[ale] [OT] A vent and whine - ignore with dignity

[Michael B. Trausch]

On Sun, 2010-06-27 at 21:17 -0400, scott wrote:
> requirement: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional,
> Windows 7 Enterprise, or Windows 7 Ultimate
> 
> The unit uses DRM built into Windows to do its magic.  This is done on
> purpose since the cable companies/MPAA/Hollywood/etc can then push
> down
> their DRM on it at their will with the help of M$.  They dont want you
> to keep recordings on your DVR forever.  That is why the ones provided
> by the cable companies have soo little drive space and wont let you
> expand.  And they dont want homebrewers to have the access or they
> will
> just keep adding and adding space.  Then they (hollywood/MPAA) cant
> force you to go and buy the DVD/BlueRays.

I could have *sworn* that all that hoopla blew over with a favorable
result in the legal arena.  Yes, the stream is encrypted, but it's
encrypted in a backwards-compatible, well-understood way.  Furthermore,
as I understand the *legal* requirements for the CableCARD and the
industry that it serves, it is there so that the act of acquiring
decryption keys is decoupled from the unit.

Unless the rules changed while I wasn't looking, it is still mandated to
be an open system.  That is, you are supposed to (legally) be permitted
to buy or rent a CableCARD associated with your account and use it with
any device that can communicate with it.  It's supposed to perform the
decryption and authentication and all of that jazz all by itself as a
little black box.

> Its all about the DRM and force purchases.
> 
> sorry about the rant but I just had a very long technical discussion
> about this with two people that work for that industry in a techie
> position and they couldnt see my point of view. 

I'm thinking that you're using the term "DRM" to mean "encryption".  For
that matter, true DRM requires bidirectional communication, which AIUI
still cannot be done by current-generation CableCARD devices.

	--- Mike