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A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
University of Auckland Department of Computer Science ^ | 23 December 2006 | Peter Gutmann

Posted on 12/23/2006 5:51:48 PM PST by IncPen

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To: Charles H. (The_r0nin)

I don't think you understand at all what I said.

I didn't make any snide comments to anyone about wishful thinking.

I said we haven't invented a painless way to do it, but we eventually will. We just don't know what is it yet or how it will be done.


121 posted on 12/24/2006 3:53:18 PM PST by rlmorel (Islamofacism: It is all fun and games until someone puts an eye out. Or chops off a head.)
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To: RebelTex

Thanks for that answer.


122 posted on 12/24/2006 3:54:14 PM PST by rlmorel (Islamofacism: It is all fun and games until someone puts an eye out. Or chops off a head.)
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To: Syntyr
Also Games SUCK running on Mac's. I have tried. Flight Sim X, Battlefield 2142, Splinter Cell Double Agent... All suck. I can't even get Battlefield 2142 to run.

What Intel® Mac are you running? A Mac Mini?

That doesn't seem to match other's experiences. The Mac IS a PC when booted with Bootcamp.

Simon Ocean
Triple-A Player
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Sherburn, UK
Posts: 57

To add my two penneth:

I have Vista Ultimate installed on a Boot Camp created partition. To date there has not been one single problem running it on my iMac.

In fact, it works better/faster than the exact same install on my 4.2Ghz Pentium.

Previously to Vista I had XP Professional installed, same with that, no problems at all.

It will even play games such as Splinter Cell-Double Agent that will not play on my Pentium!

Source - Mac OSX Hints

. . . I tested Office 2003, Photoshop, InDesign, and a number of games, along with periperhals such as printers, USB gaming devices, and FireWire hard drives. Everything just works.

Source

Re: Multiple Monitors... the MacPro supports eight 30" monitors should you need them.

123 posted on 12/24/2006 4:02:44 PM PST by Swordmaker (Remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!)
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To: ShadowAce

If it's a big enough problem, I think we will see the beginning of the production of open-source hardware.


124 posted on 12/24/2006 4:28:14 PM PST by B Knotts (Newt '08!)
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To: IncPen

Unfortunately you are incorrect in your assumption here. Every major video card manufacturer has had it's Vista compliant next generation of GPUs in the pipeline since late 2005.

Upgrading a Mac to a new generation video card will have a Vista fee associated with it, say $20 to $50 per card at the high end cards.


125 posted on 12/24/2006 4:35:54 PM PST by JerseyHighlander
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To: All

Ah, the fun's just beginning. Just imagine that Vista is two or so generations down the pike, and all the wrinkles have been ironed out. You've got two elements: hardware that can be linked to you and your online activities, and hardware that can be crippled remotely.

So it's 2015, and Italy's first Islamic Republic is elected to power. Maybe it's the U.K. The True Believers have a list of websites critical of Islam, and one of their first acts is putting into place a architecture that will identify and turn off every machine that contacts such a site from an Italian ISP. Sites like, say, the Vatican.

Or perhaps it's the US with "hate" speech. One day, Free Republic simply disappears, because every US machine stops working as soon as it contacts the server. Oh, maybe it take a few visits to take into account the possibility you clicked there by accident.

I hated Longhorn when I first heard of it, and I hate Vista now. It represents a grave threat to liberty.


126 posted on 12/24/2006 4:55:09 PM PST by GOP Jedi (Democracy, Immigration, Multiculturalism -- Pick Any Two)
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To: Swordmaker

Check your FR Mail...


127 posted on 12/24/2006 5:03:57 PM PST by IncPen (When Al Gore Finished the Internet, he invented Global Warming)
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To: Central Scrutiniser; Northern Alliance

This article requires a Computer Degree almost.

You could be sorry if you want Vista for gaming. It is almost a given that your video card and monitor are incompatible with Vista if any HD content is running. Your game will be restricted to 800 by 600 or perhaps even 640 by 480. Your audio will be turned off or made to sound terrible. This could be content on a web page or on a CD. Microsoft could even decide your $300 Video Card was a threat to HD content and just deactivate it. Buy any new card and Monitor to overcome this and it will be slower or far more expensive in order to jump through all the new Copy Protection Hoops. Even dual core processors will be brought to their kneen by all the Copy Protection software Microsoft is requiring.

Vista will almost guarantee that PC's will be in the shop after a year or so. Dust alone can make the PC think it is compromised and then Microsoft will just dumb it down or not let it boot.

