DRM From the Viewpoint of the Electronic Industry 374
mike449 writes "The cover story of the Oct.16 issue of EDN magazine is about the recent trends in DRM. It is not just a technical article. The author tries to convey what people who are supposed to design and implement access restriction measures think about their feasibility and associated economic, legal and moral issues. 'Of course, you can always try charging a reasonable price and trusting people to be honest. Just think of all the money you'll save not having to implement DRM'."
Just say no! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not even about copy protection. It's about keeping us on the "new format treadmill", and locking us in to specific playback hardware/software.
Don't be fooled. [riaa.org] Take a stand! [eff.org]
DRM only hurts the Good Guys. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting line ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes. Action: Millions of people rip songs from cds with no copy protection and share them on Napster.
Consequence:Recording industry decides DRM is necessary.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Trust hasn't been earned (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a look at the network traffic of any university. Can you really blame electronics companies for not being trusting of their target market?
no locks (Score:5, Insightful)
thats what it all comes down to
Re:Just say no! (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:DRM only hurts the Good Guys. (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM is going to create the exact same market. Right now, anyone can pirate music/software pretty cheap (bandwidth being the big cost), if DRM continues to be pushed on everything, fewer and fewer average Joe's can circumvent it by themselves, and will start buying equipment and software to do it ([sarcasm] which will no doubt be provided at a reasonable charge from the black market [/sarcasm]). End result will be people paying an arm and a leg to get at DRM circumvention technology, in order to think they've made a deal by getting 'free' stuff (ala pirated software/music/movies...)
Now if I could somehow just wedge myself into that nice lucrative DRM circumvention technology provider/distributor position, I'd be rich!
Problem isnt DRM its copyrights (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't DRM, it's copyrights. DRM is just one of many tools to enforce it, where when used in a way to controll people it would, in a normal world, fall by the wayside like all those other "key" schemes that never worked out.
But when you assert that you have a right to restrict what other people copy, even when the cat's out of the bag, then it takes on a whole new meaning. Like the right to regulate hardware companies who don't participate. The right to monitor other peoples computers for the sake of "enforcement". And the right to pry into peoples private content.
DRM Engineers... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, if their opinions are heard and understood, their job at designing and implementing DRM is gone. How many people would stand up for a cause that would put them out of work?
Trust people? (Score:1, Insightful)
Duh! - Honesty and Trust! (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM should be thrown out - pirates will still find ways to crack/hack the system. It's just a vicious cycle - one that ultimately hurts the consumer.
Producers should instead look towards more effective means of an honest and easy system of distribution. This would generate much more revenue - and shut down the napster-like systems of today.
I know many people who are now avidly seeking the honest route through the $0.99 title online stores.
Yeah, sure (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah. This will be about as effective as standing my grandmother in front of the breaking dam.
I like the concept that they trust the consumer to be honest. How about instead we trust SOCIETY to evolve and simply let bygones be bygones? Sure, some industries don't want to die...why would they? But they're hindering our forward progress in their rediculous attempts to merely survive (read: senseless litigation) rather than doing the "right thing", lying down and letting us steamroll forward.
I'd be much more interested in the "next big thing" than their feeble attempts to thwart anti-security measures embedded into an old medium as they push forumulaic entertainment on us with a bombardment of advertising saturation.
Damon,
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM is fine...get it right (Score:1, Insightful)
DRM is not the problem....DRM laws are.
Re:Interesting line ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Action: RIAA overcharges for their product.
Consequence: Millions of people download songs shared on Napster for free.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Someone is going to have to make the compremises. The question now is: Will it be the RIAA? Or the millions of people who buy their products but are getting ticked off about getting gouged?
Quis custodiet... (Score:5, Insightful)
What matters is who is holding the keys at the end of the day.
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Sad.
This is really a very good article... (Score:4, Insightful)
Your mileage may vary, but I, for one, had never seen the observation that the chief function of DRM is to "protect the release window" (the short time when content is new and makes most of its money).
Re:Interesting line ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Consequence ===> Users buy less content. RIAA whines that it's those darn pirates to blame, and not that they themselves are acting like spoiled 4-year-olds.
