Does it take hardware to repel pirates?

[R. A. Hettinga]

http://zdnet.com.com/2102-1106-867333.html


Does it take hardware to repel pirates?
By Robert Lemos
Special to ZDNet News
March 22, 2002, 4:35 PM PT
URL: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-867333.html

Software alone can't stop digital piracy, researchers said this week,
emphasizing that only a totally secured infrastructure has a chance to
eliminate the problem.

The recommendations come as opposition builds against a proposed bill that
would force hardware makers to add anti-copying features to MP3 players and
other devices. Although legislators and device makers both see a need for a
hardware solution to securing digital content, the groups are at odds over
the government's efforts to regulate such technology.

"Every single device has to be secure," said Darko Kirovski, a researcher
studying watermarking and security technologies at Microsoft Research. "If
one device is not secure, then this (digital content protection) doesn't
work."

Kirovski's comments underscore the enormous difficulties facing the
consumer electronics and entertainment industries, which have been
struggling for years to agree on anti-piracy standards. Now a legislative
backlash against hardware makers is gathering force that could further
polarize the two sides.

On Thursday, Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C., introduced the Consumer
Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, which mandates that devices
handling digital content have an industry standard means of protecting that
content from piracy.

Previously known as the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act,
the draft legislation has been widely criticized. Some technology companies
say it meddles in the development of digital content distribution;
civil-rights advocates contend it breaks the balance between the rights
legally given to copyright holders and citizens' rights to information.

In a technical briefing earlier in the week, Kirovski wouldn't comment on
such issues, but he spelled out what must be done to secure copyright
holders' digital content in what he called "an idyllic world."

"In order to prevent piracy, you really cannot rely on the current hardware
and software," he said. "You cannot build software which is trusted if your
hardware is not trusted."

Kirovski outlined several research advances at Microsoft's March Silicon
Valley Speaker Series on Wednesday. In an ideal world, where every device
is secured for digital content, techniques could be used not only to
protect content but also to embed digital fingerprints in a media file,
helping copyright holders track the pirates who work together to break
protected content.

Some manufacturers have already been pushing an industry standard for
locking down content at the hardware level. The 4C Entity, made up of
Intel, IBM, Toshiba and Matsushita Electric, has created technology called
Content Protection for Recordable Media that would add a piracy-blocking
mechanism directly into data storage drives. The National Committee on
Information Technology Standards turned down the proposal last year.

Despite those efforts, the proposed anti-piracy bill has run into a wall of
opposition from high-tech companies who contend it will hamper their
copy-protection efforts by imposing inflexible requirements.

Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer for network protection firm
Counterpane Internet Security, said the bill would essentially lock up all
content in boxes controlled by copyright holders no matter what device or
computer the information is on. The legislation would also have
far-reaching effects on the software and computer industry, making almost
all of today's software and hardware illegal and putting open-source
software in a tight spot, he said.

"If the only thing you want to do in your life is protect the content of
the record companies and Hollywood, then the (proposed bill) is a great
thing," he said. "If you put everybody in a box and locked them all in,
then you wouldn't have murder either...For the entertainment industry to
put this forward just shows how much of the economy they are willing to
sacrifice for their ends."

Some companies that make the current technology for protecting digital
music, known as watermarking technology, also don't fully support the bill.

Matt Smith, vice president of product marketing for content-protection
technology maker Liquid Audio, called Kirovski's research "interesting, but
not really applicable" in a world where anyone can burn a CD into an MP3
file. He said a government-mandated solution is not desirable either.

"These things take time," he said. "It's an evolutionary process. It takes
patience to allow the secure infrastructure to be built out."



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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA

The IBUC Symposium on Geodesic Capital
April 3-4, 2002, The Downtown Harvard Club, Boston
<mailto: rah at ibuc.com> for details...

"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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