As our friend Cory Doctorow has been explaining for years, DRM for books is dangerous for readers, authors and publishers alike.

Richard Stallman explained it a decade earlier in a piece worth reviewing now and then -- https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html.

Some of Stallman's predictions were spot on.

In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.)

It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers—you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that.

Not quite there, but almost (wrt PCs).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_In...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module#Critic...

http://rt.com/news/windows-8-nsa-germany-862/

And of course it's illegal to install other operating systems on smartphones and other devices.

Citation required?

Most modern smartphones are bootloader locked. Circumventing those locks is arguably violating the anti-circumvention bits of the DMCA. Therefore, to install another OS, you have to break the law.

Worth mentioning is that it's illegal in the same way breaking the speed limit by 1MPH is illegal, i.e. technically against the law, but your chances for ending up in trouble for doing it are nil.

Yeah looks like that was the argument that held up until just a few years ago. I remember it being 'illegal' (like breaking the speed limit) at that time. As of 2010 it appears to have changed. Note that it IS illegal to modify a phone so that it connects to a carrier it wasn't 'intended' to connect to.

It might be illegal in _your_ country. But AFAIK reverse engineering or installing custom software on a device I bought is not illegal in Germany. Probably in most countries.

Motorola tried to tell me my phone warranty was off because I requested the bootloader unlock code from their site. Well, they're wrong. They cannot do that. It's illegal. I have every right to unlock my phone. Europe really is different from the USA.

Something voiding the warranty or being illegal is quite different matter though. I'm pretty sure that disassembling your phone voids your warranty but I would be surprised if it was illegal.

Warranties can be tied to limitations and restrictions the manufacturers make up. (There probably are some limitations to that to do with contract law. It surely is quite complicated, but voiding your warranty by unlocking your device doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.)

Warranties are voluntary and distinct from seller liability for defects in the product. That liability is legally required in the EU. The details of the implementation are different in different countries.

In Germany it’s like this: The seller (and only the seller) is liable and you have to go to the seller to make a liability claim. So if you bought your phone from Amazon you have to write Amazon, not Motorola. If you bought it from a carrier you have to go to the carrier. If you didn’t buy the phone directly from the manufacturer that manufacturer doesn’t have to do anything when you come to them with a defect phone. It’s the seller’s problem. (This is mostly to prevent a runaround, where seller and manufacturer both tell you each other is responsible for fixing the problem. This creates one entity that is clearly and obviously responsible and has to handle the problem.)

It’s for defects present when the device was sold and that’s it. (However, subsequent defects of some component because the device was delivered with some faulty or not up to spec components count, too.)

In the first six months the seller has to prove the defect wasn’t present when the device was delivered to not be liable. You, the buyer, don’t have to prove anything. That burden of proof, however, reverses after six months and up to 24 months (then there is no more liability), making it very hard in practice for buyers to prove after those six months that the defect was there when the device was sold. (However, courts have relaxed the requirements for that. Buyers usually don’t need to get some expensive expert opinion or something like that. If you can make a very good and informed argument for your case you should usually be covered.)

The seller can repair or replace the device. Buyers don’t have right to get their device replaced when it’s possible to repair it. If repairing and replacing fails a number of times (I think three) the buyer can demand their money back.

That’s the liability. A legal requirement and very complicated – and also wholly distinct from warranties.

By unlocking your phone you may have voided your warranty, but you certainly didn’t void the legal liability of the seller.

It's not reverse engineering that is illegal but "cirumventing a digital protection device" (modulo translation issues). What does Germany's implementation of the EUCD say?

The EUCD was the DMCA pushed through the EU by trade agreements. In some ways it's worse, since it lacks the safe harbor provision.

The end user situation isn't as bad though because there are other laws that protect you. In Sweden there is a provision that it is specifically allows it for interoperability reasons for example.

Funny you mention Germany though. It is one of the few countries that tried to outlaw "hacking tools", broadly defined as including a lot of reverse engineering tools you would use for the purpose you mentioned. I don't know what happened with that, perhaps the situation have improved?

Let's not forget the widening gap between "advanced user" and "developer", created by schemes like code signing, forced app-store distribution models, and the gradual removal of "only developers will need them" features from software. While there are arguably security benefits to such closed ecosystems, it also makes it much harder for users to be in control of their computers - which includes modifying and writing new software for them.

Compared to a PC today, the original IBM PC/XT/AT was amazingly open. All versions of DOS came with a basic debugger, which could also be used to write short Asm programs. I remember these being popularly published in the computing magazines of the time, and there was a general attitude of openness around that.

Perhaps the average user today doesn't care, but what astounds me is how much freedom we've given up in pursuit of security and safety. We seem to have gone down a path (or the corporations have led us down one) in which we're lead to believe that having responsibility and freedom is a bad thing, and that we'd be happier - blissfully ignorant - if we let these corporations (and governments) take over for us.

We've gone in a security model that Bruce Schneier calls Digital Feudalism. We give up rights to have large centralized organizations take care of our security for us. In exchange we give them data that they are allowed to sell. This is both for devices and for services (notably Web 2.0).

