[FYI] (Fwd) Does it take hardware to repel pirates?

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

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Date sent:      	Mon, 25 Mar 2002 11:52:56 -0500
To:             	Digital Bearer Settlement List <dbs@philodox.com>,
	dcsb@ai.mit.edu, cryptography@wasabisystems.com
From:           	"R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com>
Subject:        	Does it take hardware to repel pirates?

http://zdnet.com.com/2102-1106-867333.html


Does it take hardware to repel pirates?
By Robert Lemos
Special to ZDNet News
March 22, 2002, 4:35 PM PT
URL: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-867333.html

Software alone can't stop digital piracy, researchers said this week,
emphasizing that only a totally secured infrastructure has a chance to
eliminate the problem.

The recommendations come as opposition builds against a proposed bill
that would force hardware makers to add anti-copying features to MP3
players and other devices. Although legislators and device makers both
see a need for a hardware solution to securing digital content, the
groups are at odds over the government's efforts to regulate such
technology.

"Every single device has to be secure," said Darko Kirovski, a
researcher studying watermarking and security technologies at
Microsoft Research. "If one device is not secure, then this (digital
content protection) doesn't work."

Kirovski's comments underscore the enormous difficulties facing the
consumer electronics and entertainment industries, which have been
struggling for years to agree on anti-piracy standards. Now a
legislative backlash against hardware makers is gathering force that
could further polarize the two sides.

On Thursday, Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C., introduced the
Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, which
mandates that devices handling digital content have an industry
standard means of protecting that content from piracy.

Previously known as the Security Systems Standards and Certification
Act, the draft legislation has been widely criticized. Some technology
companies say it meddles in the development of digital content
distribution; civil-rights advocates contend it breaks the balance
between the rights legally given to copyright holders and citizens'
rights to information.

In a technical briefing earlier in the week, Kirovski wouldn't comment
on such issues, but he spelled out what must be done to secure
copyright holders' digital content in what he called "an idyllic
world."

"In order to prevent piracy, you really cannot rely on the current
hardware and software," he said. "You cannot build software which is
trusted if your hardware is not trusted."

Kirovski outlined several research advances at Microsoft's March
Silicon Valley Speaker Series on Wednesday. In an ideal world, where
every device is secured for digital content, techniques could be used
not only to protect content but also to embed digital fingerprints in
a media file, helping copyright holders track the pirates who work
together to break protected content.

Some manufacturers have already been pushing an industry standard for
locking down content at the hardware level. The 4C Entity, made up of
Intel, IBM, Toshiba and Matsushita Electric, has created technology
called Content Protection for Recordable Media that would add a
piracy-blocking mechanism directly into data storage drives. The
National Committee on Information Technology Standards turned down the
proposal last year.

Despite those efforts, the proposed anti-piracy bill has run into a
wall of opposition from high-tech companies who contend it will hamper
their copy-protection efforts by imposing inflexible requirements.

Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer for network protection firm
Counterpane Internet Security, said the bill would essentially lock up
all content in boxes controlled by copyright holders no matter what
device or computer the information is on. The legislation would also
have far-reaching effects on the software and computer industry,
making almost all of today's software and hardware illegal and putting
open-source software in a tight spot, he said.

"If the only thing you want to do in your life is protect the content
of the record companies and Hollywood, then the (proposed bill) is a
great thing," he said. "If you put everybody in a box and locked them
all in, then you wouldn't have murder either...For the entertainment
industry to put this forward just shows how much of the economy they
are willing to sacrifice for their ends."

Some companies that make the current technology for protecting digital
music, known as watermarking technology, also don't fully support the
bill.

Matt Smith, vice president of product marketing for content-protection
technology maker Liquid Audio, called Kirovski's research
"interesting, but not really applicable" in a world where anyone can
burn a CD into an MP3 file. He said a government-mandated solution is
not desirable either.

"These things take time," he said. "It's an evolutionary process. It
takes patience to allow the secure infrastructure to be built out."



-- 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44
Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA

The IBUC Symposium on Geodesic Capital
April 3-4, 2002, The Downtown Harvard Club, Boston
<mailto: rah@ibuc.com> for details...

"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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