Comment by jimktrains2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jimktrains2 | Hacker News Reader

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> or we are stuck with Silverlight and Flash video forever

This proposal simply trades one insecure, binary blob for another. It doesn't really solve the problem.

> rather than getting and updating 2-3 different insecure plugins all the time for doing the same thing?

IIRC each site can provide its own module, so it'll be many more than 2-3 plugins

> Is this just a crusade agains DRM as a whole (good luck with that) from the free software movement, or do they have problems with this exact proposal from the w3c?

Why good luck with that? DRM simply makes honest users jump through hoops and allow themselves to be controlled. Also, the proposal itself doesn't really solve any of the problems that flash and silverlight do. And those binary blobs will still probably not run in linux...

Yes, the problem: the only way the content owners will stream tonights game to my computer is if it is protected somehow. If there is a way to make a transparent & open platform that allows content to my computer in a way that makes the content providers happy, then I'm all for doing that instead of having the system of insecure binary blobs. But is that possible? If it is possible, wht isn't the W3C pushing for that instead of the "plug your own binary"-platform? Is security through obscurity inherent in DRM?

It's not possible. DRM is impossible when a user has access to the full system. That is why there is a push for locked boot loaders and security modules and such. The more access the user has the easier it is to defeat DRM. Conversely, the less access they have the harder it is to break.

"Yes, the problem: the only way the content owners will stream tonights game to my computer is if it is protected somehow."

No, the problem is that they think they reserve the right to control what your hardware displays.

My screen displays what I tell it to? If it is a FairPlay/PlayReady stream or not. I wasn't talking about hdcp or other hardware/end-to-end drm. I don't think systems like FairPlay are going away anywhere soon. Surely it must be possible to make an open standard similar to FairPlay? It can't be all security through obscurity?

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