There are arguably benefits to this arrangement. Prostitutes have pimps, even though they cut into profits without taking much personal risk or providing much labor, because pimps do provide a safety mechanism. Likewise, vassals gave up large portions of what they produced for security from their lords and kings.

We've returned to this arrangement because:

1.) Paying is painful and copying software is easy. Instead of making money from you, Web 2.0 have monetized you as a target for advertisers. Web services are 'in' because that's the only way software can't be pirated. Much of our software today displays GUIs on a screen but runs on other computers because of this reason. The new Office products all run in the cloud, MMOs offer the same deal, and games like Diablo III can only run when in constant connection to the internet, even though there's no technical reason why that should be the case. XBox One tried to (and backpedaled from) make the xBox always on always connected. Other streaming video game and content services try the same. Essentially, the internet has become glorified TV (minimally interactive), with more channels.

2.) The internet is the Wild Wild West. Security professionals have been yelling for ages that the rush to release and the need to compete together with closed source development was making the world an insecure place. Essentially every layer of our computing stack is insecure. Attestation of computer intrusion is ridiculously hard. And there's money (and geopolitical power) to be had. We designed things insecure from the start, and continue to do so. Individuals can't stay secure on their own. It's not possible. So up with the lords and vassals - we know it sort of works from history.

I do think the average user cares. I don't think the average user is informed.

Piracy is a really huge part of it. Nothing is free. Pay for it or it finds someone who will pay for you.

... And If neither occurs, you won't get it at all. I've started to become increasingly convinced that huge scale piracy really did harm the quality of popular music. You can find some good obscure music today, but the average quality seems to have hugely declined in some objective way. Art is no more free than code, and good art really does cost more than bad art for all kinds of reasons... Fewer can make it, and quality takes time and sustained focus. Having some talentless tart squall into an auto tuner to a cliched catchy melody is cheap. Finding an Elizabeth Fraser and paying them to practice for 40 hours a week under the supervision of a professional choral voice instructor while you coach the band on composition in a recording studio is not. Why invest in a product nobody will pay for?

Funny how when I bring up the issue in the context of software everyone agrees. Of course people have to get paid somehow and of course polished products cost money. But on every forum including this one, nobody gets how there could be any relationship whatsoever between the quality of art and its ability to be financed. I think this comes down to one of the greatest myths about art: that it comes from some automatic and magical place and people either have it or they don't, and that artists make art solely out of duty to the muse. Like anything else art is a skill and doing it well requires practice, research, focus, coaching, even peer review, and all of that takes time during which many people including the artist must be supported. There is a component of inspiration but raw inspiration without the rest of it results in rough draft quality work that is only of value to the artist themselves.

Piracy undermines the ability to finance art just like it does in software. What's one of the first questions a VC asks about? Defensibility. In other words how will you protect your ability to monetize the value you create. You think investors only ask that question in software?

Art is subjective, code is not. Good code is testable. Good art is not testable.

Top40 music is palatable to many and is the exact result of what you describe: practice, research, focus, coaching, and peer review on a massive financed scale that "startup" bands could never afford.

Yet despite that, the indie music scene has never been more vibrant and alive than it is today. Instead of a small number of bands/groups producing music that all indie fans like, there's a huge pool of artists each producing their unique sound based on their own personal values of how music should be produced (including things like practice, focus, peer review, and other things not mentioned like experience, personality, and culture). That, to me, is art -- not a rehearsed manufactured production but an embedded experience unique to the artist you are listening to. That's what you heard in popular music until the mid nineties. The lack of quality popular music is not due to lack of craftsmanship.

The financial costs a young artist or group incurs to bring one or a few albums into the world are slim, but the cost in time is great, especially if they're also trying to keep food in their bellies by touring. But here's the thing - who can afford to do that for their whole careers? I think part of the costs parent is describing have to do with making art as a viable lifetime career, meaning, providing for healthcare and retirement. Sure, it's easier than ever for college-age people to put out some records, but if anyone is to make art a viable profession, money has to come from somewhere, and enough of it to make it viable as a living.

I don't know about the music, but Avatar, one of the most pirated movies of all times, was also one of the most financially successful. It seems like making quality movies still pays off.

Web services are 'in' because that's the only way software can't be pirated.

That is cognitive dissonance. If your revenue is derived from advertising then users installing ad blocking software is revenue-equivalent to users pirating your software. The fact that it's legal for users to do when piracy is not provides no support for argument that ad-supported services are on stronger financial footing.

The reason ad-supported services are winning is much simpler. Users prefer them to paying. So if one competitor is "free" (with ads) while another is charging money, the market picks the free one. But ad-supported services don't inherently require centralization or feudalism anyway.

The internet is the Wild Wild West.

The internet has never been the wild west. Modern computing devices are dramatically more secure than physical things like your house or your car. The internet is so far away from the wild west that we consider even the possibility of a security breach under rare circumstances to be a serious vulnerability and work quickly to close it. And the feudal lords are the ones making it worse -- is it even possible to patch a vulnerability on an un-rooted iPhone which is too old for Apple to patch it officially?

Having said that, I don't disagree that the reasons you're listing are the ones used to justify feudalism, they just happen to be factually incorrect.

