On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Bryan Murdock wrote: > On Fri, 2004-01-23 at 09:17, Ross Werner wrote: > > The only possible way to do this is to have a completely unbroken chain of > > closed, DRM'd technology all the way up to the display. But even then, > > you run the risk of (a) reverse engineering, and (b) I can still take a > > photograph of the screen, if it's that important. (And if it were the sort > > of situation as at Los Alamos, it would be that important.) > > Good point. I rescind my previous post. Security in general is a pipe > dream. If it's that important, don't connect your computer to the > internet, don't show it to anyone else, lock your doors, and plan on it > getting out anyway.
It's an entirely different ballpark, Bryan. With Security (whether with cars or computers) you _don't_ want people without the "key" to be able to get in. So you make the strength of the lock directly proportional to the amount that others want to get in. (Which is why in South Africa, it's a lot harder to break into a car.) With DRM, however, you _want_ the person to be able to _see_ the data, but not to be able to _copy_ it. And when you think about it, that's simply ridiculous. Yes, you can make it more difficult for them to copy it, but you can't make it impossible--and the nature of information is that once it's successfully copied once, it can be copied a million times with ease. Note that this is very different from "you can make it more difficult for people to hack through the security on my system, but you can't make it impossible". While this is also true, DRM'd products _always_ have to be available to my immediate senses for them to have any value whatsoever--I have to be able to read a DRM'd book, or listen to DRM'd audio, or watch a DRM'd movie. And any time that happens, it's available for a camera, a tape recorder, or a camcorder to capture the information. There's no way you can stop that, period. ~ ross -- This sentence would be seven words long if it were six words shorter. ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
