Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection 294
David Gerard writes "Security researcher Peter Gutmann has released A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection, a detailed explanation of just what the protected-content paths in Windows Vista mean to you the consumer: increased hardware cost and even less OS robustness. 'This document analyses the cost involved in Vista's content protection, and the collateral damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry ... The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.'"
Migrate to GNU/Linux, not Vista (Score:4, Insightful)
No need to put yourself through pains when you can improve security, save money and achieve a good deal of vendor independence all at the same time. Why support the Microsoft monopoly by paying ridiculous prices for bug ridden software with DRM restrictions, when you can run Free software on the industry standard (and thus inexpensive) hardware?
Knowing everything I know now, I only regret that we did not migrate to GNU/Linux sooner.
it doesn't matter! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is hardly an analysis (Score:3, Insightful)
This is just simply a political blurb.
This is absurd. (Score:5, Insightful)
But these analyses never stop to consider HOW MUCH will be more expensive and lower quality, or exactly what changes we're discussing. What will be lower quality and more expensive is the DRM-protected content. And DRM sucks. People will complain. Vendors will eventually listen.
At the moment, we have a lot of content providers who refuse to provide any content without DRM because they can't imagine making a profit otherwise. DRM gets them to provide something instead of nothing. Historically, unprotected content outperforms protected content; because you spend nothing trying to stop people from stealing it, you recover more revenue than you were losing to theft anyway. If we just let providers choose, they will eventually make the right choice. We can't force them to make the right choice NOW, because they won't make it. They'll provide zero content.
That's the false dilemma. Everyone seems to think the choice is protected content or unprotected content, but it's not - it's protected content or NO content. Fighting the protected content is not going to get you what you want. You have to let the providers make their stupid DRM plans and try them, so they'll see for themselves that it's stupid.
Re:Migrate to not Vista (Score:4, Insightful)
Its not mandated by the OS.
Migrating a different OS doen't give you access to the protected content.
very interesting analysis .. (Score:2, Insightful)
Counterpoint (Score:5, Insightful)
The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.
If hysterical stuff like this is the best the anti-Microsoft forces can come up with (and this guy isn't the first one, just the latest in a long line of hysterical essays), it's pretty clear that Microsoft ain't that bad as a company, despite what some people want to believe. Maybe, just maybe, if you have to resort to that kind of rhetoric, maybe your position isn't that strong?
Disclaimer: I don't hate Microsoft. I am, however, frequently annoyed by their mediocrity, and unbelievably frustrated that someone doesn't have the balls to start a company dedicated to making an absolutely, positively 100%-compatible Windows clone based on a Unix-like operating system.
Re:This is hardly an analysis (Score:4, Insightful)
I was thinking the same thing - TFA is nothing but a long winded rant against Micro$oft. Reading a 'cost analysis', I expect the discussion to center around... costs. Which were significant by their absence.
Re:it doesn't matter! (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't have to look too far into the past to see that not every Microsoft OS product has been a raging success. *cough* *cough* Windows ME
Happy Windows ME users were few and far between in my experience. Not having native USB support as well as having a host of stability issues that were hard to debug, etc. few people upgraded to it or quickly upgraded away from it when XP became wildly available.
I realize that the document linked to is written with what seems to be an almost inflammatory bias, it does sound that the Vista Content Protection is a move in the wrong direction for the content publishing industry and lawyers rather than the consumers.
Not even Microsoft is immune to the forces of the market. They do have dominance in a field where migrations away from a product are often expensive and time consuming but, at the very least, if they produce a crap product, people will not upgrade to it.
People making new purchases are much freer to choose from a competitor that may not have the same problems.
I'm sure it does not matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Migrate to not Vista (Score:2, Insightful)
True, but the degradation discussed is a requirement for non-encrypted content streams. My understanding is that if you connect your new Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player via their analog outputs, or to a non-encrypted digital channel, the output is downgraded to a lower resolution (with respect to that of the encrypted digital channel).
Vista: Go where we allow you to go, be all we think you should be...