Interesting perspectives, so here's another volley.

I think "users prefer ads to paying" is not a full explanation: I did include "paying is painful". If that's all there were - just upfront cost, how do we deal with the trend of connected software (Diablo III, etc) and devices whose primary developer feature is DRM?

The internet totally is the WWW. Well, it's an analogy. So no, it's not. But the analogy is useful in its most spirited form. There is no truly enforceable law and criminal and conspiratorial enterprises run abound. It's questionable whether the Feudal lords are making it better or worse. (One way they make it better is by having direct accountability.)

Modern computing devices are dramatically more secure than physical things like your house or your car.

Er, no. You can't break into my house from another country. Moreover, my computer is also a physical thing in my house, so it cannot easily be more secure than the house itself.

The patching of possible security breaches has become a weekly ritual. And there are hundreds of thousands of unpatched compromised computers sloshing around in botnets.

I'd be shocked and amazed if someone broke into my locked computer. Someone could break into my house with something as simple as a rock, though.

You can't break into my house from another country.

An attacker could certainly pay someone to break into your house from another country in much the same way as they pay their ISP to deliver malicious packets to your computer.

Moreover, my computer is also a physical thing in my house, so it cannot easily be more secure than the house itself.

That isn't strictly true. If your device has full disk encryption using a strong password, physical access doesn't get you much in the way of accessing the data.

It's easy to confuse this with the explanation of why DRM can't work, but they aren't the same thing. To access data you need either the plaintext, or the ciphertext and the key. DRM fails because you need one or the other in order to watch the content, which means an attacker inherently has in his possession what is necessary to get the data. But a locked or turned off device with disk encryption only gives the attacker the ciphertext without the key, which is an entirely different situation.

The patching of possible security breaches has become a weekly ritual.

That's kind of my point. Nobody recalls your car windows when they're discovered to be vulnerable to the "blunt force with heavy object" attack.

And there are hundreds of thousands of unpatched compromised computers sloshing around in botnets.

Hundreds of thousands out of billions is what, 0.01%?

> Web services are 'in' because that's the only way software can't be pirated.

That is cognitive dissonance. If your revenue is derived from advertising then users installing ad blocking software is revenue-equivalent to users pirating your software. The fact that it's legal for users to do when piracy is not provides no support for argument that ad-supported services are on stronger financial footing.

It is not difficult to foresee a world in which "forging the appearance of a website" is illegal and userscripts and userstyles are forbidden as well. How many sites try very hard to block right click to hide their code?

There are five actors that can modify the appearance of a website:

* the author,

* the server,

* the network,

* the browser,

* the user (instructing a browser's add on).

By definition the author can do whatever they want.

But what if the server started serving slightly different pages, maybe with advertisements? This is happening now with hosted blogs and publishing platforms; it is frowned upon but accepted.

If the network changes the content of a page, for example adding advertisements, the network will have to face a lot of bad reactions, so very few networks are doing it now. (see http://justinsomnia.org/2012/04/hotel-wifi-javascript-inject... )

The browser is in a similar situation. When Internet Explorer wanted to modify the received HTML to "enrich it", there has been a big backslash from authors «Microsoft thinks they can improve my writing. This makes me want to get a gun and go to war.» «With smart tags, Microsoft is able to insert their ads right into competitors’ sites.» (http://alistapart.com/article/smarttags )

So the authors are against modifications to the way their sites appear. Their remaining problem is _the user_. Authors cannot force the user to see what they produced: users have the freedom to install an ad-blocker or strip the CSS away. But we have to realize that this may be only a temporary situation. With the app-ification of the web, userscripts and userstyles are gone. And the content producers are happy about this.

Glad to hear someone air these thoughts out loud. I vastly preferred back when I could simply trade money for software. I don't like this new world in which I have to enter into a vaguely abusive intimate relationship with Google or whoever to pay for their product.

Except, even if Stallman didn't realize this, the story is mostly about state violence ("you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books", "free operating systems ... were they illegal") where DRM is used as a tool to control and monitor people.

DRM itself is not good or bad. As everything else, it can be abused, as Sony and Adobe showed us, or can be used for good (or neutral), for example, to allow indie shareware developers to let us try their software before purchasing a little registration code (I know, not free software, but let's not start this debate for now).

It's a logical error to say that DRM itself is evil when some of the instances of it are evil.

DRM is a "smart contract", a protocol for enforcing a contract without laws or violence. When you read that a person goes to prison for breaking DRM, realize that it has nothing to do with DRM, it's about state using violence to protect a failed smart contract, which is the opposite of the purpose of such smart contract.

It's a logical error to say that DRM itself is evil when some of the instances of it are evil.

All of the instances of DRM are evil, because all of the instances of DRM'ed stuff prevents practical and unlimited sharing.

In the digital world, any limitations on copying bits are akin to virtual restraints and locking information away. It prevents you from doing anything else than what the golden prison allows.

In the digital world, any limitations on copying bits are akin to virtual restraints and locking information away.

Jennifer Lawrence might disagree with your laissez faire attitude.

I'd argue that Jennifer Lawrence's sensitive bits shouldn't have been given to someone else (Apple) in the first place.

