Intel Is Working On HDCP Content Protection For Linux Graphics Stack

[bug77]

I don't see any point in it even as an option when it's supposed to prevent a type of piracy that hasn't really been a thing since VHS cassettes went away.

The point isn't about whether it's useful or not. The point is Linux is supposed to be the land of choices. And that includes bad/poor choices (as in: am I really free if I'm not allowed to stuff myself with burgers to death? - completely useless, but I'd like to know I have the option).

[R41N3R]

As long as we can turn it off... but I would like to see them fixing some of the annoying bugs instead.

[L_A_G]

The point isn't about whether it's useful or not. The point is Linux is supposed to be the land of choices. And that includes bad/poor choices (as in: am I really free if I'm not allowed to stuff myself with burgers to death? - completely useless, but I'd like to know I have the option).

Having choices for the sake of having them, not for the sake of those choices actually making any kind of sense, is pointless. It's like offering hamburgers with rat poison in them for the sake of offering choices.

[bug77]

Having choices for the sake of having them, not for the sake of those choices actually making any kind of sense, is pointless. It's like offering hamburgers with rat poison in them for the sake of offering choices.

You don't get to decide what's pointless. If that rat poison doesn't harm dogs, those burgers can still have a purpose.

Edit: Let me rephrase that. You only get to decide what's pointless for you, you don't get to decide what's pointless for everyone.

[mulenmar]

OH HELL NO.

I did NOT leave one rathole of "LOL you don't own the disc you purchased! Hurr durr, property rights? Durr hurr backups?! Don't make us laugh, we'll bust our suitjacket buttons!" just for it to invade its utter antithesis! And don't give me that shit about it having good uses against screen-scrapers -- as has been stated already, realtime HDCP decryption is already possible, though requiring multiple cores at 1080p+. The freakin' master key is known, too, so the entire scheme is USELESS for ANY kind of security.

It's MY computer, MY devices, don't try telling me what I can and can't do with it, barring my actions preventing others from using theirs'. DRM does exactly that.

Under no circumstances should this useless malware be incorporated.

It probably will be anyway, with some "backroom" emails on Intel's management's part threatening to cut all future support for non-Windows/macOS systems unless this code is incorporated, followed by legal threats to remove the configuration switch to disable it.

Said managers need to get through their thick skulls that the time of information censorship (via DMCA crap or otherwise) is over, and has been impractical since the frickin' Commodore 64. Quit trying, you're only stifling actually-useful innovation.

Besides all that, the only direct user of this interface would be proprietary, non-auditable, closed-source blobs (libOEMCrypto or whatever) to do whatever decryption needs to be done. To my non-lawyer understanding, there's no other way they can do it without violating the DMCA, EU Copyright Directive, or whatever the local copyright law is. As such, about the only way this is getting into the upstream Linux kernel is some MPAA-funded FBI assassinations. So, seriously, no matter what direction you look at it: The hell is the point of this?

[L_A_G]

You don't get to decide what's pointless. If that rat poison doesn't harm dogs, those burgers can still have a purpose.

Edit: Let me rephrase that. You only get to decide what's pointless for you, you don't get to decide what's pointless for everyone.

So we're moving into the territory of post-modernist subjective "truths" are we?

Because HDCP really is objectively pointless. The supposed benefactors of it are the film and TV industry, but because it can easily be broken and bypassed nobody actually benefits from it. It's merely a hindrance for people who own displays that don't support it or more recent versions of it and when people want to record or stream what they're doing on a device outputting via HDMI.

[bug77]

So we're moving into the territory of post-modernist subjective "truths" are we?

Because HDCP really is objectively pointless. The supposed benefactors of it are the film and TV industry, but because it can easily be broken and bypassed nobody actually benefits from it. It's merely a hindrance for people who own displays that don't support it or more recent versions of it and when people want to record or stream what they're doing on a device outputting via HDMI.

No, we're not. I said in my first post HDCP was born pointless, but given the option, I'd like the ability to enable it if needed. That was just a technical consideration on my part.
You then swooped in and concluded that if it's pointless for home users, it should get no support in Linux. Which is something I disagree with. No subjective truths involved.

[M@GOid]

Most people are looking at this as a freedom problem.

The way I'm looking at it is that Intel is making easier to hackers to mess around with a opensource implementation of HDCP. So creating new methods of breaking it.

But that is just me.

[mulenmar]

Most people are looking at this as a freedom problem.

The way I'm looking at it is that Intel is making easier to hackers to mess around with a opensource implementation of HDCP. So creating new methods of breaking it.

But that is just me.

It legally cannot be completely open source, due to the DMCA's anti-circumvention and anti-communication-about-circumvention clauses. The "interesting" -- and already long-ago leaked anyway -- stuff will have to be hidden in a blob.

[bug77]

It legally cannot be completely open source, due to the DMCA's anti-circumvention and anti-communication-about-circumvention clauses. The "interesting" -- and already long-ago leaked anyway -- stuff will have to be hidden in a blob.

You don't need to analyse the whole chain to find a weak link