BBC's Plan To Kick Open Source Out of UK TV 302
bluec writes "Generally speaking, the BBC isn't allowed to encrypt or restrict its broadcasts: the license fee payer pays for these broadcasts. But the BBC has tried to get around this, asking Ofcom for permission to encrypt the 'metadata' on its broadcasts – including the assistive information used by deaf and blind people and the 'tables' used by receivers to play back the video. As Ofcom gears up to a second consultation on the issue, there's one important question that the BBC must answer if the implications of this move are to be fully explored, namely: How can free/open source software co-exist with a plan to put DRM on broadcasts?"
Strange question (Score:4, Insightful)
How can free/open source software co-exist with a plan to put DRM on broadcasts?
It's simple, really.
Someone develops an Open Source DRM software solution, and the BBC uses it.
It's no different from a closed source DRM solution, except that since it is OSS, it may have a stronger encryption system since it can't rely on security through obscurity.
"Open Source" means a lot of different things to different people, but the basic concept is that it is the software which is free. How the users use the tools isn't part of the equation. So a good OSS DRM solution is a boon for some users (and a bane for their users). But either way, FOSS is not at all at odds with DRM.
strange headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's a nitpick, but the headline "BBC's Plan To Kick Open Source Out of UK TV" to me sounds like someone is against open-source software, and has conjured up a scheme, the primary purpose of which is to harm it.
From the article, though, it seems more likely that the BBC is worried about copyright infringement, and as with many companies, the only sort-of-half-assed solution they can think of to combat it is to introduce some DRM, and the only even-more-half-assed solution they can think of to make it hard to crack the DRM is security-through-obscurity. That's incompatible with OSS, as Cory Doctorow points out, but I think out of a misplaced attempt to use security-through-obscurity, not out of an actual antipathy to open-source vs. proprietary software as licensing models. Who knows if they even realized that: 1) lots of open-source software is used in conjunction with receiving TV broadcasts (and not just by warez groups); and 2) their scheme would therefore harm an important segment of the public.
Double Check Your Premise & Concentrate on Cas (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, generally speaking, the BBC isn't allowed to encrypt or restrict its broadcasts
Where is it written that the BBC isn't allowed to encrypt or restrict its broadcasts? Is that a law I'm unaware of?
the licence fee payer pays for these broadcasts, and no licence fee payer woke up today wishing that the BBC had added restrictions to its programming.
I think that's a false statement. I would bet there are some of the population wagering that if the BBC could encrypt the signal in some way, then they could better control one of the few revenues they have (aside from the taxpayer). That being DVD sales and sales to a vast amount of the world--namely everyone who is not British.
This might conflict statements about wanting to encourage open source but make no mistake about it, the BBC does not have to support open source. Does it suck? Most certainly. Should you complain about it? Of course. But the logic here isn't just the desire to control the set top boxes or some ultra evil GNU/GPL destruction campaign. No%2
Re:Not Mutually Exclusive (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM absolutely excludes open source, Free-with-a-capital-F-as-in-Freedom software. My freedom is restricted if I am not permitted to modify the software (e.g. to write to disk instead of screen).
Re:Strange question (Score:5, Insightful)
Encryption strength depends on the key, not the algorithm. You can study the source of GnuPG all you want, but you can't break the encryption without the private key.
And DRM fails because of neither the key nor the algorithm. It fails because some greedy clods don't know heck about the basic principles of encryption, one of which being that you can't encrypt and not-encrypt at the same time.
Re:Not Mutually Exclusive (Score:5, Insightful)
PGP has a much easier task, though: it only needs to ensure that people with the key can decrypt content, while people without the key cannot. DRM schemes need to ensure that the same person can only decrypt given content for certain purposes, and not for other purposes.
Three and a half Billion Pounds (Score:2, Insightful)
Why if 3 1/2 Billion pounds of money why is the content ALL just simply available to those who should OWN it.
It does make 700 million selling the stuff, insultingly back to us either in DVD/CD or via other freeview channels.
I understand the need for tax but not for this
Re:Strange question (Score:1, Insightful)
Easy.... He
1)Sells Laptops.
2)???
3)Profit!
Re:BBC (Score:4, Insightful)
You have a lot to learn about the US tax system: http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms//WhereOurTaxDollarsGo_MostOfBudget.jpg [cbpp.org] Around 70% to 80% of my taxes go to services I don't need or want, yet I am forced to pay for them. True, we don't have to pay for a TV license, so that makes it ok.