I assume you store all your money under the mattress? We all store "sensitive bits" (information) with others.

Sure. But there's not much to complaint about when those 3rd parties f* up, if you used them voluntarily...

I think you've just invalidated contract law wholesale.

Hah. You say that now. And then the bank messes up, and your savings account is empty. You're not going to complain? I think not. I think you're going to be screaming at the top of your lungs, calling lawyers, and so on.

Well, to get his money from under his mattress would require you to break into his home. That's different from him storing his money under your mattress.

Well, yes, that was my point, since chances are (s)he doesn't actually keep money under the mattress, but on some bank.

Indeed, if you come from the assumption that it's evil to limit the sharing of information/software, then DRM is evil, because that's the exact purpose of it. However, in this case, login systems, encryption, etc also evil because they prevent the sharing of information. Speaking of which, why do you lock information away from Adobe? Also, pass me your HN password, please :-)

But even if DRM's purpose is evil, it's still doesn't invalidate my argument: that it's a tool for peaceful enforcement of contracts (something you might not like), the exact opposite of the state's violent enforcement of contracts. The latter is the problem in Stallman's story, not the former.

Hmm, I was talking about DRM in the context of published information.

Obviously, in the case of private and/or sensitive information, you don't release anything to the public, so I'm not sure the protections (login system, etc...) can still fit in the definition of DRM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management:

    Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a class of technologies that are used by
    hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders, and individuals with
    the intent to control the use of digital content and devices after sale.

With publications, you give an access to other people (a restricted one if DRM is involved). It's not the same as not giving access to anyone but yourself.

The argument of copyright is that 'published' information is not public. It is still owned by its creator (or more often by one of the corporations that employ them), you just get a very limited license to do certain things with it, like reading it and maybe creating personal backups, but not other things, such as sharing it with others, either for free or as part of a commercial venture.

This distinction between owning and licensing information didn't use to be necessary in the publisher's business model for popular culture, because the cost (and, equally importantly, the profit margin) of distribution was significant: authors made and continue to make far less than their publishers, with rare exceptions.

The cost of distribution of digital information is so low that consumers will do it for free (BitTorrent). And since the power of publishers primarily derives from their ability to distribute copies, that is what they attempt to preserve, even though they do a lot of other things that continue to be valuable in today's digital world, like financing and advertising. This (not entirely irrational) attempt to preserve a dated business model is in turn perceived by consumers as a clampdown on their rights, leading to a backlash to the established publishing industry and enabling the (so far limited) success of new services like Spotify and Netflix, which don't have to take into account any reconceived notions of what their business is. People associate licensing an ebook with buying a treebook, but they tend to associate streaming with borrowing a book in the library.

"DRM is a "smart contract", a protocol for enforcing a contract without laws or violence."

No it isn't, because DRM fundamentally cannot enforce the contract it is supposed to; you can't allow people to view something while preventing them from copying it. DRM only "works" if circumventing DRM is made illegal; DRM is an attempt by copyright holders to introduce legal restrictions on fair-use copying and on copying devices with substantial non-infringing use. DRM is entirely legal and political, not technical.

That's a good argument, thank you! I'd argue that for DRM to work reasonably well (without coercion), it doesn't need to be perfect, it can work in the same way password stretching works: you don't get the absolute protection, but influence the cost (value). For example, when applied to software, DRM can be stripped, but then you'll be receiving the executable from a possibly untrusted source. However you are spot on that currently DRM is mostly legal and political, but I don't think that's the inherent property of it.

* * *

Unfortunately, seeing my comments downvoted makes me uncomfortable to continue discussion here on HN, as (when applied to reasonable comments) it provides instant feedback that you're going against the popular opinion, and I'd rather avoid such feedback, so I'll go think about it more and then write a blog post or something.

One can only hope this blows up for Adobe the same way that Sony's music rootkit did. The sooner companies understand that DRM is a universally hated technology, the sooner we can all move on.

Don't you think they already know that?

Abolishing DRM will require new breed of company. Only a few can still be profitable without it (Mozilla, anyone?). Those who can't should also be abolished together with DRM as outdated and obsolete (especially the worst offenders like Amazon or Adobe).

I have to add that Mozilla is now shipping DRM too: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/05/14/drm-and-the-challen...

That's very sad. :(

Let's not tread this ground again. Mozilla is shipping a plugin framework, not "DRM".

The publisher chooses to add DRM on Kindle books. Amazon doesn't require it; it's a checkbox in the publishing portal.

There are plenty of Kindle books that have no DRM.

Is there any way to tell when buying on Amazon.com?

Yep. The ones that don't will have "Unlimited" under "Simultaneous Device Usage" in the Product Details section.

Edit: you can't explicitly search for them using Amazon's own search engine, but here's a Google hack that will turn them up:

https://www.google.com/?q=site%3awww.amazon.com%20-forum%20%...

(courtesy Hazzit at ebooks.stackexchange.com)

Google hack? What? That's no hack, that's the way google is supposed to be used, you know...

Ah, you're one of those who thinks that hacking has something to do with breaking into a computer.

I think maybe you're on the wrong site.

