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Suppressing The Concerns Over HDCP Content Protection For Intel's Linux DRM Driver

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  • #21
    Originally posted by madscientist159 View Post

    Glad to see someone else thinking along these lines! The reality is, a signal encrypted by HDCP is basically unable to be remotely sniffed even if you did know the HDCP master keys simply due to how fragile the whole process is and the fact that RF radiation from the encoded data is not practically recoverable (high entropy, signal looks like white noise to the receiver) as compared to a raw, unencrypted VGA or DVI/HDMI stream.

    It won't catch all interceptions by any stretch of the imagination, but it does make it a lot harder to snoop on the monitor signals without inserting some device in the line that can be found on visual inspection....

    Best, of course, would be the ability to set up a key with your specific display devices ("pair" the monitors to the GPU, for lack of a better analogy). Even physical access to the monitor cable and/or monitor wouldn't yield snooping ability if this scheme was implemented correctly.
    interesting thought, now is the first time I actually want HDCP for my workstation display ;-)

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    • #22
      Originally posted by shmerl View Post

      ... The main problem of DRM is its intent. Its very premise is privacy breaching preemptive policing based on presumption of guilt. So in its essence it's overreaching and therefore unethical. Same you'd find unethical if police would monitor or restrict your every move by default "just in case" you decide to do something illegal.
      If users weren't fucking morons violating author's rights, then there wouldn't be any need for DRM in first place.

      ​​​​​

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      • #23
        Originally posted by kravemir View Post

        If users weren't fucking morons violating author's rights, then there wouldn't be any need for DRM in first place.

        ​​​​​
        The problem is the DRM assumes all user's are "fucking morons violating author's rights" (including you) and automatically applies a punishment. And when it comes to author rights being violated that is usually happening higher up the chain at e.g. the Hollywood producer level, not little Timmy who downloaded an MP3.
        Last edited by MagicMyth; 05 December 2017, 05:13 AM. Reason: Edit: Tweak to make clear Hollywood producer is just one example. Add there many others including Record Labels.

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        • #24
          In my BIOS, I have an option to enable or disable HDCP support for my Intel iGPU. It's disabled

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          • #25
            Originally posted by madscientist159 View Post

            Glad to see someone else thinking along these lines! The reality is, a signal encrypted by HDCP is basically unable to be remotely sniffed even if you did know the HDCP master keys simply due to how fragile the whole process is and the fact that RF radiation from the encoded data is not practically recoverable (high entropy, signal looks like white noise to the receiver) as compared to a raw, unencrypted VGA or DVI/HDMI stream.

            It won't catch all interceptions by any stretch of the imagination, but it does make it a lot harder to snoop on the monitor signals without inserting some device in the line that can be found on visual inspection....

            Best, of course, would be the ability to set up a key with your specific display devices ("pair" the monitors to the GPU, for lack of a better analogy). Even physical access to the monitor cable and/or monitor wouldn't yield snooping ability if this scheme was implemented correctly.
            Sorry but... the only thing that HDCP protects against is reading the data off the cable, by consequence you're automatically assuming physical access... and if physical access is compromised most people really aren't looking at their cables, especially their video cables what with them being behind the monitor hooking to the back of the desktop unit.

            So no... this would be quite pointless, and would amount to nothing more than security theater.

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            • #26
              Originally posted by MagicMyth View Post
              The problem is the DRM assumes all user's are "fucking morons violating author's rights" (including you) and automatically applies a punishment. And when it comes to author rights being violated that is usually happening higher up the chain at e.g. the Hollywood producer level, not little Timmy who downloaded an MP3.
              You're right, that we all are limited, because of (unfortunately, in a lot of countries, a majority) of users are violating authorship rights. But, violation happens by all users participating in the chain.

              In our country, every acquirement or use, of an audiovisual work, without fulfillment of license terms, therefore avoiding to reward the author based on terms, is considered as violation of author's rights, and can be punished.

              But, some authors of our country published they work under license, with following meaning: freely make physical copies of our work, but don't modify them and don't use or distribute any modified versions,... (and some limitations about commercial and public usage)

              And, I had used to belong to the group of "fucking morons violating author's rights". In society, where I grew up, the common opinion was, that it's correct/right to copy protected audiovisual works. Well, CD/DVD material costs 0.5€, why pay 5€ to 15€ for a work? If somebody bought legally something, they laughed at him, that he bought it at 10 times bigger costs, than it really costs.

              A lot of end users still don't value non-material things/work. They don't see, that it took years of work, to come up with an good idea, and finish the idea. That, transformation of an idea to audiovisual form, costed lots of resources. And, that material used to store and deliver data to user, is just a tiny part of it all,...

              So, I pretty much respect their desire to protect their audiovisual work as much as they can.

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              • #27
                Kravemir: there are other ways for content creators (artists, musicians, movie makers, streamers etc) to make money besides using the laws that provide temporary monopolies to people (namely copyright and patent law). It's not like a culture of data sharing is going to result in starving artists and a world of empty grey walls and white noise because no one creates anything.