Re:Not Mutually Exclusive (Score:3, Insightful)
And thus DRM ultimately is, at best, security through obscurity (by obscurity, in this case, burying the key and hoping it's obfuscated enough that a hacker can't pull out the key). The problem is simple. They want to control how you use their data, but no too much. It would certainly be trivial to set up a public-private key system for content, particularly for downloadable content. But they want their cake and eat it too, they want to protect their rights, as they perceive it, but still keep their existing business model. In the long-run, it's a no-win scenario. Since my earliest days of playing with computers, the notion that you could secure your product by storing the password in it has been known as idiot's security, implemented by idiots with the hope that anyone touching the product is an even bigger idiot.
Mutually exclusive? (Score:3, Insightful)
Since when is FOSS mutually exclusive with DRM? You can use FOSS to sell software, make money, create DRM, and write Windows programs. These aren't activities we normally think of when it comes to FOSS, but they are generally allowed.
Re:The BBC aren't (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Strange question (Score:5, Insightful)
It's no different from a closed source DRM solution, except that since it is OSS, it may have a stronger encryption system since it can't rely on security through obscurity.
You're operating under two assumptions that exec-types often do:
First, you assume it has something to do with the strength of the encryption. It doesn't. DVD CSS was pathetic, it's true, and can easily be brute-forced on modern machines -- but the original crack was someone obtaining the keys. Blu-Ray (and HD-DVD) were cracked not by finding some flaw in the algorithms used, but in finding the key (09 F9 ...).
Second, it is always security through obscurity. In order to play the movie, you need the key. In order to copy the movie, you need the key. Thus, in order to play the movie, you need the same thing you'd need in order to copy the movie, and there is no way around that. All DRM around audiovisual content is crackable. This is a flaw inherent in the nature of DRM. It is something which will never be improved.
Vastly more important question (Score:5, Insightful)
How does DRM help the BBC provide their services to the taxpayer, better ?
Re:Strange question (Score:5, Insightful)
If it is truly FOSS then I can modify the software to, as well sending the decrypted video to the output device, write it to a storage device in unencrypted non-DRMed format.
Hence the DRM is completely useless and pointless and there can be no FOSS media players that respect DRM.
outrage machine. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Strange question (Score:2, Insightful)
XOR, just like ROT-N, isn't really encryption at all, I think.
And yes, secrecy of the key is a necessity, but not all. Weak keys can be guessed. Strong keys add to the difficulty of breaching its secrecy by guess.
But all these are trash-talk WRT DRM. Those who want DRM are blinded by the doublethink of giving you something while not giving you it. They borrow things from encryption technology but refuse to face the fact that encryption is intended to defeat tampering or eavesdropping, not DUPLICATION -- neither spatially nor temporally.
And that's why they don't rely on DRM alone. They know. And they buy laws so you can't duplicate certain things legally. And the culmination of this law-shopping was DMCA which says you can't even attempt to break the DRM which protects copyrighted material from being duplicated. This is a lie, because DRM by design is NOT capable of being a method of stopping duplication. (Luckily this USA insanity has not yet prevailed globally as intended.)
And mods, you can as well mod me down, -1 Offtopic.
wrong question (Score:1, Insightful)
the real question, and only question, in this issue is: does the BBC have the right at all to put DRM on broadcasts since the broadcasts are publicly owned.
Re:Mutually exclusive? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes you can have an open source DRM library and so on. What you can't have is an open source media player that respects DRM usefully.
Either the user can modify the software doing the DRM to not obey the restrictions the DRM says it should in which case it isn't respecting the DRM. Or the user can't modify the software like that in which case it isn't FOSS.
Re:Vastly more important question (Score:4, Insightful)
How does DRM help the BBC provide their services to the taxpayer, better ?
The BBC partners with other prduction companies and distributors world-wide.
International syndication and home video sales draws in big money and big talent. That's the benefit to the taxpayer.
Small Island
Adapted from the award-winning 2004 novel, this mini-series stars Naomie Harris (Pirates of the Caribbean, White Teeth, 28 Days Later) as Hortense, a young ambitious Jamaican woman thrust into the grit of 1940s post-war London. A Ruby Television production in association with AL Films for BBC, coproduced with WGBH and made on location in Northern Ireland with the assistance of Northern Ireland Screen.
Sharpe's Peril
Sharpe's Challenge
Shot entirely in India, these two installments of the award-winning series, Sharpe, star Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings, Troy, Golden Eye) as Bernard Cornwell's title character. Sharpe's Peril is a Celtic Films Ent./Picture Palace Films/Duke Street Films co-production in association with Harper Collins. Sharpe's Challenge is a Celtic Films and Picture Place production.
