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CPRM on hard drives - IBM takes a spin

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/15684.html

By: Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco

Posted: 24/12/2000 at 11:08 GMT

[...]

So how mandatory are these specifications? Dave Anderson of the Object Based Storage Device group - he's also Seagate's storage architect, but was speaking to us with his OBSD hat on - points out that not all of the SCSI command set has been implemented. Even where the commands have obvious benefits. It's a good point, but it's also worth remembering that the SCSI design philosophy (do more) differs from ATA mores (keep it simple) with the consequence that the ATA spec is much more closely adhered to by manufacturers. It's a far simpler spec, and being a mass market, doesn't tolerate wibbles. CPRM's backers point out that it's an optional mechanism, and needs to be turned on explicitly: for example a "compliant" CPRM drive may yet be programmed to reject calls by compliant applications to write secure media to disk.

The T.13 committee next meets in Irvine in February. It's already seen three drafts of CPRM, which may give opponents of the scheme hope that it can be delayed further. Equally, we suspect, CPRM's backers may hope that the pre-Xmas furore will be forgotten as we nurse new century hangovers in just over a week. But CPRM in ATA poses short-term problems for several classes of current software and IT practices, long-term threats to accepted consumer free use practice and to basic computer science principles such as file system abstraction, and could particularly divisive for free software in particular - as Richard Stallman has pointed out. In short, it has the potential to make the Clipper Chip saga look like a pre-show warm- up, and we wouldn't bet on this story going away anytime soon. As the Grinch discovered: "Oh, the noise! That's one thing he hated! The NOISE! Ž

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