Aboriginal Archive Uses New DRM

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."

Err, DRM?

[Penguinisto]

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?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

not your ordinary DRM

[oever]

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:once again

[K. S. Kyosuke]

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.

Before complaining consider _why_ this was done

[qaramazov]

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.

Re:once again

[Penguinisto]

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

You're kidding, right?

[robo.cowp]

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 characteristics.

Not user/admin access rights

[jonnythan]

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.

Re:Easily hacked?

[ArsenneLupin]

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.

Re:Users *want* the rules enforced

[moderatorrater]

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.

Re:Given your comment, I'm wondering...

[khallow]

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?

Re:once again

[Chris Burke]

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:Given your comment, I'm wondering...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure someone who really wants to can easily circumvent their DRM, but that's not the point. The DRM makes it impossible to accidentaly stumble upon materials that are considered inappropriate for your profile. It's like putting a front door in your house. Most strangers won't come through if it's closed, even though they can easily go in through a window, or get a lock pick, or whatever. Doors are for keeping strangers out. The Super-Duper-Tesla-Coil-anti-Burglar-System 2000 is for keeping burglars out :)

The DRM targets the random people passing by, not someone who really wants the stuff. The 'but once 1 person cracks it it will be out in the open FOREVAR!' thing doesn't apply here, since they don't want to access it anyway.

Re:Given your comment, I'm wondering...

[zeromorph]

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 pornography, or harmful to minors...'" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Internet_Protection_Act#What_CIPA_requires [wikipedia.org]

But seriously, I think it is a good thing that this community adjusted modern information technology to their needs. If their needs or beliefs change they can change their access policy, but that is first of all something they have to decide by themselves.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Penguinisto]

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 not. I (like most) only know from hearsay, which is anything but actual evidence. You and I, by virtue of not being a part of these respective memberships, will never know for certain if the descriptions of them are sufficiently accurate, if they have or have not changed in response to public exposure of their details (possible, not probable), or if all of the details have even been divulged. QED, they remain secret.

Also, there is too much of a collective human need to feel special, to feel that we are individually and in groups, members of some sort of elite, or among the 'chosen', if you will. This is just as much a craving of the urban atheist as of the most isolated aboriginal human being... to 'belong'. Coupled with ritual (which still manages to captivate the human emotion very well), and you have a recipe for something that probably won't die anytime within this anthropological era of human development.

"WhoTF do you think you are to tell them that what they hold sacred is "superstition mumbo-jumba","

A rational human being.

Do rational human beings so easily pre-judge others' acts with incomplete information and no sense of consideration? One would think that a truly rational human being would understand and admit that other cultures, especially those which have survived nicely for longer than one's own, should be given some breathing room with which to practice their separate and harmless belief systems - without such a crass and simplistic label as "mumbo-jumbo", no?

Superstition it might be, but if said form of faith makes a person happy, what's the problem with accommodating him or her as far as possible without intrusion onto our own systems? They asked for this, it doesn't intrude on what you or I might do, and it harms no one in the end.

/P

Re:Fuckin' Goon Drinkin' Boongs!!!

[mikaere]

Learn what Aboriginals are really like. No, I'm not racist. I'm a realist.
No, you're a fucking moron.

Re:technology isn't culture

[Captain Splendid]

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.

Re:technology isn't culture

[Reality Master 201]

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:Given your comment, I'm wondering...

[ozmanjusri]

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...

[Mithrandir]

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.

Fallacious is what that is.

[svunt]

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 life.

Re:Given your comment, I'm wondering...

[khallow]

Or c) They want to honor their cultural taboos and they made a system that helps them do so.