BBC WORLDWIDE ANNOUNCES DRAMA CO-PRODUCTIONS WITH WGBH/MASTERPIECE FOR EMMA AND CRANFORD 2 [pbs.org]
Dougray Scott, Joely Richardson, Brian Cox, Vanessa Redgrave, Eddie Izzard and Jason Priestley star in The Day Of The Triffids, written by Patrick Harbinson (ER, Law & Order). This epic, apocalyptic and futuristic two-part drama is a co-production between Power and Canadian producer Prodigy Pictures for BBC One The Day Of The Triffids attracts all-star cast to BBC One [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Mutually exclusive? (Score:3, Insightful)
And then someone with the source code to the DRM decoder can comment out the portion of the code which outputs the video and audio, and in its place add code to output to the hard drive.
Whether you're using ROT-26 or the most sophisticated techniques available, open source DRM is not possible because "decrypt something and display it on screen" and "decrypt something and write it to the hard drive" are not actually different things.
Re:Vastly more important question (Score:4, Insightful)
How does DRM help the BBC provide their services to the taxpayer, better ?
Because one of its services is its support for British programme-makers and independent production companies. Those companies rely partly on revenue from DVD sales and international sales for their survival. So, the BBC's DRM isn't just "because the nasty big-wigs in Hollywood want us to", but also part of their remit to foster artistic industry in the UK. If Kudos, Tiger Aspect, Hat Trick, etc, say they need DRM if content is to be broadcast in better-than-DVD quality, that matters.
Re:BBC (Score:3, Insightful)
I looked at that graph. Which 70 or 80% do you not want?
Defense is kind of important (whether or not you agree on our current strategy)
Assuming that the legislature don't deliberately bankrupt it, you'll eventually benefit from Social Security (and as the past year or so has shown, people are horrible at staying out of debt, let alone saving for retirement).
You'll also eventually want Medicare (or at least need the services it provides).
Of course, if you plan to die before retirement age under foreign occupation....yeah, we can throw away the 80% of the budget that you don't think we need.
BBC not the guilty party (Score:4, Insightful)
This is pretty unfair to the BBC. It should be made clear that the BBC probably isn't the one that's pushing for this. It's more likely that the BBC is being leant on by other content providers (like US networks) that it licences shows such as Heroes from, as well as movies it screens. It offers these on it's iPlayer service, so it's hardly surprising that it's being pressured into this.
Re:Vastly more important question (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mutually exclusive? (Score:3, Insightful)
The AC doesn't fail.
If you look at it from a very high level, the process of decrypting video is essentially identical on everything that's ever done it:
Step 1 - Decrypt the data stream.
Step 2 - Plug the output of step 1 into the input of a suitable decoder algorithm (eg. MPEG4).
There's no reason Step 2 couldn't be "write the output to a hard drive" and then read it back and pass it through your codec at a later date.
The only way open source DRM like that can work is if there are no such thing as TV capture cards (or USB devices...) and instead everything goes through dedicated set top boxes which are essentially Tivo'd - you could hack the firmware to decrypt and write to a hard drive rather than decode and display, but you'd also have to hack the hardware itself because the resulting firmware wouldn't be signed.
Re:strange headline (Score:2, Insightful)
DRM means that you give the ciphertext and the key to the customer but prevent him from getting the key. Obscurity is the only security you have.
Re:BBC (Score:3, Insightful)
The only job for government is to bomb people and throw potheads in jail for a few decades, and in that case I'm hugely in favor of big government. Maybe this includes building freeways, but I'm not sure about maintenance or inspections. Aside from that I can teach my own kids, inspect my own meat, and I can drive myself to the hospital if I fall down the stairs or have a heart attack.
Also, if my house catches fire, it's my job to extinguish it. If some poor bastard's house down the way catches fire, that's his problem.
I've had enough with these fucking commies who want to take all my guns and money away.
Re:The BBC aren't (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Strange question (Score:3, Insightful)
Well your TV licence number then. We're talking about the BBC here.
Re:Strange question (Score:2, Insightful)
even the best security experts in the world can not make a DRM system that works.
All security experts have maximum two of the following properties:
- they are competent
- they are honest
- they believe DRM is possible
(I don't remember who I'm quoting or paraphrasing here.)
Re:strange headline (Score:2, Insightful)