I'm one of those something something? I'm on the wrong site? Does that even mean anything?

Hack = trick in this case; most people don't know you can tweak Google search queries like that.

Maybe people should read the user manual before actually using the tool.

This isn't a trick, it's just using google the way it was programmed to be used. Those are documented features of the google search engine, they are no "hacks".

Amazon chooses to offer that option. They're big enough now that they could get away with, for instance, charging a larger fee to publishers who apply DRM, or reducing their fee iff you don't apply DRM.

Amazon has no reason to do that. Their mission there is to serve their publishers, and if the publishers want to DRM it up, that's on them.

Amazon has the same reason to do that that Apple did when dropping DRM from the iTunes music store.

And no, Amazon's mission is not to serve their publishers, because their publishers aren't the ones giving them giant piles of money. Their publishers give them products to sell; their customers give them money for those products. Amazon's mission is to get as much from their customers as possible. Whether they can get more from their customers with or without DRM is a reasonable question, but the publishers only come into it if there's a belief that a significant number of publishers would leave.

No, their mission is to serve their customers, even at the expense of their publishers.

Sony's response to their rootkit fiasco ... specifically Thomas Hesse's statement that: "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" changed my buying behavior in a major way. I absolutely avoided spending money on Sony products and services wherever possible. It's a small way of showing disapproval, but it was one that worked for me, and took a little less revenue away from Sony.

Good thing Google, Microsoft and Apple aren't supporting DRM in their machine now - oh wait!

Also, Firefox - oh, Firefox - guess where it gets its DRM protection from now? Ok, I'll just say: Adobe.

Lucky that I compile Firefox from source anyway, even if it was originally to get proper Qt support.

In the future we’ll have to use IceWeasel then :/

Did the Sony rootkit have any measurable impact on any of Sony's business metric? (revenue, profit, ...)

Fortunately Kindle DRM is so trivial to remove. I wish it had none but at least I know my books are mine forever and my reading habits are not being actively tracked if I use free non-Amazon ebook software.

Amazon seems to turn a blind eye to it, probably because so few readers can be bothered using de-drm software.

I learned to de-DRM my Amazon books due to the concerns of their licencing. Now I can put them on my phone and listen to the books with TTS. The kindle App for Android doesn't have the feature...

Where does the DRM part come into play? The description sounds like it could be applied to just about any automatic sync-your-progress-across-devices feature, which is a hugely desirable feature IMO (my Kindle would be worth a huge amount less without it, since books almost always take multiple reading sessions to finish), and it's also very useful for movies/TV...

Processor-level support for DRM will make future cases more interesting, https://www.virusbtn.com/virusbulletin/archive/2014/01/vb201...

"If software and hardware could be ‘sealed’ in some way to prevent an attacker from examining data in main memory, even if the attacker had administrator level privileges on the machine, not only could the confidentiality and integrity of data in the cloud be protected, but the algorithms and design of cloud hosted applications could also be hidden from prying eyes."

So far I've seen very little evidence that this will work. Unless some true mechanism can be found for remotely verifying that you are loading your code into a known environment then there's no way to know that you're running in a secure enclave in the first place.

The best attempt I've seen is sending a computation to be performed by the remote side and trying to infer the state of the CPU cache based on how long it takes to answer. If the timing is off then the cache must have been in an unexpected state and therefore unexpected code must have been executing on the machine. It's clever, but not practical.

What has Intel come up with that's any better? What's described in your link could simply be emulated in software. How would the remote side know the difference?

SGX includes microcode-based crypto which allows an enclave to both sign and encrypt things using keys based on a hash of the contents of the enclave and some master private key locked away in the CPU. I haven't looked into exactly how this works (although I'd love to defeat it some day when it's released...), but it can't be emulated in software unless you manage to extract the private key.

https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/article/41393...

So long as we can insert a [Xen] Hypservisor between the OS and the processor, I'm confident someone will find a way to make it do what someone else doesn't want it to.

Hypervisors aren't just for virtualizing servers, you can use them for all sorts of things, like intercepting system calls.

The cited SGX analysis was written by a Qubes/Xen developer:

"Intel SGX is essentially a new mode of execution on the CPU, a new memory protection semantic, plus a couple of new instructions to manage this all. So, you create an enclave by filling its protected pages with desired code, then you lock it down, measure the code there, and if everything's fine, you ask the processor to start executing the code inside the enclave. Since now on, no entity, including the kernel (ring 0) or hypervisor (ring “-1”), or SMM (ring “-2”) or AMT (ring “-3”), has no right to read nor write the memory pages belonging to the enclave."

How often is the enclave validated? Could modified DRAM be used that would return one set of data to the enclave validation, and another the rest of the time? What would have to be done to the CPU cache?

More data here:

http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2013/08/thoughts-on-i...

http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2013/09/thoughts-on-i...

".. the processor automatically encrypts the content of SGX-protected memory pages whenever it leaves the processor caches and is stored in DRAM. In other words the code and data used by SGX enclaves never leave the processor in plaintext."

