling technology for them, in that it allows them to store their currently verbal history for the long term in a way that is in accordance with their traditions and for their own people. It is so their own people don't accidentally look at the wrong thing in their tradition. They don't care about you and I.

    • Re:once again (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Penguinisto (415985) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @06:27PM (#22228666) Journal

      really, the days of secret ceremonies are coming to and end.

      So, assuming you have an S/O, you wouldn't mind if there were YouTube videos of you doing the linen fandango with him/her? For that matter, why do you even bother to wear clothing outdoors when the temperature is warm?

      Sounds unrelated, but it isn't once you dig deeper...

      See, there are, at base, some things which any given existing culture likes to keep secret. Sometimes it's simple stuff like sex, sometimes it's complex stuff like not viewing your deceased relatives for fear that their ghost will come in the night and tear up your house.

      Just because someone holds the beliefs that they shouldn't view the rituals of the opposite gender, or that they shouldn't eyeball videos of "hot cheating amateur couples!" on a website, doesn't mean they're supposed to go all Aboriginal or Amish in their lifestyle. And just because you think it's silly doesn't mean that they cannot and/or shouldn't self-censor as individuals or as a community. Odds are very good that this Aboriginal resource DB was rigged by request from the community itself, so why the hullabaloo?

      /P

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Chris Burke (6130)
        Odds are very good that this Aboriginal resource DB was rigged by request from the community itself, so why the hullabaloo?

        Jingoism and bigotry posing as rational smug superiority. Nothing more.

        • Re:once again (Score:5, Informative)

          by sg_oneill (159032) on Tuesday January 29 2008, @08:13PM (#22229662)
          "Jingoism and bigotry posing as rational smug superiority. Nothing more."

          I'd say ignorance even.

          The reason why this is important, is due to the critical need for anthropologists to win the trust of many of these ancient tribes to study the practices so we can learn a bit more about how hunter gatherer societies organise. Back in the earlier days of Anthropologists studying Aboriginal tribes, the Aboriginals, knowing "whitefulla" had no real ability to use the dances and rituals in the "magical" way Aboriginal religions see them, they freely cooperated and would show the rituals etc. However a series of incidents, where the rituals where shown on TV and then seen by neighboring tribes, thus unleashing "curses" or whatever, led to most of these tribes stopping from trusting anthropologists to respect the conditions of the cooperation. This particularly occurs with gender specific rituals. "womens business" rituals are not to be seen by men (white men included), and unless the anthropologist can guarantee this, she won't be shown the ritual. But oftentimes she cant, and so anthropology never gets to study it.

          Systems like this, where the community gets to decide the 'rules' of accessing the multimedia (a bit like creative commons even) means that the Anthropologist can finally win the trust of the tribe to do the studies needed to piece together the mysteries of traditional Aboriginal life.
    • Alright troll, I'll bite.

      You're kidding, right? The material concerned was created by the Aboriginal people, is chiefly of concern to them, and in no way impacts on anyone who doesn't use the service. WhoTF do you think you are to tell them that what they hold sacred is "superstition mumbo-jumba", or that "the days of secret ceremonies are coming to and end"!?

      This is news on /. because it constitutes a complex and useful method of regulating user access to the archive based on the users characterist
        • We still have yet to determine whether you are sincere. And I'm willing to wager that people will still find ways to have secret ceremonies for the indefinite future. They're considered quaint by those who don't understand their power. Finally, a rational human being wouldn't get their knickers twisted over such a quaint thing, would they? So stop bothering us with vapid talk of how rational you are.
          • So stop bothering us with vapid talk of how rational you are.

            I always laugh when some geek tries to present themselves as being a completely rational person.

            Sorry, but they're human, and humans are emotional mammals first and foremost; rationality is just a useful trick we've learned, but our brains are still fundamentally as emotional -- and thus irrational -- as ever. A person truly striving to be rational would accept this fact. However someone who wants to present themselves as being superior must del

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Penguinisto (415985)

          One just needs to look around and see the secret ceremonies of all types are coming to an end. 25 years from now they will be quaint.

          I sincerely doubt that. A group of women performing an aboriginal ritual is no different than a group of Freemasons performing theirs, or Mormons getting married in a Temple ritual for that matter.

          Sure, outsiders (like myself in all three cases) may have a somewhat good idea of what goes on during these rituals, and even see televised re-enactments of one of them courtesy of the History/Discovery/NatGeo Channels. That said, I don't know that what I've heard or seen regarding them is the actual deal or

    • superstition mumbo-jumba gets in the way or progress.
      really, the days of secret ceremonies are coming to and end.

      On whose say so? The geek's?

      There are times when I think that the geek is the last of the imperialists. Believing that every cultural barrier must fall to his "white man's" notion of perfection.

    • really, the days of secret ceremonies are coming to and end.

      Evidently not! Seems like some cultures just don't want to be assimilated.

    • Thats nothing.

      There are cultures wherein if someone dies then you arn't allowed to use their name anymore.

      Not only that, but you arn't allowed to use words that *sound* like their name.

      Such cultures have languages in which the lexicon changes very rapidly as people introduce new words all the time to replace sound-alikes.

      Sometimes its not hard to see why languages and traditions become extinct as people realise that they don't really *have* to maintain this kind of rubbish (yes call me insensitive. But real

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