Hardware DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
Call me paranoid - I enjoy it.
Re:Get it through your thick skulls! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just say no! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes downloadable music is good. Yes it can celebrate good rather than manufactured music. Yes, it levels the playing field. Yes, yes, yes, that's all true, we agree, great, fine, lovely. That's NOT THE POINT.
It's very simple. Digital Rights Mangling systems are bad. They are wrong. Any system that employs them is flawed and intrusive. Any system that employs it does not get my business or my money. End of story.
DRM - NOT - necessary. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why doesn't the recoding industry protect their interests the same way as the rest of us? Sue a few of the SOBs and the rest will get the message soon enough.
Oh, that would be "bad" marketing! Tough sh*&, that's the way a free and civilized world works. You have a right to redress in a court of law, not the formation of a police state.
Then the rest humans don't have to live in a world were "automated book burning" is the name of the game.
Recently there was a post here about how Internet makes a poor source for scientific authority. Web pages just up and disappear. Average "life cycle" of "knowledge" on the web? What was it? 100 days.
Today the web, tommorow the world. When Apple gets "tired" of iTunes every copy of your content will simple vanish, without a trace. A world of "books" will burn at the flick of a switch. There will be no place to hide, your backups will burn, copies you use will burn, even if said works should ever into the PD (should Congress EVER remember they govern for the People, rather than the Machine) those works will burn the very day they go PD.
Re:Problem isnt DRM its copyrights (Score:5, Insightful)
Today we use careful forensic techniques to examine content of centuries past. Centuries down the road, is the skill of cracking going to required in university to become an arheologist? Enormous amounts of content of modern culture could become completely lost. Films decay, even the BBC's big knowledge archive turned out to be almost unsalvagable only a couple decades after it was made, and they didn't even have to fight DRM.
DRM is fundamentally flawed, and serves only to interfere with the rights of those it is inflicted upon. It serves no purpose to anyone but a self serving company that may not even be around a few years from now. How many old games or software titles do you own in which the company is even still in existance. Guess what, once they go tit's up there is no incentive for them to help salvage DRM'd products.
Re:Problem isnt DRM its copyrights (Score:2, Insightful)
DVD recorders (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally... (Score:3, Insightful)
Amen.
Now all you have to do is let the rest of the non "techy" consumers know that and DRM will most likely fail.
Although a difficult task to successfully complete, just remember to remind them that DRM will make their life more complicated and computers will become even more confusing to the average person... but then again, the RIAA, MS, etc etc will gain an extra buck at a large cost to the consumers, so that's an upside... right?
Re:DRM only hurts the Good Guys. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that those who are promoting DRM see the issue in black and white. They want the absolute strongest protection technology and the absolute harshest punishment for violators. There is no way to achieve absolute protection with current technology and continuing to push for it only makes consumers less like to adopt DRM products because of the significant hassle.
A more reasonable approach to DRM would be to aim for relatively strong protection but one that does not create a hassle for the consumer. It should also be bundle with a service that actually creates a benefit for using the DRM product. If the consumer gains by using the DRM product, they'll be inclined to use it. Admittedly there will still be those that will crack the DRM technology but that cannot be eliminated anyway. So why aim for 100% when 80% will lead to wider and faster adoption of the DRM technology?
Re:Trust hasn't been earned (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, maybe college students with almost no disposable income shouldn't be a target market for $20 CDs, either.
Historically those markets listened to college radio and swapped vinyl. They certainly weren't spending $20 a pop on a CD from an international megastar with one good song on it.
Here's a concept -- charge different amounts for different product. I.e., Mogwai and Ted Leo CDs should be offered for $5 each. Let the teen masses and the adult contemporary listeners (with their disposable dollars) pay $20 for an album.
Variable pricing is slowly coming of age via direct downloads through non-traditional channels such as indie-label sites and the iTunes store. Fortunately this will ultimately kill off the RIAA's price-fixing tactics. But goddamn it's an ugly death.
Re:Trust hasn't been earned (Score:4, Insightful)
They are infringing on the copyrights of the content industry.