                Here are some ideas you can use to make money if you are a content creator:
                • sell physical merchandise
                • request donations
                • request a voluntary payment per copy (pay what you want)
                • run a concert and have dudes at the door that don't let you in if you don't pay
                • sell official physical copies of your content with cute extra toys/maps/things included in the box. As an aside, there is actually a subculture of people who love physical copies of digital content and businesses are even being setup to tailor to their needs: https://www.limitedrungames.com/
                • offer to do custom work for people for a high fee (ie someone pays you to make a special image or special song). With a little bit of intelligence it should be easy to work out a system whereby you are guaranteed payment for your work.
                • use a crowd funding service to get the full amount you desire before releasing your images/music/video/code to the world
                • create a subscription service like patreon where by paid subscribers get first access to your content and get access to special content which may never even end up on the web outside of your subscription service.
                • advertising
                None of those ideas are hypothetical or unrealistic. I've seen all of them used and I've been on the paying side of all but one of them.

                None of those ideas require copyright / patents, and tv adverts portraying people who share data as being thieving, malicious, conspiratorial, dark-pirates. For example: the characters pictured at 52seconds into this recent propaganda piece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlzEQVfNuJk

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                • #28
                  The problem is like that: Companies that distribute protected content have to support two different system standards, one with hardware protection and one with not. They afraid the one with not but they cannot just block their customers, so they want to enforce the first. At one point they will say to you: use this to play or go away. This is the reason that i don't want this on my system, regardless if i will ever use it. I think there are a lot of situations in silicon valley that we should go to courts.

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                  • #29
                    Originally posted by kravemir View Post

                    You're right, that we all are limited, because of (unfortunately, in a lot of countries, a majority) of users are violating authorship rights. But, violation happens by all users participating in the chain.

                    In our country, every acquirement or use, of an audiovisual work, without fulfillment of license terms, therefore avoiding to reward the author based on terms, is considered as violation of author's rights, and can be punished.

                    But, some authors of our country published they work under license, with following meaning: freely make physical copies of our work, but don't modify them and don't use or distribute any modified versions,... (and some limitations about commercial and public usage)

                    And, I had used to belong to the group of "fucking morons violating author's rights". In society, where I grew up, the common opinion was, that it's correct/right to copy protected audiovisual works. Well, CD/DVD material costs 0.5€, why pay 5€ to 15€ for a work? If somebody bought legally something, they laughed at him, that he bought it at 10 times bigger costs, than it really costs.

                    A lot of end users still don't value non-material things/work. They don't see, that it took years of work, to come up with an good idea, and finish the idea. That, transformation of an idea to audiovisual form, costed lots of resources. And, that material used to store and deliver data to user, is just a tiny part of it all,...

                    So, I pretty much respect their desire to protect their audiovisual work as much as they can.
                    Even that conception of "author's rights" is based on industry propaganda. For most of human history, "cultural artifacts" enjoyed no copyright-like protection.

                    Copyright began as a censorship pact between the crown and the printer's guilds. ("You refuse to print stuff we don't like and we'll throw anyone else who uses a printing press in prison.")

                    When U.S. copyright began, it was specifically designed to incentivize more content entering the public domain with the following restrictions:
                    1. It was opt-in, not opt-out.
                    2. The constitution specifically grants congress the ability to enact copyright laws "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." (emphasis mine)
                    3. The original U.S. copyright law only applied to "maps, charts, and books".
                    4. Original copyright law was for 14 years with the ability to renew for another 14.
                    5. Music became copyrightable as a creeping process via "printed compilations of sheet music qualify as 'books'" and "If sheet music is copyrightable, recorded music should be too".
                    Recipes, fashion designs, and jokes still aren't copyrightable, yet restaurants, clothing companies, and comedians still turn a profit. (Brand-name clothing companies tend to rely on trademark law by prominently featuring their own logos.)

                    ...and why should art and culture be copyrightable? Why should most of the population have to toil away at a 9-to-5 job while a specific subset of entrepreneurs who go by titles like "musician" get to leech off a single afternoon's recording session for the rest of their lives?

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                    • #30
                      Originally posted by shmerl View Post

                      Compare a lock you put on your door to keep strangers out, and lock someone puts on your cell to keep you in. It's same lock, but purpose is quite different. Encryption can be used for your security, and it can be used to compromise it, by obscuring malicious code that runs on your system.

                      The main problem of DRM is its intent. Its very premise is privacy breaching preemptive policing based on presumption of guilt. So in its essence it's overreaching and therefore unethical. Same you'd find unethical if police would monitor or restrict your every move by default "just in case" you decide to do something illegal.
                      HDCP is all about securing a link between a sink and a source so nothing in between can intercept it. It is something that is used by DRM systems, but it does not have to be.

                      and like a lock you can use it different ways.

                      as for the obscuring malicious code, this is open source code, setting up and encrypted tunnel between 2 end points that have full access to the source. this is not the part of the DRM system that you should be getting angry at. it's like being angry at ssh!

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