Posted on 09/09/2003 7:19:14 PM PDT by GOP Jedi
Imagine I were to give you a computer and turn you loose on the internet. You could read text, see pictures, watch movies and animations, play music and enjoy interactive games. You can save these things to view them later, and share them with your friends. You can print them, burn them on CDs, edit them and modify them and create new things from pieces of old things. Most of it is free, too.
You can publish things, and remain anonymous if you wish. You can indulge your curiosity in embarrassing ways and visit porn sites, pictures-of-dead-bodies sites, radical revolutionary sites, and learn all sorts of stuff about everything, even if it is the sorts of things that decent people don't usually discuss. You enjoy a remarkable freedom because the whole place is incredibly open and unregulated; nobody owns it, organized it, controls it, edits it, censors it, manages it, rations it, or even really keeps track of what ordinary people do with it.
This is all going to change in a big way.
DRM will, of course, make it impossible for you to copy things without the author's permission. That's what it's for. DRM will also make it easy and common for most commercial websites to charge a fee to each person who visits. Sadly, DRM cannot do any of this unless DRM is required of everyone who goes on line. Use of DRM, like use of a credit card, also means that you have to surrender your anonymity and leave behind a record of everything you do. DRM also requires that your computer be limited to perform only those functions which government and industry allows it to perform; DRM will be built into your browser, your graphic programs, your scanner and CD burner, even your hard drives. Seriously.
DRM simply can't be made to work at all unless it is this pervasive. I'm not speculating about how it might someday be misused; DRM is designed to do exactly what I just described.
In short, DRM provides a mechanism to organize, control, edit, censor, manage, ration, and track every machine you wish to connect to the internet.
DRM is made possible by two things: technology and law. Up until now, internet techies like myself have felt pretty comfortable about our remarkable freedom because we assumed that neither technology or law would have sufficient force to ever regulate the internet. We didn't think that anything could ever put the Genie back in the bottle. We were wrong.
It's perfectly possible to force people into using only regulated computers, and to compel them to only perform permitted actions with them. All it takes is the eager cooperation of computer hardware manufacturers, and tough federal laws that impose penalties on ISPs who do not comply.
Tomorrow's computer will not be a general purpose computer like the one you have now. Currently, you can buy any sort of device that anyone cares to build - say, a device for copying CDs, or a device for scanning copyrighted works - and you can go ahead and connect it to your own computer without anybody's permission. Tomorrow's computer won't work like that. Tomorrow's computer won't mount a device unless the device driver is digitally signed, and that signature is only available to devices that meet the standards of the signer.
Your Linux box won't be using signed drivers anytime soon, but your Windows XP box is set up to require them right now, and your Mac will probably be forced to use them in a the near future. If the law requires it, Apple will surely comply.
So, maybe open-source Linux is the way to go?
Nope.
The first step - which we are seeing right now - is that older computers will be unable to view content made with newer machines. By this time next year, every new copy of Microsoft Office will be producing DRM-protected documents that can only be read if you are running a DRM-capable machine. Sure, you can still produce non-DRM content, of course, but commercial content providers will quickly take advantage of this.
If you think you will be able to read cnn.com on your Linux box after DRM machines comprise the vast majority of the market, you are probably mistaken. Commercial providers have a huge interest is protecting their material - it is, after all, how they make their living. They will not sweat it if a tiny, stubborn minority of non-paying customers are excluded.
The next step will be filters at the ISPs which only allow DRM machines to connect. Currently, ISPs who allow open SMTP ports to be abused by spammers are already facing legal action, and ISP who host Kaazaa users have already forced to turn over their records. Once DSM becomes a commonly-accepted industry standard, you can bet the ISPs are going to be required to go along with it.
The biggest kick in the ISPs teeth happens when DRM is used to support financial transactions. People who circumvent DRM will then be no different from counterfeiters. The legal penalties for subverting the system, or for assisting others to subvert it, will be severe.
These steps will be primarily justified as security measures, not copyright protections. Want to stop spam? You need DRM to authenticate your email. Want to stop viruses? You'll need DRM to authorize your computer program or it won't run. Want to publish your own website? Better use DRM to control access, lest the children find their way to adult content.
Oh, it's coming, all right, and I don't think anything is going to stop it, either.
