Windows Vista content protection (DRM)
This is a transcription and tidyup of a log of Trivia, on which I made all of the following points. It still has some of its conversational style, and occasionally it's somewhat disjoint, but hopefully it carries the bulk of the meaning.
Executive Executive Summary: The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.
Under a broad set of circumstances, Vista will require that the data sent to your screen must be encrypted. According to my calculations, you would need a *dedicated* 2GHz processor just to encrypt a standard image, 1024x768 64K colours. That's a pretty standard office setup. It's not what you'd watch high definition videos on. Standard refresh rates start at 60hz and go up - that is, the image on your screen is being redrawn sixty times a second. So it's being redrawn every 16 or 17 milliseconds. And a 2GHz chip needs 15.7 milliseconds to encrypt the amount of data needed for each refresh.
Either Vista is dead in the water, or everyone is going to succumb to Microsoft's monopoly, and pretty much surrender the entire computer industry to them.
Microsoft are pushing their monopoly really REALLY hard. Everyone has a choice. And the key to making the choice is.... what do you reckon the rest of the world will do.
Here's a fun little game to play. Everyone write down either the number zero or the number one, and give it to me without showing anyone. Whichever side got picked the most wins. And everyone who picked wrong will get killed. That's basically what Microsoft are offering. The players in this game are hardware manufacturers (making nice expensive video and sound cards), software developers (making playback software), movie makers, and end users.
[*] If nobody goes for it, Microsoft will be the only ones to lose out.[*] If everyone goes for it, Microsoft win big, but everyone's in the same boat.[*] If enough people go for it, though, those who DIDN'T are going to suffer big-time.
It's not as simple as just "guess where the majority's going to go". The Microsoft way can't actually win longterm. But I think MS has enough position to win short term at least.
"In order for Windows Vista's content protection to work, it has to be able to violate the laws of physics and create numerous copies that are simultaneously not copies." This (which doesn't make much sense to Tolegu, nor probably to many other people) basically means that Vista has specified certain requirements that are contrary to the laws of physics. And remember, the laws of physics aren't like the laws of the land. You can break American law, or Australian law, or whatever. You don't break the laws of physics... They. Break. You.
Long term, Vista will do everyone harm - hardware manufacturers, software developers, end users, movie makers - even Microsoft themselves. So why are they making it? Money? Yes, and also to maintain and enhance their stranglehold on the computer industry.
(Parenthesis: Tolegu asked for what reasons *anybody* makes software, other than for money. I responded that I write software to solve problems, and assured Abrianne that I often DO write it for free. Of course, that's not to say I wouldn't accept if someone decided to offer me money for Pigeon, or for RosMud++, or NetSem, or anything. But I give 'em away for nothing, because I've already gotten all the benefit I needed from them. My philosophy is this: If I need something enough to devote 'X' hours of work to writing it, then I do it. That's obvious. Having done so, if I can give that work to someone else without losing it myself and without incurring significant cost, then I do not need to charge them for it. Here endeth the parenthesis.)
Apparently data stored in memory is allowed to be unencrypted, but before it goes to disk it MUST be encrypted. So they're going to have to encrypt it before it goes into the page file. So there'll have to be a bit on every page of memory that says "0 - this page is normal, go ahead, swap it out" or "1 - this page is premium content, so before you swap it out, go to so much work that it's not worth swapping it out".