So, I see no reason why the hardware manufactures will think that their bottom lines will be affected. Quite the contrary, many hardware companies have profited from the widespread availability of content. Hence, Sony's schizophrenic reaction to all this. Their hardware unit profits and their content unit losses from piracy.
One thing the article points out is that the hardware manufactures are rushing to provide a technology that does not benefit them (i.e. profit). It only benefits the content industry. Users and hardware manufactures pay the cost of DRM. Government and users pay the cost of Draconian copyright laws.
So, even if you disregard the idea that people are basically honest, it does not make economic sense for the electronics industry (i.e. hardware manufactures) to essentially make a charitable contribution to the content industry.
Mixed companies like Sony have a rational for doing it, but they are still just shifting profit from one business unit to another.
DRM is 90% lie and 10% truth (Score:5, Insightful)
As a music publisher and promoter, I paid thousands of dollars in royalties to the licensing agencies however, not one artist or songwriter in 7+ years has ever received a solitary zinc penney. Never and none. All the money the RIAA is taking in with their extortion tactics stays within the RIAA and the corporations. Not one cent is being paid out to the artists. Never and none.
So DRM isn't about paying royalties to artists and it isn't about protecting them since they will receive very little, if any benefit from DRM.
Those selling the locks and the keys and those selling the media and the players are the only ones who will receive any financial benefit. So, why even have DRM?
Re:Interesting line ... (Score:1, Insightful)
That's impossible, it's not a compromise if only one party makes concessions.
Re:DRM to prevent virus and worm attacks? (Score:2, Insightful)
In the end, all that will be accomplished is that the users will be denied physical access to their own data. This prevents migration to and use of alternate products, prevents users from executing their own programs or third parties from supplying products unless they also have licensed and paid for certificates at the behest of the issuing authority, whomever that might be, and, as such, is actually a form of restraint of trade as well as a fundimental attack on software freedom zero. It does virtually nothing for preventing viruses and worms.
Just released: Digital Plate Management (Score:5, Insightful)
Officials at one of America's largest "all you can eat" restaurants announced today a new method of cost-cutting.
Tuesday, November 25th
For immediate release
Raleigh, NC: Silver Bucket, a nation-wide franchise restaurant chain with over 200 all-you-can-eat restaurants, has just introduced a new technology called Digital Plate Management, or DPM for short. Company executives are said to be excited about this new technology as they expect it will end the ability for unscrupulous customers to share food with non-paying companions.
"We've always faced a certain 'undesirable' component to our clientele," says Bryan Dawkins, CEO of Silver Bucket. He adds, "You can tell who they are as soon as they arrive. They'll arrive in twos or threes
Dawkins adds, "They're lying, of course. We seldom see it happen as they've become such experts at this kind of blatant theft, but come on
The Digital Plate Management technology that is now being deployed at Silver Bucket restaurants will bring an end to all that. The system relies on a high-tech buffet plate that is designed to work only with the person who purchases the buffet menu option. "These plates are going to save our bacon," says Dawkins. "They are just the most fantastic devices we've ever seen." The plates, which cost the company a little over $1300 a piece, are encoded at the time the customer makes their purchase upon entry into the restaurant. From that point on, the plate is designed to maintain its rigidity only when held by the authorized patron. "If someone else picks them up, they go completely flaccid. The plates, that is," adds Dawkins. In other words, the plates will only be useful for the authorized customer.
Digital Plate Management is the results of years of research, combining stunning effort in both materials engineering and biometrics. The plates include integrated sensors that allow them to be encoded with biometric data when the customer is first handed the plate. The plate stores information about the registered user such as fingerprints, skin elasticity, and body temperature. If these values change beyond a certain range of acceptable values, the plate goes limp. That might seem like a problem for restaurant staff, but the plates have been designed to handle encoding for more than one person. "One of the incredible features of these plates is that they can be encoded to allow any of our restaurant employees to handle the plate without having the plate become flaccid," adds Dawkins. This means that, while customers cannot share their plates amongst themselves, restaurant staff will be free to handle the plates when clearing tables and during dish washing. "Oh certainly, in the restaurant business, you never want to annoy your staff with potential hurdles like that," states Dawkins. He continues, "Multiple user encoding was one of the first things they had to solve in the design of these plates."
