BAD: First HD-DVD, now Vista DRM

[andygates]

I can't keep the grin in any longer.  Vista's extremely silly Protected Media Path (PMP) has been hacked.  That didn't take long, did it?  Alex Ionescu describes how he did what he did in his blog, but daren't release actual code for fear of a black helicopter visit by DMCA attack lawyers.

The weird thing is that the commercial success of the entire IT sector relies on many perfect copies being made form everything.  That's the whole point: it's why cassettes were good too.  We get involved, we dick around, we don't just passively consume.  Mixtapes are cool to share.  The business model that was appropriate for manufactured pressings of vinyl - few high-quality originals dispensed from the central vendor - is totally and catastrophically broken by fast easy digital copying.  That model assumes a need for relatively low losses as the product is relatively expensive to produce; with digital media the cost of reproduction is trivial but the bean-counters haven't yet worked out that this means that massive unit losses are financially acceptable. 

The example of the MP3 player - mine is full of personal rips and allofmp3.com downloads - is canonical: because I can get lots of cheap easy music, I do.  Some I pay top whack for, and that's the profit.  But I wouldn't have bought the half-dozen CDs I have recently unless I had been energised and enthused - and engaged - by the dozen downloads.  And (listen up, suits) I would not have bought all eighteen; or all six, more likely one or two.  I would have passively flicked over MTV and Scuzz and shrugged and done something else.  Rob Zombie has a dollar to spend on shampoo and carny chicks because of piracy.

Anyway, there's the memetic imperative.  Information wants to get copied.  We, as memetic entities, like copying information.  "Hey, have you heard this?" is a memegasm.  And to play something, you have to decrypt it somewhere along the line.  So even without black-hat snarkiness at the corporate bishops, DRM will fail every time.  And it deserves to fail, and it will not be mourned. 

A wise geek observed that the internet routes itself around damage.  DRM is getting the same treatment, and with good reason: encrypted, unplayable data is damaged data.  The internet will route around it.  All things being equal, if you insert broken and healthy data into the memestream, the broken data will be copied less and will eventually die (a phenomenon which also explains the self-healing of Wikipedia and survival of healthy bittorrents).  DRM data is broken as designed.

Comments

Re: Still thinking.

[carl42nz.livejournal.com]

Since when does society "reward"?? From what I see society-effects only punish, the only reward is available to those who act in an Alpha manner which allows them to use and gain at the expense (or manipulation) of others. Consequentially it intensifies/contration the system-in-solution (interactions occur between processes faster and with less energy because the distance and occurance of collision between reactants is improved.)
The Alpha manner means more resources to work with, and less area/vloume to spread oneself over (graph networks sometimes use that as a success indicator, return vs work, contact vs maintainance)
For those beings (or memes) not able to sustain an Alpha position they lose out to better "players". In some cases this result in extreme penalties as the society attempts to enforce the Alpha's structure (ie the one made currently popular). Does "reward" consist of lack of persecution, and/or servility in return for a vote of confidence and supply?

Re: Still thinking.

[n-decisive.livejournal.com]

Since when does society "reward"?? From what I see society-effects only punish, the only reward is available to those who act in an Alpha manner...

Does "reward" consist of lack of persecution, and/or servility in return for a vote of confidence and supply?

When I chose the word "reward," I was thinking in Pavlovian terms, really, but reading what you wrote, I feel that "enforcing" really is closer to what happens. Society reinforces the behavior(s) it finds valuable or useful in a given time by praising, envying, or punishing for "inappropriate" actions, so yes, I suppose it does reward by not persecuting, prostrating, buoying those who comply, etc.

I'd like to believe that there's a subgroup of society that fights this. In fact, I choose to believe this because it's what keeps me going on a daily basis.

Re: Still thinking.

[carl42nz.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you clarified your angle-of-view on the term rewards, I was considering the external stimuli rather than the internal response, although my initial comments hold for both.
I consider the internal response to be hard wired ("evolutionary" in that successful reward-seeking behaviour results in proliferation, "depression-seeking" results in self neutralisation)

I would disagree on the surface, with the term "enforcing". I'm not wanting to diverge to far from the meme angle into one of my tired old rants. I'm looking at a society as a group of individuals and the value for those individuals.

For the meme (or similiar concepts) an example could be the modern pagan paradigm. Many "culturally-similiar" individual (paths/trads/whatever) but when they come together a "social normalising" occurs. Some memes flourish, some meta-meme (acting as Alphas) are reinforced by having support and positive feedback. Others are changed, adapted or irrevocably maimed by the coming together (Some for the better IMO). Like "natural" selection "Nature" takes no interest in which meme is correct or accurate, just which ones breed better, root easier, and can steal the nourishing light.

I'm of the opinion that a higher order sustainable method is available both in meme form and social relations but evidence is strong that any effort suffers from the "libertine assualt*" of barbarians at the gate.

(*following the extreme liberal stance that anything is permissable providing the individual can pay the price. The ultimate conclusion is private standing armies to enforce personal rights. Although an army of who has never been sufficiently explained without going from liberal to dictator/feudal...)

Re: Still thinking.

[n-decisive.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you clarified your angle-of-view on the term rewards...
This is something I'm more than willing to do.

I like the term "depression seeking." There's much truth there.

Feeling like "enforcing" wasn't really what I wanted, "reinforcing" felt closer to the way I see society handling traits, etc, these days. My feelings, however, are probably greatly influenced by my personal experiences and the fact that I've not set foot outside North America. While there are many similarities between English speaking countries, there are some important differences, as well.

As for your "tired old rants?" I haven't heard them, and unless someone tells me they are specifically directing them at me, I enjoy pondering opinions that get called rants. If ever you feel like elaborating, I'd like to hear them. They'd be new to me, I suspect.

When you use the term "normalising," do you mean it in terms of a balancing out, the culturally defined middle ground for a situation, or something else? That word always brings Philip K. Dick stories to mind, and I end up wondering who and how we define what normal is, and I'd rather ask than assume you mean it one way over another.

There's a reason I'm neither liberal nor conservative; both sides can become extreme to the point of inaction and irritation. I admire the passion with which such opinions are spoken- as well as the individuals dedication to their cause- but they can both take on Fundamentalists bents that I don't find admirable.

(There is a connection here...) Have you seen the movie "Idiocracy?"