Ross's TCPA paper

[Nick Popoff]

Greetings,

Nomen Nescio (nobody at dizum.com) wrote:
> Is the claim by Ross and Lucky that the TCPA is a fraud, secretly
> designed for the purpose of supporting DRM while using the
> applications above merely as a cover to hide their true purposes?
> If so, shouldn't we expect to see the media content companies as
> supporters of this effort?

First, do not forget that Microsoft IS a media company, involved in both
cable broadcasting and the video game market.  Second, strong adoption of
DRM is a competitive advantage for all technology companies now.  The
recent public humiliation of tech execs at the hands of the media
industry's people in Washington made the rules of the game very clear. 
The protection of intellectual property is a core value of both parties in
the USA and "market forces" will not be trusted to protect them.

Take a moment to read the following MSNBC (see?  media company) article
describing Microsoft's new Palladium initiative.  Note how carefully each
point of the initiative is spelled out for the curious consumer.  My
favorite is the reason he gives for encrypting the video signal to the
monitor:  Someone may be in a van outside controlling your screen TEMPEST
style!  LOL!  Shameless!

http://www.msnbc.com/news/770511.asp

Quoting directly from Levy's article above.  I don't think it gets any
clearer than this.  Note the use of the word "hackers" in this case is
interchangable with the phrase "owner asserting fair use rights".

----------------------

 In 1997, Peter Biddle, a Microsoft manager who used to run a paintball
arena, was the company’s liason to the DVD-drive world. Naturally, he
began to think of ways to address Hollywood’s fear of digital copying. He
hooked up with ’ Softie researchers Paul England and John Manferdelli, and
they set up a skunkworks operation, stealing time from their regular jobs
to pursue a preposterously ambitious idea—creating virtual vaults in
Windows to protect information. They quickly understood that the problems
of intellectual property were linked to problems of security and privacy.
        They also realized that if they wanted to foil hackers and
intruders, at least part of the system had to be embedded in silicon, not
software. This made their task incredibly daunting. Not only would they
have to build new secrecy functions into Windows (without messing up any
programs that run on the current versions), but then they’d have to
convince the entire industry to, in effect, update the basic hardware
setup of the PC.




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