On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 14:23, Paul Webster <[email protected]> wrote:
> And for practical purposes ... the UserAgent field changes with version
> updates.
You would think, wouldn’t you…
> So - as software gets updated it would mean that the back-end would also
> have to go through the library and re-generate keys for old material (or
> recalculate it on the fly on access).
> Taking just an invariable sub-string of the UserAgent field ("product" up to
> the "/") would remove the issue.
>
> But is this an attempt to determine if "rogue"-application1 using the
> UserAgent string of "legal"-application2 might be the basis of some sort of
> legal protection (copyright or DCMA-style infringement)?
>
> Sounds unlikely to me - given that changing UA field is routinely done and
> documented (e.g. Opera includes it in standard UI so that it can get into
> sites that include code for specific browsers but don't recognise standard
> Opera).
> (MS-IE identifying itself as "Mozilla" is an example of hackery in this
> area)
That’s certainly the case in HTTP. Less so in other protocols. As far
as I know, there’s only one single UA in RMTP (and only one
“Server”-equivalent response).
Indeed, one could contend that the fact there’s only one suitable
value in each direction relegates it to a protocol-level constant
which couldn’t possibly be used as the basis for any legal protection.
> Meanwhile - what happens when someone distributes one of more of the pairs
> of user-agent/key - in that case the "rogue" app will not need direct access
> to the original file.
Yup. Or, a rogue user just distributes the media by hand. Or obtains
it through some other means…
> Personal view - I wish that the Flash verification had not been turned on -
> and I would like to see the impact analysis that BBC did before doing it.
You’re assuming there was some. I’m not at all convinced there was
any, and I suspect that’s part of why it was just quietly switched on.
I do think the BBC is (collectively) genuine when it says that it’s
unfortunate that XBMC has stopped working.
This raises more questions than it answers. There are plenty of people
on this list alone who could have trivially pointed out the various
unintended consequences of doing it, and it’s certainly not won many
prizes in the old PR stakes. With the current consultation on iPlayer
running and the threat of political turmoil, it seems to me to be the
_worst_ possible time to attempt to quietly flip the switch. It really
is Freeview HD all over again: quietly do it, hope that nobody
notices.
The difference in the Freeview HD case is that there was actually
straightforward logical reasoning for not telling anybody; the
engineers _knew_ the measures would do nothing at all with respect to
piracy, but if the rightsholders knew that the public knew it was
worthless (even though we’d all find out in a matter of days anyway,
especially given that Freesat has it), then they’d walk away. Get them
to sign on the dotted line first. Questions persist about BBC HD on
Freesat, of course, but they can mostly be put down to everything
being sorted out at the last minute rather than any real screw-ups
(I’m not convinced the Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee would
necessarily view the debacle quite so generously, though).
I do wonder how much of the TV budget adjustments in the strategy
review were driven by the difficulties in getting content from third
parties; if the BBC is making more programmes itself, or at least
commissioning them into a known landscape (rather than buying them in
from the US), there are limits to who can quibble about it
broadcasting FTA, HD or otherwise.
My gut feeling is that in this case, nobody with any real involvement
in the change actually stopped to consider what negative impact it
might have (rather than knowing full well what it was and crossing
fingers).
The PR geniuses need to be taken out and shot, though. Ian Hunter’s
blog post was an utter disaster. Given the technically-minded audience
of the BBC Internet Blog, wheeling out the Managing Editor of Online
to blind everyone with some technical terms was an ill-thought-out
move, at best. This situation is one where honesty really would be the
best policy:
“Sorry about this. We hadn’t actually considered that things like XBMC
would break. In all honesty, we didn’t perform a proper analysis of
pros and cons in making this change, and promise to consider the
implications of things like this more carefully in the future. Just so
that everybody’s clear, though, using an unsupported client means that
it can break altogether at _any_ time, even if the reason for the
breakage seems utterly unfathomable from a logical point of view.”
M.
M.
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