"..once the key is obtained, it is available only within the SGX enclave. It cannot be found in DRAM or on the memory bus, even if the user had access to expensive DRAM emulators or bus sniffers. And the key cannot also be mishandled by the code that runs in the SGX enclave, because remote attestation also proved that the loader code has not been modified.."

the device ID, which is a 128-bit unique number tied to the processor.

15 years ago Intel tried this, and there was enough opposition that they removed the feature in later models: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_III#Controversy_about_p...

When SGX gets implemented in a future processor, will the users once again fight strongly against it, or will they submissively accept it without resistance, looking only at the claimed "security benefits"? I really hope it'll be the former.

Reading the rest of that article and the linked Intel documents just... gives me a very bad feeling about the direction things are heading.

Devil is in the details, e.g. in all processors or optional? Can hardware owners set root keys? How will enclaves interact with client Hyper-v, Yosemite OS X hypervisor, html5 drm, open-source virtualization & crypto, etc.

Protecting content from users is a failed game. This kind of protection is useless. At the very least, they need to decrypt information before it passed through our eyes and ears - that's the weak link in the chain.

It seems like virtualization is about to become useless in the future and CPU-emulating+jit compiling systems are the future, because SGX can't be virtualized.

Adobe is taking a pummeling this week. This news is nicely timed for the launch week of Affinity Designer, a serious competitor to Illustrator on the Mac App Store for casual and not-so-casual users who don't use Adobe products heavily enough to justify the cost of a monthly subscription. I tried it yesterday and was ready to cancel my Creative Cloud single-app subscription after about 20 minutes of experimentation. It's more than sufficient for my vector graphic needs as an indie developer.

Yup, I'm stoked on Affinity Designer. It also nicely promotes Serif software as an alternative to the Creative Suite. Serif has a lot of educational customers and casual users and probably would have more if people knew about them and their prices. I'm going to revisit their stuff. It's been about 10 years since I checked out their page layout program. But Affinity is fantastic. They put in a lot of great ideas into it in the UI. Xara on Windows and Affinity on Mac will be my go-to apps for vector drawing. Illustrator for me is basically just an app for conversion to make sure a file is ready to share. I hate working in it, clunky app.

Given the scale of incompetence required to have your 'spyware' transmitting common and expected book data and metadata in plaintext, I have to say we should employ Hanlon's Razor here, and not attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity.

That said, there's probably a little malice in there, too. And either way, this is probably a crippling blow to this branch of Adobe.

Second, sending this information in plain text undermines decades of efforts by libraries and bookstores to protect the privacy of their patrons and customers.

Someone needs to sue Adobe over this. That way we can stop such future invasions of privacy from DRMed machines in the future.

Also, Microsoft will do much of the same with Windows 10, collecting data not just on ebooks, but any file you might open, and even characters you may type. Digital Editions is one app. Windows 10 is a whole OS, which makes the whole thing a lot scarier:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2373838/microsofts-...

sans file monitoring (though windows has been offering to send heuristics and file signatures though windows defender for a while now)

isn't that stuff that most already have signed away on? iOS's autocorrection for their keyboard, and cloud processing for siri? and same for android's TTS, STT engines (both are cloud-based by default if I'm not mistaken)? (and the google keyboard)

without asking the user to agree to such things, microsoft can't enter the mobile device arena to the same degree as competitors

I play pirated copies of games I bought and own on steam because I don't want steam to know how many hours I play my games, when I play them, from what place etc. I consider that is not anyone's business.

Adobe's spyware isn't that different from what gamers have accepted with Steam unfortunately. Will book readers accept it, the way gamers did, or will they fight back? Unlike video games, there are alternatives, that are still popular (buying books on paper). I don't ever intend on spending any $ on a drm'd book when I can have it on paper for the same price without DRM.

> "I play pirated copies of games I bought and own on steam because I don't want steam to know how many hours I play my games, when I play them, from what place etc. I consider that is not anyone's business."

Just a hypothetical:

If the developer was giving you a discount on Steam because they could collect this information would you still buy it from Steam and then pirate it (getting the discount but not providing the information) or would you pay full price somewhere else? Not judging, just curious.

I buy games because I support the developers. I've spent full price money online on games that could've been bought for cheaper in physical form (amazon.fr is almost always cheaper than steam prices actually unless Steam is going through a sale. Regular prices on steam are always more expensive than getting the box delivered at your door). So, no. I wouldn't trade my privacy for cheaper prices, since the one reason that makes me "honest" and buy games in the first place is spending my money on things I like. I bought all the classic RPG I liked, and already owned in physical forms, on gog.com, just to show an interest in what I saw as a dying genre. Plus the fact that they are the only gaming platform that is DRM-free. Then I supported the kickstarter renaissance (Wasteland, Torment etc).

I've put my steam profile on private, but if you could see it, you would see almost no game past 1hour of play because I never play games from steam. I only buy them on steam, then I download a copy that will not violate my privacy. Because for as long as I breath I will not let anyone intrude on my privacy. Also, when given the choice between steam and gog, I obviously chose gog.com.

It doesn't make sense. On one hand you're against violating your privacy. But on the other hand you are still supporting financially the very same developers who are OK with such violations when they offer their games through Steam. You're still increasing their Steam sales numbers, so obviously they will continue to publish their future content on this platform.