"Silver Bucket is committed to providing a first class customer experience," explains Dawkins. "Digital Plate Management is an absolutely revolutionary method for maintaining the level of quality our customers expect. These plates will allow us to make sure that only those honest, paying customer will have access to our all-you-can-eat buffet. We will thus be able to ensure a high-quality menu for our guests, and improve the bottom line for our shareholders."
Customer reaction has been mixed. David
Re:Problem isnt DRM its copyrights (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, I see no evidence that copyrights will expire in the future.
Sure, they were supposed to, but the powers-that-be are so far into the big copyright holder's pockets that copyrights get extended any time the copyright holder needs them to be extended.
I'm all for copyright, but back when it was based on an individual author's life (e.g. Walt Disney), not on the life of a pseudo-person (e.g Disney, the company).
Itunes is a great example. (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, let's say Itunes is the best DRM crippled format there is. Can it do what normal recorded music can? The objections raised in the article strike at real problems facing any DRM that make the whole concept look like a looser. The inability of more than one person to share music collections in more than one place at a time blows it for most people. Answer these questions about Apple's nice DRM that are typical family issues:
What good is any music that I can't share with other members of my own family? If my wife can't listen to my music in her car, while I listen to our music at home or on my bike, the DRM sytem simply sucks. Sure, I can work around it with tapes and other stuff that will rocket me back to the 1980s. What good is that? I'm happier with my simple oggfiles that I can serve out as I please and put on as many computers as I want. When I bought the music, I had every intention of everyone in my house being able to enjoy it. Anything more complicated than that is simply not going to catch on.
Re:Problem isnt DRM its copyrights (Score:3, Insightful)
Some issues have flip flopped multiple times over the years, I see no reason why todays climate of corporate interests trumping citizen interests will endure the long term. Resentment is starting to build a general consensus and when enough people reach the consensus it will change. Think of it this way, bankruptcy was once a criminal act, but too many people had to declare it in the early 1800's and the change was made. Some backlash is already starting to build, and when enough people vote, politicians usually listen.
Very good points (Score:5, Insightful)
In the 80s with VCRs and tape recorders, people showed that they wanted time- and space-shifting fair use rights, and the law followed. Now the law is swinging back, as the DMCA can make those things technically illegal - consider that if the DMCA and the broadcast bit existed then, VCRs would be illegal now. But the content owners were unable to stop Xerox machines, VCRs, tape dubbers, digital audio extraction, CD-RWs, and portable MP3 players, because people really do want to "own" content.
When you make a sale, both sides get something they want. The RIAA wants money, theoretically so they can pay artists to make music. People want music. Specifically, they want to "own" music, as in, "to have the ability to play it, whenever, wherever." This is where the balance lies - if people could redistribute, artists wouldn't get paid, but if people couldn't "own" (in the sense of sovereignty, not copyright), they wouldn't buy it, and again, the artist starves. DRM tries to do just that - take away "ownership," in return for, nothing but inconvenience. I don't think this would happen in a competitive market. I can only hope it won't happen in the present market.
No DRM actually helped the electronic industry (Score:3, Insightful)
Think about broadband, CD/DVD-R/RW, large hard drives, solid-state digital music players, etc -- all cheap and ubitquitously avaiable today, due in large part to the demand caused by music swapping, and all having beneficial applications beyond copyright violations.
I think that had Napster, KaZaA, etc not been possible due to DRM, you would not have had this growth, and the state of the tech industry would have been not as well off because of it.
2035: a reflection (Score:5, Insightful)
I spent the last day trying to get my doctoral thesis back. So far, I think it's lost for good. I wrote it back in 2017, and the University copyrighted it. Last week, a fire at the University destroyed the key server; about 20,000 volumes were lost.
At first, it was thought that we could restore from tape, but the problem was that the law mandated encrypting all copyrighted works to prevent illegal distribution. Yes, we still have the backups, but they're encrypted; without the key server, useless. Some of my colleagues have wondered aloud about building a decryption utility, until the legal department reminded them that this would be illegal. Since all software is registered with a central repository by the compiler, it would be impossible to keep it a secret. And given that most decryption algorithms are patented, it would surely get tagged by the patent-crawlers.
