DRM technology and policy

[C Wegrzyn]

Boy has this gone on for a long time. It is a very religious issue. Let 
me start out by saying that I was once the CTO of a DRM company - 
Authentica. Now with that said here is how I see it. DRM can be viewed 
in a totally different way. It is meant to keep most of the people 
"honest" but will never stop those that really want at the content. If 
you look at it this way you will see that you don't need to worry about 
stopping every instance just make it hard enough that 80% (90%?) of the 
people can't crack it.

We all know on this list that nothing is completely secure, regardless 
of how hard you try. Whatever the mind of man can create someone can 
figure out how to get around it.

FWIW,
Chuck Wegrzyn


Andreas Bogk wrote:

>"John S. Denker" <jsd at monmouth.com> writes:
>
>  
>
>>Techniques that don't protect a song might work just
>>fine to protect computer programs including games.
>>    
>>
>
>I've spent the better part of my youth cracking computer game copy
>protection schemes.  Let me tell you: bits are bits, and once you can
>lay your hands on the bits, you can copy them.  The semantics of the
>bits don't make a difference at all.
>
>The only thing you *can* do is taking away control over the computer
>from the user.  This is not only hard to do, but also something I
>fundamentally oppose: it's *my* computer with *my* data on it, so *I*
>should be the ultimate authority over what is going on on my computer.
>
>If that breaks a business model that was invented right with the
>printing press, tough luck.  Making a copy of something is no longer a
>scarce resource.  DRM is nothing but a try to keep it scarce for a
>little longer.
>
>Andreas
>
>  
>



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