Posts by Finn Higgins
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Robbery, you don't seem to have much conception of what software actually is. It's just a bunch of instructions to a machine. Those instructions can decoded to very verbose machine code by anybody with a disassembler and modified by anybody with a hex editor. Thusly, nothing is uncrackable because the nature of "cracking" is "reading, understanding and deliberately changing", and reading and changing software is completely possible. Understanding depends on skill, intellect, time and effort. That's what software developers do for a living, much of the time. The only way that something could become uncrackable would be if it was too complex for human or machine analysis. If it is created by humans it's probably not too complex for human analysis, and if it's obfuscated by machines then it's very likely to be vulnerable to machine analysis.
Some software doesn't get cracked. That's true - but it's more a reflection of market forces than technical possibility. A house with nothing in it but a broken fishing rod and some bird poo is also unlikely to be burgled given there are more prestigious targets available.
You could possibly make software into something that is innately unreadable and unchangeable, but that would require you to redesign the PC from the bottom up. Again, like your DRM solutions. It won't happen in a hurry, because the people who buy PCs don't see it as a feature - so there's no financial advantage in vendors spending money on researching and developing it.
Since you're asking for links, here's some detail on the widely-discussed delights of your uncrackable PACE iLok platform:
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/12/03/developer-to-users-boycott-ilok-and-pace-2/
http://studionebula.com/blog/2007/12/02/why-i-boycott-products-that-use-paceilok-and-why-you-should-tooOr we could go the obvious route and try fun with Wikipedia:
**As with all copy protection**, some software covered by InterLok requiring an iLok has been cracked by several different cracking groups.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILok_Smart_Key (my emphasis in the quote...)
... and if you do a bit of reading around on the topic it seems pretty common knowledge that various cracks of iLok apps are out there. There also seem to be "demo reset" hacks against iLok for a bunch more.
I've made my argument for "there's no such thing as uncrackable" - would you care to present a mathematical proof of how you could build a software system that is machine executable and will run on existing hardware, yet is completely impervious to tinkering? Failing that, is there any chance you could stop asserting stuff that you really have no case to back up, and then being obnoxious when somebody points out that you're wrong about it?
The problem I have with you on this issue is that every time somebody calls you on the impossibility of what you're staunchly standing behind you just resort to hand-waving "some smart person will fix it for me". The problem is that most of the people contributing to this thread who actually are software developers (unlike you) appear to be disagreeing with you. Does that not tell you something?
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Ilok for protools offers no benefit to me but all their software and plugins that use it are uncrackable.
Nothing is uncrackable. It's just a matter of time and effort. If something has not been cracked it's probably because there is a limited return in doing so.
Plus, PACE/iLok is a terrible example as a) applications that use it HAVE been cracked, and b) PACE have an awful reputation for causing instability issues with many music producers, and I know plenty of people who actually download cracked versions of PACE-protected apps just to keep the protection software off their production machines. "Buy the box, run the crack" is quite common for PACE-protected software like the Waves suite.
Lastly, music is not software. Software applications can dedicate engineer time and effort to obfuscating the instructions which reference copy protection hardware for each individual application. Do you really think the music industry is going to start writing individual PACE-protected applications that are unique to each music file? If that's not the case then a single crack of a player is going to yield access to every music file, which is a totally different environment from the very limited world of specialist copy protection on music-creation software.
Oh, and who'd want to crack ProTools anyway ;)
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Oh, and at risk of spamming the thread:
What finn doesn't get is technology can change in the future. When you buy music in the future it could be encrpyted, only playable with a key, have the purchasers id put through it for tracking, be playable on devices that have no analogue output and no way of easily copying it other than an analogue microphone recording.
Who's going to pay for those devices? The consumer? Why? And why would they buy a device with no analogue output given that uh... it would be impossible to listen to? Or are you suggesting a device that transmits music directly into our brains rather than needing analogue devices like headphones and speakers?
As for encryption and keys, do you even know what you're talking about? Yes, you can encrypt a piece of content to a key so only somebody with that key can decrypt it. The problem, as we keep explaining to you and as you appear to be mentally unable to grasp, is that you are giving the key to the listener in order for them to be able to listen to the media. If you don't give them the key in some way, they can't listen to it.
What you're suggesting with locked-down tamper-proof hardware is a possibility. But if the music industry wants to keep having billions of potential customers then they're going to need to make sure billions of hardware units are built. Who pays? Me? Why? I don't want it, it offers no benefit to me. It offers benefit to the music industry, but it's not going to be cost-effective for the industry to buy new CD players for everybody on earth.
As I keep saying to you, the solutions you desire involve the complete replacement of the modern PC as a media platform. It would need to be totally redesigned, and everybody's existing machines replaced. Who is going to pay for that? Are you going to buy me a new PC? Why would I want one that clearly sucks more than the design I have now?
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Robbery, the "offer the consumer less" is not about offering less than the illegal alternatives, it's about offering them less than they get now. I really do question your ability to actually read what people are writing to you.
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the radiohead example was a disturbing reflection on either them or their fans with 65% of them paying nothing a further 28% paying fuck all and only a handful paying market rate or showing them some respect.