Yeah, I remember a time before compulsory registration and mandatory networking. You could actually compile your own source code without having it registered with the copyright office. And even 20 years ago, there was no such thing as a patent-crawler; if you infringed on copyright or someone else's patent, they had to take you to court. With automatic enforcement now, it's impossible to copy someone else's bitstream. Even if you want to give it away, you still have to pay for a distribution license.
And the compulsory registration system has had its problems. The computer science department now has a waiver allowing them to run non-networked computers. With automatic copyright registration and enforcement, infringement alerts became increasingly frequent; it seems as if there's only so many correct ways to write "Hello World", or solve the fibonacci sequence. After a few years, the FBI simply ignored infringement alerts from the University, and soon after, we got the waiver.
But some of us are still writing code with a pen. I've seen illegal copies of D'Christy's prime-factoring algorithm passed around on notebook paper. You would never get away with computer file of it, though, because someone would eventually slip and use the disk on a publicly connected workstation.
Well, I think my thesis is lost. Even though I've got a key, I can't risk bringing it forward (last year, private ownership of encryption keys was made illegal). I didn't know I had it - I found it as I was rumaging through some disks, hoping for a legacy copy of my thesis.
A colleague of mine managed to get a copy of the backup on disk. While rumaging through my things, I found an old pre-registration laptop without a network interface. Tonight, we'll see if we can get our words back.
And some poor kid got busted yesterday. He bought some cheap flea-market hardware that had an old unlicensed compiler on it. He would have never gotten caught, either, had he the insight not to connect it to a network.
Re:Interesting line ... (Score:5, Insightful)
And where are the $10 CDs? Besides in the bargain bin, the last home of musicians so bad that even their mothers didn't buy a copy? $15-20 is more like the norm now.
Seriously, they are not overpriced! They are already cheap!
The cost of manufacture is in the neighborhood of $0.10 and the artists and composers get about $0.40 (some of which goes to pay back the record company loan which covered recording and production costs, which is why I'm not including those costs here). A couple bucks go to the retailer. So yes, they are overpriced, at least in terms of their real value.
I have an honest question for you, how much would you like CD's sold for, at what price would you buy them?
For me, about $5-10, depending on how good the music is. Luckily, the used market makes this possible. Unfortunately, there's no reasonable way to acquire a single song if you don't want an entire CD (singles are priced about $5 now I think, and there's no used market). I think this is the real reason piracy is so rampant, and why iTunes is so succesful. After all, $10 for a lossy, restricted album with no physical medium or artwork isn't a great deal, but $1 for a single beats anything available in the record store.
By the way, nice Slashdot name, it really shows me what kind of attitude you have in general, a piss poor one!
Strong words coming from Anonymous Coward. By the way, with the economy in its current state, you might not want to make comments like "get a REAL JOB", lest irony bite you in the ass.
Re:Interesting line ... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not a RIAA supporter, as a musician I'm pretty much more anti-RIAA than most folk, albeit for different reasons.
But, just because I don't like RIAA, and take an antithetical view to their activites does not mean that I think that gives me license to steal the property of their member labels.
Myself, I stopped supporting RIAA by not buying music which would cause RIAA to profit. In the last seven or so years, I've only bought directly from the artist. And I've stopped buying from those artists when they sign with a RIAA member label. I haven't missed a damn thing. I still get music I like, I don't contribute to RIAA coffers, and I don't make the problem worse by obviating RIAA legal rights.
If you're bypassing the legitimate rights of RIAA members you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Until folks start to respect the copyright, while villifying the holder, there is no reason to predict that this situation is going to improve.
Re:good?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Most music CDs do not have any sort of DRM. The recording industry has been selling perfect digital copies with no protection whatsoever (until recently, and still only in isolated cases) since 1982. In that time, and even in recent years, there have been lots and lots of platinum albums.
DVDs do have some copy-protection in the CSS encryption. But we all know how weak that is. Still DVDs sell like crazy.
Restrictive DRM only serves to remind the honest consumer that Industry does not trust them. The real "pirates" (Yarrr!) will find ways around DRM and sell illegal copies forever. Practically every DRM scheme released so far has been broken, some using high-tech devices like a Sharpie, or the Shift key.
