How secure are DRMs?

[trend]

Let me say this first.. If you are thinking about locking my thread because you don't understand what we are talking about, MSG me first, I will be glad and call you to get you up to speed on this. I will only charge you $90 per hour for my time. (This is in light of recent events...)

Anyways, anyone know how secure DRMs are? I know Windows Media Video/Audio can have DRM built in, but are they really bulletproof?


thanks
Lee

 

[royaldank]

Nothing is bulletproof.

 

[halik]

Not at all,
the fundamental idea behind DRM is completly implausible, so any implementation of DRM will only make it difficult to copy. Even MS Janus was broken - all you need is winamp stream writer and play the songs into a filestream...

You cannot have a medium that lets you play/stream the data, but not copy. Those operations are identical from an engineering point of view... having a hard drive or sound card device is just an OS abstraction, in reality you're just moving a bits to some address that happens to be on that particular hardware.


Not to mention there isn't a single implementation of DRM that hasn't been broken....

 

[HardcoreRobot]

you want us to pay you to help you pirate? what?

 

[Chunkee]

and the point of this thread is.../

jC

 

[JetBlack69]

Originally posted by: HardcoreRobot
you want us to pay you to help you pirate? what?

That's what it sounds like.

 

[Legendary]

Originally posted by: halik
Not at all,
the fundamental idea behind DRM is completly implausible, so any implementation of DRM will only make it difficult to copy. Even MS Janus was broken - all you need is winamp stream writer and play the songs into a filestream...

You cannot have a medium that lets you play/stream the data, but not copy. Those operations are identical from an engineering point of view... having a hard drive or sound card device is just an OS abstraction, in reality you're just moving a bits to some address that happens to be on that particular hardware.


Not to mention there isn't a single implementation of DRM that hasn't been broken....

QFT.
/thread

 

[cKGunslinger]

Isn't this like asking "How secure are locks?"

 

[trend]

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger
Isn't this like asking "How secure are locks?"

Urhm.. yeah, it is a lot like asking how secure locks are.. People that know nothing about locks will say, they all can be broken into if you know how (or something similiar to many of the above threads), while the expert locksmiths will say.. Here is the USA, we use mainly 6 different brands/types of locks.. Over in the european countries they use 10x + more locks. The majority of the locks in the US can easily be broken into with the --not going to say-- while the --not going to say-- brands that are used in the US and Europe are not able to be broken in with these methods.

I could go on, but I think you'll get my drift.. If you say, somethign to the effect, all DRMs are flawed, or it is based on a flawed idealogy, we all know you don't know the answer and just want to blow smoke..
So please, no more blowing smoke in this thread, it is already cloudy enough

 

[sygyzy]

DRM's are completely unbreakable.

 

[AmigaMan]

It depends on the device. For mobile phones, the DRM is usually harder to break than on a PC. The reason is you have much less control over your mobile phone than you do your PC. For standard's based DRM, OMA DRM 1.0 is the most widely available. Within OMA DRM 1.0, you have three categories, forward-locking, combined delivery and separate delivery. Forward locking just prevents you from forwarding the content to another device. Combined delivery and separate delivery both rely on rights which govern how you can use the content you paid for (number of uses, use between certain dates, etc). Separate delivery also entails encryption of the content with the key being delivered, along with the rights, separately from the content.

There is also OMA DRM 2.0 which is currently not available for mobile devices yet (except the Nokia n91). Both Microsoft's and Apple's DRM technologies are proprietary and rely on end-user device clients.

All in all, DRM is getting better in that it makes it harder for pirates to steal music without infringing on the rights of the legitimate purchasers of the music. DRM has a bad rap because of that. Right now DRM is very constricting and pisses people off because they can't use the content they paid for on their devices. But that's the price we have to pay because of pirates. OMA DRM 2.0 solves some of this but as was alluded to earlier, unless you completely eliminate the "analog hole" you'll never be able to stop piracy.