I only buy them on steam, then I download a copy that will not violate my privacy.

There's a third choice - don't buy the games that violate your privacy and don't play them. You've pointed out great ways to support developers that don't violate privacy (GOG.com, Kickstarter) - why not stick only to these? Unless, your urge to play a video game is bigger than your integrity.

There's a third choice - don't buy the games that violate your privacy and don't play them. You've pointed out great ways to support developers that don't violate privacy (GOG.com, Kickstarter) - why not stick only to these? Unless, your urge to play a video game is bigger than your integrity.

I support these options when they are available. But when you have a certain taste for specific niche of games, sometimes there is no alternative. Kickstarter has managed to bring back the classic top down, turn based party RPGs, which is fantastic, but I haven't seen any developer try to bring genres like RPG sandbox (ala Skyrim) or grid based, turn based dungeon crawlers (MMXL, which has one of the most annoying DRM, is the first game to be released in the genre in decades) to Kickstarter yet.

Sure, I'm making a dent on my integrity by buying these games but I don't see it as a great evil as long as we're still able to fight against privacy-invading schemes. If that option was no longer there, I would stop playing these games. I also feel that the developers deserve the support, they aren't responsible for the publishers requirements. I don't wish for them to go out of business, I'm optimistic that the growing success of Kickstarter and gog as a platform might change their mind in the long term, I don't think it's all black & white where we either support kickstarter or support DRM published games.

I'll remind you that many of the current great kickstarter developers come from a classic DRM supporting background. Obsidian, for example. Their last RPG, Fallout New Vegas, depended on Steam as their DRM. They saw the success of kickstarter, started their own project on it (Pillars of Eternity), succeeded in crowdfunding it and might end up relying more often on crowdfunding their games in the future. Pillars of Eternity will be DRM-free.

Now the question is, do you think it would've been better if no one had bought their games before? You think it would have been better if they had gone out of business? I do not believe so. PoE exists today because Obsidian could afford to build itself as a studio and recruit some of the best developers of the genre.

Showing support for crowdfunding, buying games on gog.com will help these developers free themselves from the shackles of the bad publishers. Boycotting developers that are still kept in shackles will not do anything but destroy their livelihood. Particularly as publishers are very likely to blame piracy when the games don't sell well.

The fact that a lot of pre-established developers are turning to crowdfunding bodes well for the future in my mind.

But when you have a certain taste for specific niche of games, sometimes there is no alternative.

There absolutely is. You can just not play. Video games aren't an essential commodity; they are a luxury.

Just because I need to edit a photo using a Spot Healing Brush and I don't like cloud-based subscription doesn't mean I get to pirate Photoshop.

I also feel that the developers deserve the support, they aren't responsible for the publishers requirements. [...] Now the question is, do you think it would've been better if no one had bought their games before? You think it would have been better if they had gone out of business? I do not believe so. PoE exists today because Obsidian could afford to build itself as a studio and recruit some of the best developers of the genre.

Except there are independent developers who succeeded without the need of going through classic big-house publishers: Mojang (before their acquisition by Microsoft) and Grinding Gear Games are two popular examples. Both of them did so with their first games. They built their reputation from scratch - nobody bought their games "before" because there were no such games.

And yes, there's nothing wrong with going out of business if you're doing a bad job and somebody else can do it better.

Boycotting developers that are still kept in shackles will not do anything but destroy their livelihood.

On the other hand, it will promote the livelihood of those developers who took risk and published their games independently. It also isn't black and white where we either support old studios or they go bust and there are no more new games whatsoever.

One more thing. It might be a long shot, but if you're interested in grid- and turn-based RPGs, maybe give Dofus or Wakfu a shot. I'm saying it's a long shot because a) they are MMORPGs; b) they are subscription-based; c) they look cartoonish, almost anime-like. But they can get surprisingly complex and fascinating plus they are refreshing takes on seemingly played-out fantasy role-playing genre. They weren't on Kickstarter because they were developed by an indie French company for 10 years.

Just because I need to edit a photo using a Spot Healing Brush and I don't like cloud-based subscription doesn't mean I get to pirate Photoshop.

The comparison is disingenuous, I buy all the games I play at their full price, some games I've even bought twice (all the classics available on gog with the DRM removed).

Except there are independent developers who succeeded without the need of going through classic big-house publishers: Mojang (before their acquisition by Microsoft) and Grinding Gear Games are two popular examples. Both of them did so with their first games. They built their reputation from scratch - nobody bought their games "before" because there were no such games.

Sure, but not all types of games can be made with a small and inexperienced team. Something like Minecraft, which is mostly procedural content, or a diablo like cannot be compared to a lengthy RPG.

And yes, there's nothing wrong with going out of business if you're doing a bad job and somebody else can do it better.

If they made a good game, and all that's bad about it is the drm scheme, is that really a "bad job"?