Drivers will be almost impossible to write and very, very expensive. Thus cards will be far less capable yet more expensive.


128 posted on 12/24/2006 6:22:22 PM PST by ImphClinton (Four More Years Go Bush)
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To: rlmorel

Very real.

HDMI you may have heard of. It is the newest thing in Video/Televisions.

This requires Video to be Encrypted 1024 bits all the way. This is very compute intensive. It has to be done in each device and over and over again in the PC. That makes for expensive and slow equipment.


129 posted on 12/24/2006 6:26:27 PM PST by ImphClinton (Four More Years Go Bush)
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To: IncPen

You are dreaming Mac 10.5 or 11 will be the same. Apple led the way with Music Sales and it's locked down IPod. Otherwise you could play no HD content on a Mac. What good would it be then.


130 posted on 12/24/2006 6:30:03 PM PST by ImphClinton (Four More Years Go Bush)
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To: barb-tex

This is not Microsoft.

This is Sony, RIAA, MPA, et all.

And you have another think coming if you think Apple won't jump on the bandwagon. Sony made Apple a new success.


131 posted on 12/24/2006 6:56:42 PM PST by ImphClinton (Four More Years Go Bush)
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To: Wonder Warthog; IncPen; rlmorel; Logophile

Books are different than video. However Books are in libraries. It is obviously not stealing to go to a library.

In a way the internet is a library as well. Thus why is it "stealing" if you access the same thing to read/view on the internet? What is the difference? I see none.

Other material not available in a library is in a different category. But then it is copyright infringement not stealing. I deprive you of nothing by copying a movie on the internet. No property has changed hands. Study after study has shown that people that see/hear material on the internet are far more likely to buy that material than had they only seen advertising. After all no one can possibly buy what they do not know about. Without getting the word out you have no income. There are an increasing number of people never exposed to advertising. They surf the Web and don't watch TV or pay attention to adds on the internet. I am in this category. I watch TV but surf during commercials. Just how are we supposed to know something exist?

If the DRM people get their way they may make more money for a short time but they will kill the goose that laid the golden egg. VCR's have made far more for the TV industry through sales of Video Tapes/DVD/s than they ever began to cost in lost add revenue (which never happened). DRM was forced out of the MP3 market for a large part. Yet music sales went up. I can download movies on the internet but you better believe I pay to see them in a theater if they are worth seeing. But I quit NetFlix two years ago because there are so very few good movies any more. It the game to make bad movies but use DRM to get more money?

DRM flies in the face of everything that makes America Great. Totally enforced only a very few would ever have a chance to sell anything. This crowd would make writing a song and giving it away (to get noticed) illegal. They would force you to pay every time you listened to a song or watched a movie.

Every attempt at DRM has failed and this will as well. I pray it takes Microsoft down with it. Then we might get PC's that actually worked for us instead of Sony, Microsoft, etc. I hate it when Microsoft decides to reboot my computer even though I have done everything I can to deny them this ability.


132 posted on 12/24/2006 7:36:35 PM PST by ImphClinton (Four More Years Go Bush)
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To: ImphClinton
"... deprive you of nothing by copying a movie on the internet..."

I disagree.

133 posted on 12/24/2006 7:49:19 PM PST by rlmorel (Islamofacism: It is all fun and games until someone puts an eye out. Or chops off a head.)
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To: Covenantor
" As a user, there is simply no escape. Whether you use Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 95, Linux, FreeBSD, OS X, Solaris (on x86), or almost any other OS, Windows content protection will make your hardware more expensive, less reliable, more difficult to program for, more difficult to support, more vulnerable to hostile code, and with more compatibility problems

This is interesting to me because I had purchased a software program that was compatible with MS back in June '06, loaded it and had some problems with it. I used it, unloaded it and just last week tried to load it again. I could load the program but I could not update the program service pack. MS windows installer told me to check with the vendor. The vendor wanted me to do a bunch of stuff to my computer. I said no that apparently their program was no longer compatible with MS because whatever they had in their Service Pack Windows Installer would not allow the replacement of the "protected file." I have XP Pro. The program is OmniPage 15 Pro. Anybody got any ideas? By the way I have the Installer version (v2)redistributed.

134 posted on 12/24/2006 8:04:13 PM PST by Snoopers-868th
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To: Swordmaker

Actually, they indicated to me that they no longer handled this type of synchornization license. They directed me to the different labels. $2 a CD would have been great with me and it would have made me feel like I was doing the right thing.

