[Linux-aus] Microsoft Office 2003 lock-in via DRM

[Les Bell]

"Stewart Smith" <stewartsmith at mac.com> wrote:

>>
I'd argue that it's not possible *at all* to implement a DRM system.
<<

As I mentioned in the other thread elsewhere, I'm reminded of the people
who broke DRM'ed eBooks by the simple expedient of doing screen captures
and then feeding the resultant bitmap images to an OCR program. So simple,
so obvious.

Yet there's a lot of money and effort being poured into TCPA and whatever
Palladium is now called. They obviously believe that they can lock
everything down, from the hardware platform right up to the application.
Personally, knowing how PKI's tend to bog down in a morass of complexity, I
think there's a good chance the whole thing will progressively break down
as people find it at first inconvenient and then downright dangerous to
their data and health.

I certainly don't see any prospect of implementing DRM on open source
software, and see this as a potential failing of FOSS in the eyes of
certain market segments. If MS *do* succeed in making a sophisticated yet
easy-to-use DRM (they're calling it an IRM) system in Office 2003, that
will be a competitive advantage that is difficult to counter,
unfortunately.

>>
It's especially interesting what with my work and research into secure
systems such as Walnut (and the problem of how do you back up a secure
system without breaking the security). i'll be happy to rant on that,
asking ppl doing research about their area of research always makes them
feel happy :)
<<

Well, I (for one) would love to have a chat to you about that some time,
but I suspect this is not the best place . . .

Best,

--- Les Bell, RHCE, CISSP
[http://www.lesbell.com.au]