If you were a media executive, would you waste money developing and marketing a DRM method that will most likely be quickly defeated?
Re:good?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Bull. They can not sell it and make ZERO dollars, or they can sell it and make money. If they want to close up shop and not make any money, fine, someone else will will jump in to make a buck selling a product. The RIAA can yell and screaming that the music industry will vanish all they like, that does not make it true. They made the exact same claims when radio appeared, they made the exact same claims about cassette tapes, and the MPAA made the exact same claims about VCR's. Just because they WANT DRM enforcement and they WANT congress to grant them expanded copyright powers and they WANT to eliminate fair use and they WANT congress to pass laws forcing consumer producted to be crippled does not mean they should get it.
They got congress to pass the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) in 1992 which forced all digital recording devices to be DRM crippled. This law exterminated all progress in these consumer products. It killed Digital Audio Tape, it killed MiniDiscs, and it killed others. No progress for a decade! They demanded this law to "fight piracy". The elimination of all new new media formats meant a drop in sales, they lost the market of people re-buying music they own on new formats. The irony is that they demanded the law to fight piracy, and when the law caused a drop in sales they blamed that drop on piracy.
All current pay services are suffering under FOUR SELF IMPOSED HANDICAPS. #1 They only offer crippled products. #2 They have not been offering their full catalog of music. #3 The prices are inflated - a download is undeniably a far cheaper product than pressing and distributing and retailing a physical product. #4 They are struggling to recover from a FIVE YEAR delayed entry into the download market. They should have started selling downloads as soon as Napster smacked them over the head with the fact that it was possible and that there was a demand for it. By refusing to sell downloads they left a vacuum in the online market. That vacuum was the main force driving the development and explosion of P2P.
Even suffering under those four self inposed handicaps these services are still drawing quite a few customers. They can't do squate about the five year late-start, but if they eliminate the other three handicaps they will attract a hell of alot more business. It is no coincidece that the most sucessfull pay service (iTunes) also hapens to be the one that is most nearly DRM-free.
The only effect of using DRM is to drive away customers. It certainly does nothing to prevent the songs from appearing on P2P.
Once someone buys something they have every right to make fair use of it. They have every right to preform a calculation on that file to play it backwards, they have every right to preform a calculation on that file to play it at double speed, they have every right to preform a calculation on that file to make it sound like random noise, and they have every right to preform the calculation on that file that happens to remove the DRM. The DMCA is just play stupid for trying to say it is a crime to do math. The DMCA is just play stupid for trying to say it is a crime to tell someone math function.
Any circumvention a computer can do can also be done purely mentally by thinking through the exact same steps the computer would do. You can violate the DMCA and commit circumvention crime by sitting motionless staring at a DRM'd E-book and mentally descrambling the data to read the text. You can break the law by sitting motionless and THINKING.
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Re:good?! (Score:2, Insightful)
DRM will be a godsend to corporate security, and can be extremely useful to anybody that wants an easy way to lock down their own data.
Re:DRM to prevent virus and worm attacks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Gentoo users would love it. The machine could sign every binary generated by the build processes with the owner's private machine key. No binary without that signature would run. It doesn't have to just be user compiled stuff either. What if you could add your favorite distro's package signing key to the machine's keyring? You could delegate trust in running binaries. Not bad. And no, it won't protect against vulnerable code with overflow vulnerabilities and so forth. It would still have value against trojans. Come to think of it, such hardware could work hand in hand with a new executable format. How about segmented binaries that have multiple checksums embedded? An exploit that messes up a binary running in place could fail such a check and trigger at worst a blue screen or kernel panic. Such a scheme would be expensive on current hardware but a CPU with a built in crypto engine could likely do it with a minimal performance hit. The OpenBSD guys and the Secure Linux guys could have a lot of fun with something like that.
Theres other cool things that could be done with a really ubiquitous hardware crypto engine. Done correctly, E-Mail crypto could be vastly easier to mass adopt. Maybe it could even be used the way crypto accellerators are used on web servers....just cheaper and far more commonplace.
Its a pity that none of this is what "they" have in mind.