Cory Doctorow is in a panic that Apple may add “trusted computing” features to the next generation of Apple OS and hardware. He thinks he’ll abandon their platform if this DRM technology is deployed.
I don’t agree with this position. It’s like arguing that 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine is an evil molecule. It isn’t. There aren’t evil compounds or techologies; only evil uses and abuses. Outlawing certain molecules, rather than opting for more subtle social regulation, has not had a good record of success. Likewise, entirely avoiding technologies that have potential for abuse just cuts you off from their benefit. And a smaller pool of people enjoying the benefits just increases the strength of the abuser, since their behavior now looks relatively less abhorrent and more normal.
Many of Cory’s objections can be managed by a simple OS feaure. At installation time, an application should only have “write” access to DRM-like features if you explicitly say so. And any content you create yourself should always be accessible — and decryptable — by you. I would suggest that the freedom fighters campaign for Apple to include user-empowring features.
We probably do need to update retail laws to make it clearer what you are buying in a device or software application. The act of “ownership” becomes rather fuzzy when your actions may be limited by the remote control of a third party. A normal retail sale represents a complete transfer of ownership, and software just isn’t conforming well to that model. But if the terms are clear, and the customers buy into it, that’s nobody else’s business to interfere with.
The potential positive uses of DRM technology are many. I want my content protected just as much as the media company wants to control its content. I want my PC secured from unwanted intrusion. The technology isn’t going to go away. It’s better to embrace, influence and improve it.
Posted by Martin Geddes at 10:10 AMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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how in the world could DRM be considered as protecting your system from unwanted intrusion?!?
Posted by: at August 1, 2005 03:24 PMBryan,
DRM would only be able to protect your system insofar as the DRM'ed content would come from a verified author and have checksums that would ensure it did not carry a malicious payload like a Word Macro.
The TPM on the otherhand would be able to protect your system by allowing you to ensure that your applications and your entire OS were not trojaned. Additionally the TPM could verify that you are indeed at eBay updating your account profile and not some phisher's site. Lastly the TPM would allow you to store things like your browser master password on disk using strong encryption which would make it nearly impossible for an attacker to crack, and even more impossible to crack if they exported it from your machine to another, which is typically the first step in performing a brute force attack of that kind.
Posted by: at August 1, 2005 05:01 PMJohn Gruber, at Daring Fireball, has posted a good piece on the TPM DRM affair
http://daringfireball.net/2005/08/trusted
Apple has stated that OS X Intel will only boot on Apple hardware and this is a way to enforce that at a reasonably high level.
It should be noted that Apple's actions on DRM are not as strict as other parts of the industry. The relatively weak DRM on iPods is in dramatic contrast with the industry was planning with SDMI (about 150 companies) - the success of the iPod is partly what allows us to move music from our CDs to portable players -- the industry was dead set against that four years ago.
Posted by: at August 7, 2005 12:41 PM