Yes, I read TFA (Score:4, Insightful)
You might claim it is apples and oranges. I think it's not. They design the product with more restrictive DRM knowing the consumer will not want ANY DRM. Then they 'listen' to the consumer by removing some, but not all of it. Thus arriving at a middle ground, but really closer to their originally planned position. This serves to possibly give them what they want while simultaneously making them look good in the eyes of the consumer.
Of course, most intelligent consumers decry
TLF
Re:Higher Requirements for New Media (Score:1, Insightful)
Sharks circling (Score:4, Insightful)
In the article, he a section on the potential hazard of Vista disabling video resolution in medical imaging applications. Leaving aside any issues of playing CD's in a work computer, I can see one outcome of this. The first time a blown diagnosis can be blamed on this, the malpractice lawyers will be heading after Microsoft. It's something they've got to be salivating over: The ultimate deep pockets! (cue theme from Jaws)
Should have created a new hardware product class (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine a card that had a couple of SATA interfaces, a video pass through input, and an audio pass through input. The card would have its own OS/firmware, and it'd be easy to control from an external software API.
Unprotected input would flow into it, but only it could generate video/audio for protected media. It'd automatically substitute its own video/audio for protected stuff.
This way, if you didn't care about "protected media", your computer and OS wouldn't be encumbered. If you did, you'd pop a couple of hundred for the Media Accelerator, and go from there.
Of course, this would have benefited the rest of the non-MS industry, too. Guess it is a bad idea.
jh
Wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
Content protection in Vista will not hurt Microsoft or their sales. Two reasons for this. Consumers are not educated enough to understand digital restrictions management. They will interpret it as “just how it works” and deal with it one way or another. Claiming these impedences to copying will damage Vista is similar to claiming that content scrambling of movies will damage the DVD market. The second reason comes from established expectations. People appear used to dealing with technology not working how they want it to or think it should. Crashing computers and malware are just part of life. Pretty soon, the inability to copy files will become subject to the same perception. That is, not being able to copy media will be seen as a technical limitation or just another failing on the part of the industry. People will buy it all the same because the water is being brough to a boil slowly and we all seem to have such ridiculously short-term memories.
Re:This is absurd. (Score:3, Insightful)
Media conglomerate thinking is absurd. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I think you nailed it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is absurd. (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus do we really need more than normal CD or TV quality? A choice between that and freedom versus high-def and no freedom is easy.
As for new content, if the content providers stop producing, so what, we've got enough content now. And if they stop producing, they stop profiting and go bankrupt so they won't do that.
Re:Wrong. (Score:2, Insightful)
What personal experiences do you have that lead you to your second?
Consumers have expectations when they buy technology. When these expectations are not met, they usually are more than passive about dealing with the fact that what they spent their hard earned money doesn't do what they thought it should.
This is especially true when it comes to new things. If they run into some vague technical challenge where they can not use some function or another, it will either be brought up to be resolved or not, depending on how much the consumer REALLY needs it and how much that feature is of the total use of the item. Cost of the item will also play a factor.
If you have ever worked in a tech support or IT department, you will know that consumers do have a demand that things work properly. It is true that computers are still at a level of complexity that no un-technical user will find himself totally free of plaguing issues or things they wish they knew how to do better. Most technical users could find things about their own computer that they would change at any given time but are deemed small enough to be relegated to the back burner.
Consumers also listen to each other about their experiences with products. They also pay attention to reviews written for consumers. A product's reputation for quality, reliability and performance are all key factors that users weigh when consuming, especially something that has the price tag of a new computer.
Whether or not DRM plays a big role in Vista's performance as a product remains to be seen.
You make it almost sound like technical consumers are blind moles digging in the dirt for tubers and will eat any one they come across with no throught to any digestive problems that may result from this. This just simply is not the case.
Dont need rocket science to guess that its so (Score:3, Insightful)
Now they are putting strong elements integral to os that are able to block, modify, permit or limit usage of some elements of os, software, 3rd party software, and even hardware. They are this way decreasing the workload of hackers/exploiters - now they just need to find a way to exploit the mechanism already present there.
Its no guessing that this will make using computers with vista both a pain in the ass, but also a security risk.
Re:Migrate to GNU/Linux, not Vista (Score:4, Insightful)
sounds like a plan to me.
stamp out the single super chip as fast and cheap as you can make it. build it into motherboards. video cards. set top boxes. market it as high performance video at integrated video prices.