1) Oh, Mike, you are forgetting the great worldwide strength of the internet. I'll just post my content on a server located in Burma.
Sure. And how, exactly, will I see it if my DRM machine won't let me see it, and I can't get my Linux box to connect anymore?
2) Um... well, a bunch of us will get together and form our own, outlaw internet then.
Good luck. The government (via the FCC) maintains very rigid control of communications media, and without media, there's no net to inter on. How will your outlaw internet work? Radio waves? Pirate ISPs who magically reroute the phone lines to evade the police? Tin cans and string?
3) OK, well, people will never accept this. The laws won't pass.
Sure they will. The industry types love it because it solves their copyright problems. Government loves it because it gives them control, businesses love it because it protects them from hackers and viruses, housewives love it because their children are saved from the horrors of adult content, and ordinary people won't even see it coming, or care much, so long as it's introduced one small step at a time. You think Linux users are real big voting block? Think again.
4) So, we'll unleash the hacker army and break it.
You might get away with that for a while, but not long. The core technology involved here is nothing more elaborate than public key encryption. The implementation will surely have some holes, but as you do the hard work of uncovering them, these holes will eventually be filled. When you find a hacker who can break the PGP authentication I use and who can send me a letter signed with my own private key, give me a call. I won't be holding my breath.
5) Dude, you are such a downer.
Yeah, I know.
Seriously, now - if anybody thinks I overlooked something important here, let me know. I'd love to be wrong about this.
The customer's always right. That is, you can't force people to buy what they don't want, and the customer doesn't want this.
Will it come with plenty of tinfoil?
In a free market, I agree. But if you look at the article, this requires govt. involvement and the govt. would love this because it gives the govt. control, a new tax revenue source and big industry will bribe enough lawmakers to get it done.
If push comes to shove it will work the same way the old hacker BBS network used to work, with temporary connections to points of presence using phone lines. But that won't be necessary, unless they find a way to make Virtual Private Networks illegal. Right now I can sprinkle Linux boxes across the Internet and set up a VPN. I can send anything I want across it, and the authorities have no way to know what it is. There's no reason to think that that's going to be harder to do in the future.
Can't read cnn.com? Simple solution: Don't read cnn.com.
Wow, THEY know everything, don't they?
If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways?
Oops sorry wrong end of the universe
It won't be pushed as "this" (DRM). It will be pushed as "secure". Everybody likes "secure". Microsoft is calling it by a new name now -- what used to be "Palladium" is now the Next Generation Secure Computing Base, or NGSCB.
In short, everything which is "bad" about personal computing today will be "fixed" by NGSCB. No more rougue software attacks (worms and virii), crackers can't make boxes fall over anymore, databases safe from tampering, programs can't screw up the registry, your own files (tax records, personal correspondance) safe from prying eyes, etc...
If you're concerned about the way Microsoft has screwed things up over the years, you'll probably want this.
This will also be a boon for content providers and software vendors who want your money. Because the public-key technology which makes this work will lock up everything on your computer, and everybody but you (the owner of the computer) owns all of the keys. So if you don't make a payment for your subscription-based software... well, guess what? You can't access your personal data files anymore. Certain programs won't run unless your Internet connection is alive, so they can talk to headquarters, and you won't be able to know what they're saying because the conversation is encrypted. You'll be happy with the keyboard, mouse and speakers which came with the computer, because they'll be encrypted as well (can't take a chance that someone will try to copy a CD by recording the output from the speakers). Tampering with the hardware will be a no-no punishable by the DMCA, so all of you tinkerers out there had better find something else to do. If something breaks, better pull out your wallet and phone up an "authorized" repair person because you won't be able to fix it yourself. If you like to write your own software, be prepared to pay for a "certificate" which will tell your computer that it's "allowed" to run your program.
Remember, if you don't own the keys, it ain't your computer anymore.
No, but some of your buds at HQ certainly do. That Ballmer dude for example. He got his mojo workin'.
It's going to be part of the gummint school curriculum, manditory as reading and writing skills. According to Umberto Eco. Free and required gummint access for all. They still will make you buy your own car if you don't like public transportation.
When I got to this point, I knew the guy was full of it. Linus Torvalds has been talking favorably about implementing DRM for Linux. It's old news.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.