One more thing. It might be a long shot, but if you're interested in grid- and turn-based RPGs, maybe give Dofus or Wakfu a shot. I'm saying it's a long shot because a) they are MMORPGs; b) they are subscription-based; c) they look cartoonish, almost anime-like. But they can get surprisingly complex and fascinating plus they are refreshing takes on seemingly played-out fantasy role-playing genre. They weren't on Kickstarter because they were developed by an indie French company for 10 years.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty averse toward MMOs in general, I don't like games over which I have no control, that could be shutdown at any moment, or change in a way I might not like in a patch (as MMO have a high tendency to constantly go through rebalance, skill changes etc). I don't mind the anime-like stuff when the gameplay is good though, although I'll always feel games would be better without it. I don't mind buying and playing games on console platforms like the 3DS when I know that at some point in the future they will be emulated and thus ensure the long term archiving and playability of the games, so I've had experience with games like Etrian Odyssey IV, which have bad (in my opinion) graphic style, but classic gameplay that has been long forgotten on the PC. I like big dungeon mazes and having to draw my own maps, it's a nice throwback to the era of games like Wizardry and older Might&Magic. The closest to that in the world of indies on PC is Grimrock, but the combat is real time and pretty badly done, consisting of a mumbo jumbo dance where you step back and forth in a hit and run fashion.

Overall, I'm willing to compromise with DRM, as long as there's a way, be it in the present (like with most PC games) or in the future (like 3DS games) to eliminate it. This is also why I didn't buy into the newer generations of consoles, with Moore's law more or less coming at an end, I don't think we'll ever be able to emulate Playstation 3 games, for example, at a decent speed. Current handhelds, while not being emulated yet, are still within the realm of possibility. For home consoles, CPU just aren't progressing fast enough, single core performance seems like it'll reach a standstill soon and it already takes a high end CPU to fully emulate something like the PS2, nevermind thinking about something like the Cell.

I don't play a lot of games, but those I do play and enjoy tend to be games I enjoy revisiting decades later. For that matter, I'm currently replaying Wizardry 6 as I'm in a heavy dungeon crawling mood. This is also partly why, to me, it is important for the possibility of getting rid of DRMs to exist.

Other than not liking MMOs, I do have a varied taste in RPGs. I can go from games like Wizardry, to gridbased/tactical RPGs like Jagged Alliance 2 and Fire Emblem, to sandboxes like Skyrim. RPGs are pretty much the only genre of games I play.

The comparison is disingenuous

I disagree. I can always pay the monthly subscription equivalent of the old standalone license and then just torrent the DRM- and cloud-free version of Photoshop. The developer still technically gets paid, but I'm under no illusion that my actions are in any way justified.

a diablo like cannot be compared to a lengthy RPG.

I tried to look up how "lengthy" this game exactly is going to be and I'm not content with my results. "Our goal is to make it as long as possible with the funding that we get from Kickstarter" is as bland response as it can get. And from the look of it Pillars won't have a decent voice acting. Path of Exile does, not only main characters taunts, but also NPC dialogs and environmental lore (journals, statues, inscriptions, etc.). Recently, they released an expansion pack which added more story and fully voiced NPCs. In my book this "Diablo-like" can hold candle to a "lengthy RPG" just fine.

I really hope Pillars succeeds, but I'm going to hold my judgement until it's fully released.

If they made a good game, and all that's bad about it is the drm scheme, is that really a "bad job"?

Apparently it is, since it's such a deal-breaker for you and you actively seek DRM-free games. And it's ok, because user experience is extremely important. Even if the gameplay is good, technical obstacles which won't let players enjoy the game will absolutely ruin its opinion. It was especially evident with always-online games that had problems during the launch (Diablo III, SimCity).

Unfortunately, I'm pretty averse toward MMOs in general (...)

Ah, well. They're not for everyone. I'm not a big fan of them myself; I prefer to go at my own pace and often end up playing them like in a single-player mode.

Interesting point with emulation; I haven't considered that.

Other than not liking MMOs, I do have a varied taste in RPGs.

What about roguelikes? Again, they might not be for everyone, but I had tons of fun with classics like Nethack and ADOM.

God love the EFF, but they're using this as a platform to talk about one of their favorite hobby horses, and that's kind of obscuring the problem. Read the original article in which this was discovered -- this has nothing to do with DRM.

http://the-digital-reader.com/2014/10/06/adobe-spying-users-...

Adobe is collecting data about every ebook on your system, regardless of whether it's using DRM and even regardless of whether it's even being managed by the Adobe Digital Edition reader. (And for an added security bonus, they're sending it in plain text.) If you install and launch the new version of ADE, it's going to do this whether or not every single ebook you have on your system is DRM-free.

This is certainly an electronic privacy issue, but it's not a DRM issue just because Adobe Digital Editions supports Adobe DRM, and the EFF's headline is a little disingenuous. Adobe's rationale for this collection is indeed claimed to be related to licensing, but the biggest problem is how wide a net they're casting and how intrusive this information is -- ironically enough, if it was only sending this information about DRM-encumbered books, it'd arguably be much less of a scandal. (Although the fifty-eight people in the world using Adobe DRM would still have every right to be pissed.)

Since Adobe is not selling books, how do they benefit from parsing this data? If not for DRM-style tactics?

Are they selling it to third parties? Unless this is the case, then I'd say their obsession with DRM and rights management is the primary issue. Without of course discrediting that digital surveillance is the new standard.