Re: [Fsfe-uk] DRM, TPM, or what? was: TV show about copyright, the Internet and DRM

[Alex Hudson]

On Tue, 2006-05-09 at 17:54 +0100, Simon Waters wrote:
> Shane M. Coughlan wrote:
> > I usually call this DRM measure my handy public key encryption.  It
> > existed before the hype of DRM, and I am guessing OpenPGP stuff will
> > exist after.
> 
> Ah but that isn't DRM, that is encryption.

I think DRM is any technology which can control the use/copying of
digital files. For example, encrypting something could be DRM if the
computer was supplied such that it only executed binaries that were
decrypted with a master key stored in its ROM or something. (I _think_
this is how Xbox security works/did work.. at least part of the system
was encrypted IIRC).

Alan Cox infamously considered file permissions to be a form of DRM (or,
at least, capable of being used as such). But, I wouldn't want to run a
machine without them, and I suspect neither would he.

> DRM is about getting legislation in to control peoples activity

I think that's a bad distinction too ;) As counter examples;

  * copyright controls your activity, but doesn't involve DRM per se;
  * DRM would still work without legislative activity.

I guess without legislation, DRM becomes a lot harder to get right, but
I think that's a theory versus practice thing (as in, in theory no DRM
can be perfect, but in practice they can be made tough enough that it
would take too long to break - much like encryption, in fact [breakable
in theory; in practice it's impossible]).

DRM is a really difficult beast to nail down, and I suspect it's
subjective. We know what we don't like, but I don't think there are any
bright-line tests to "detect" it mechanically, as it were.

Cheers,

Alex.