Competition (Score:3, Insightful)
In a country far far away, a series of specifications, hardware manufacturers and technology folks band together to build the impossible: To make a machine decrypt the "high quality" content and push it to a jack. Nothing more, nothing less. They use a non-MS embedded OS and cook their scheme into an IC and viola! We have an unencumbered HD-DVD/BluRay player.
The market for this is illegal - in certain countries. But no matter, since once tapped on the above device, said port burns a new HD-DVD/BluRay disc, without licensing scheme. Some Volks-haXXor posts code to read port, strip tags from the raw stream, and pump back into a disc. Cheers from the masses, "it's been hacked!". Said streams make their way onto existing distribution mechanisms (torrent,p2p,the corner cart downtown) and you've got (wait for it) THE STATUS QUO.
Currently, only the tech-enlightened really got through the ever-lowering hurdles to download copyrighted content. Scare tactics and ethics keep most people in the DVD isle of the buy-it stores. I'm sure that will stay the same.
So, we'll simply have the MS bundled-systems with their crazy bugs, people complaining and conforming media for high quality. On the flip side will be folks not so much skipping the DRM in Windows, but getting non-DRM content to begin with. Windows has simply gone the way of the yes-man for DRM enforcement, leaving you with two choices: Lower audio/video resolution or playing only proper discs. Guess what you do with your big collection of "improper" discs: Play them on Linux. It could reinforce the sentiment that "Linux is for hackers, aka criminals" but I doubt that'll fly for long.
MS, like the media players before, will have to allow for "personal" content to be played at "high quality" eventually, since consumers are also media generators. Like now with audio, if you can get source content out of the DRM shackles, making it look personal, the entire SYSTEM from disc to monitor is bypassed quietly.
I'm prepared for a long period of relative component stagnation, while all this DRM for Vista gets sorted out. I doubt the legacy cards and peripherals will go away anytime soon.
Re:This is a false choice (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is hardly an analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
Although some of what he said is new to me, I know he's dead right on some other bits. I know I'm very much prepared to give the man the benefit of the doubt on the parts that are new to me. Which sucks. To me, the best thing about Windows is that it was the central force that drove hardware into commodity status, and lowered all of our costs. Now we may have to give some of that benefit back. That isn't something I'm happy to do, particularly for the sake of Vista, which I'll never use.
I don't see how you can say the piece wasn't about costs. That thread was all through it. You expected actual numbers? That's *very* proprietary information to any vendor. Nor is it likely that the vendors themselves have much hard data yet, in the specific case of Vista, as it's very early innings. They can't even be sure of the adoption rate yet, so fabrication contracts, and a myriad other details are likely to change fairly rapidly over the next few months.
Yet it's very clear that the broader picture in one of increasing costs for hardware vendors. Some of that will probably just mean lower margins, but even that doesn't mean that only investors will be hurt. It also means less R&D, which isn't good for anyone, in the long term. And some of those costs *will* be passed on. Investors will demand it.
There are other issues, of course--reduced functionality and stability, yet more difficulty in avoiding binary blobs in GPL kernels, etc. None of this is good news to assorted non-Windows people, though much of it will hit Windows users as well. It's not the end of the world (and wasn't presented as if it were) but it's certainly bad news.
Re:Yes, I read TFA (Score:3, Insightful)
> providers, or more specifically the RIAA and MPAA.
Why does Microsoft have to do their bidding?
Re:Migrate to not Vista (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, the odds are pretty good for current HD media, because the publishers want more market penetration before they tighten the noose.
Re:Migrate to not Vista (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, this point is apparently harder to understand than you realize. After all, even some people who aren't affiliated with the publishing industry still support DRM, because they mistakenly think it'll help them "protect" their own data. They fail to understand that that doesn't require DRM, but works perfectly well with plain encryption (in which the owner knows the key).
Re:it doesn't matter! (Score:4, Insightful)
People making new purchases are much freer to choose from a competitor that may not have the same problems.
I see Apple having a very good year.
Vista will improve your social life guys! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mancur Olson again (Score:3, Insightful)