[Perry - if you feel this is inappropriate, please simply discard this
message. I just felt I had to make my point. :-} Jan]
At 22:52 04.07.00 +0300, Helger Lipmaa wrote:
[...]
>See also
>http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/07/biztech/articles/03pate.html
An excerpt from that webpage:
>They say the encoding works so quickly that encryption keys could be
>instantly disposable. Data like songs could be encoded to play on only
>one specific music player or computer, after which that particular
>version of the code would be thrown away.
I'm probably just missing an important point here, however there's an issue
here that strikes me somewhat strange. The whole idea of having a cipher
(or a cryptosystem respectively) that allows the record industry to
completely illiminate any kind of music piracy must seem awfully actractive
in their eyes.
However, any such system must be accepted by their customers in order to be
effective (this makes usability an important issue). Having to bear in
mind, that MP3, SHN and other compression algorithms are being widely
deployed by users, they'd have to guarantee the same standards (concerning
music quality as well as convenience) at a lower price in order to be able
to compete. With people being used to playing MP3s right at their desktop
PCs, this would also include the necessity of providing WinAmp-style
software players.
This, however, brings a weekest-link-of-the-chain issue to my mind: since
there has to be some sort of output (normally to the user's speakers) there
are also numerous points of attack. For instance, one could capture the
unencrypted digital wave signal at the sound card, thereby rendering the
encryption scheme somewhat useless. IMO, a hardware-based solution wouldn't
really help much in this scenario since it would probably impact user
acceptance in a negative way and also not address some 'smartcardish'
problems (e.g. reverse engineering).
Additionally, this might raise some legal issues, as sharing digital music
might not be illegal in all countries (keep the EU MP3 innitiative in mind).
-Jan