This was about six months ago, so who knows--


135 posted on 12/24/2006 8:21:27 PM PST by Vermont Lt (I am not from Vermont. I lived there for four years and that was enough.)
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To: Logophile

Wrong.

Sony just lost on this in court.

When your DRM makes my computer unusable you are at fault and liable for the damage the DRM caused. Thus the incentive to get Microsoft to do the dirty work (as it is so hard to win against Microsoft as they could care less about bad press).

Unless Microsoft offers a Vista DRM free they will either lose in court or be forced out of the market. I refuse to buy anything that hobbles my computer and makes it unusable for its real purpose and that is not HD Movies. I will not infect my PC with Draconian versions of DRM.

Us tech guys will get the word out and Vista will fail miserably. We already got Microsoft to stop it's scheme of making Vista only installable twice (Buy a third Hard Drive and the OS will not install).

Vista is simply not needed. We will force NVidia et all to make XP versions of hardware until Microsoft removes DRM from Vista.

Enough bad press and Microsoft sometimes listens.


136 posted on 12/24/2006 8:57:01 PM PST by ImphClinton (Four More Years Go Bush)
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To: rlmorel

If I like something I buy it.

Thus if I copy your work and like it I will buy it. If I don't like it I won't buy it. However if I don't copy it I will most likely never know about it and thus never buy it.

Now other things I might borrow and rather than turn on the radio listen to an MP3. But once again if I like it I buy it to support the artist. I just hate commercials and refuse to listen to them under any circumstances so this is the only way I experience new stuff I like. Plus my taste are not on the radio much.

The internet is the greatest thing that has ever happened to the industry. It just hasn't figured it out because it is blinded by greed trying to figure out a way to extract even more. But I fear they will kill the goose that laid that egg if they force DRM down our thoughts.


137 posted on 12/24/2006 9:13:29 PM PST by ImphClinton (Four More Years Go Bush)
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To: ImphClinton

You and I have a basic philosophical difference here.

I understand your analogy with the Goose and Golden Egg, and why you think that is something to beware of. I agree.

I just feel that the creators of content need to be adequately protected. And I simply think that letting people have complete and total access for free to a perfect copy with no restrictions on how it it used is wrong.

I understand your point of view.


138 posted on 12/24/2006 9:19:30 PM PST by rlmorel (Islamofacism: It is all fun and games until someone puts an eye out. Or chops off a head.)
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To: ImphClinton
"...We already got Microsoft to stop it's scheme of making Vista only installable twice..."

I was unaware of this restriction until I saw it on Free Republic...and it may have even been you who voiced it. When I told that to my brother who works for himself doing PC tech support, he looked at me like I was a lunatic, and said..."WHAT?" I am no Microsoft fan, but I found that a bit shocking. Even as dim a bulb in some techorespects as I am due to my limited scope in certain areas of my work, I grasped the enormity of that pretty quick.

139 posted on 12/24/2006 9:25:21 PM PST by rlmorel (Islamofacism: It is all fun and games until someone puts an eye out. Or chops off a head.)
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To: IncPen

One solution that comes to mind isn't exactly legal. MSFT is forcing the inclusion of various "grenade pins", as the author calls them, with Vista. These pins can turn your Vista PC into a doorstop if pulled. The solution? Pull the pins.

What if malware writers started doing things with their code that messed with the host PC at a level that triggered MSFT's anti-tampering features? That PC would cease to function at the level the consumer expected as it attempts to protectss the Preciousssss premium contentsesss. (Though, it would still be just fine for use as a spam mailing zombie! In fact, it would work even better as a zombie. The CPU would no longer be wasting cycles processing encrypted video and audio data.) The consumer would, of course, blame MSFT for the outage. If enough PC users had their machines taken away from them by Vista, the backlash would force MSFT to back down. (And yes, they do respond to consumer pressure. Witness their repeated attempts to halt support for legacy software.) Such an approach would have to be implemented quickly; before hardware vendors make the investment necessary to play the Vista game.

As I said, action of this sort would be illegal. I am not endorsing it by writing this. I am merely thinking out loud. So if some hardware vendor with contacts in Russia should happen to read this, I didn't tell you to do anything. Whatever you do with this is your own business!


140 posted on 12/24/2006 10:32:38 PM PST by Redcloak (Speak softly and wear a loud shirt.)
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