I paid 1p for the Radiohead album. Not because I thought it was worth 1p, just that I a) hadn't heard it yet and b) didn't think that 160kbps MP3 was much more than try-before-you-buy quality. I'll buy the album in the proper (read: lossless) format soon.
Anybody who paid "market rate" (you mean CD price?) for 160kbps lossy MP3 with virtually zero distribution cost and no packaging or artwork screwed themselves royally.
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For "impossible" in "copying is impossible." read possible... bloody late-night posting...
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an article on a similar system I suggested for anti music piracy for people who think effective drm is impossible
Um, so you're suggesting that people who want to listen to music will throw away all of their existing hardware and buy it all again just so they can be prevented from copying music with it? Sure, I can see myself really wanting to do that, along with the rest of the world. Sounds like it'll sell like hot cakes.
I keep telling you that it is impossible with the current hardware that is already out there. It is impossible because the existing playback hardware and media is not designed to be protected from copying, and ultimately at the very end of the line if somebody wants to copy a piece of music that can be played out of good-quality speakers then they can stick a frigging good-quality microphone in front of it and do some calibration/automatic processing to make up for the lossy nature of the process. Hello, DRM-free digital encoding of 2nd-generation analogue copy. That's better quality that most of the tapes I had in the 1980s, and certainly not necessarily worse than the lossy files that I can go pay for on iTunes right now.
You can't stop people copying. You can try, but it's a giant rubbish bin into which you will keep tipping money. There are people in business who will gain from this, but they're the snake-oil salesmen who try to convince you that preventing copying is impossible.
Now, as for all your questions about those wonderful creative arty people: I should point out to you that my background is in music. I don't have this religious hatred of musicians making a living wage, and in fact that would be a damn fine thing. It might allow me to stop working in IT so I can pay my rent, for example! Wouldn't that be nice.
My problem with your position is that it's based on fact-free fantasy about what is actually possible in the real world. DRM will not save a business model built on the key assumption that mass digital copying and sharing is impossible. It is possible, has been possible for a decade and it's going to keep being possible from now until the human race vanishes and/or returns to a pre-1990s level of technology. You can keep denying reality or you can work on a new business model that works in the real world.
What annoys me about your position is that this kind of denial is what is preventing the people with the chequebooks in the music industry from making the real investment they need to be making in order to not end up totally fucked. You're right, people having a popular sense of entitlement to music without paying for it is a bad thing. But there's no way you're going to stem that tide with some sanctimonious adverts and a competing product which doesn't even pretend to be better on a feature-for-feature comparison than the illegal alternatives.
You can stand in front of an incoming tidal wave and shout that you're going to sue it all you like, but don't be surprised when it just washes you away and flattens your house...
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Robbery, I've been away for a while, but I'm disappointed that you won't actually engage and describe precisely what role a "working" DRM has to play, instead trying to suggest that it's self-evident from the name. It's not, and that response seems more than a bit lazy.
I will attempt to answer the question for you, even if I'm making your argument for you.
A working DRM system would be a system that would secure digital content from copying and sharing not authorised by the person who created the content. It would be impossible to crack or strip from the original delivered media, while allowing the listener to enjoy the content they've bought without running into technical problems.
Is that what you have in mind? Because yes, it is impossible on current PC hardware. It's a broken idea.
You seem to think that the "impossible to crack or strip" part is semi-negotiable - it only has to be a little bit inconvenient. But that's not the case, because if it's only a little tricky then it gets shared anyway. And BTW, you don't need a dual layer DVD drive to copy a DVD-9. There are programs that'll re-encode the disc for you with just a couple of clicks, including handling the removal of any DRM. It's less tricky than getting Office 2003 to open a .docx file...
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Note to self: use preview....
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yet, as I said, there is no good DRM, that doesn't mean the concept of DRM is bad, it means the implementation of it is.
Um, no. What I'm trying to explain to you is that the concept is so bad that implementation of a system that isn't broken is logically impossible given current market variables like the design of the consumer PC. You've not provided any argument against this, so I can really only assume that your concept of the nature of DRM is either totally flawed or you have a very different idea about what the word means from me.
What is DRM? Why is it useful in any way? That might be a good place for us to start to get this sorted out.
<no thats your concept of what drm needs to do. Remember reasonably effective drm exists on modern dvds. it is bypassable but its a minor hassle. I'm sure if music manufacturers could make drm that worked and was a minor hassle to bypass they'd be happy. just because they haven't found that solution yet doesn't mean they won't./quote>
Are those the same DVDs that are all over the file-sharing networks and available over the counter from every pirate in Asia? How exactly is that a working DRM system? What does it do or achieve? I'm very confused as to what exactly you're holding up as positive attributes, given you yourself admit the system is breakable and the content leaks onto file-sharing networks anyway.
<quote>and you're failing to grasp it doesn't matter what you like doing, its what you're allowed to do. presently piracy is illegal, but it efficently unpolicable for now.ie you can get away with it, sort of.
No, it decidedly does matter what people like doing. The reasoning you're taking here is pretty similar to that which backed the USA's failed attempt at prohibition: this thing is wrong, and if we make it illegal then people will stop doing it. I take it you recall how well that worked out.