Vista DRM The 'Longest Suicide Note in History'?

Begin forwarded message:

From: Gunnar Helliesen <[email protected]>
Date: December 26, 2006 3:50:46 PM EST
To: Dave Farber <[email protected]>
Subject: Vista DRM The 'Longest Suicide Note in History'?

Prof. Farber,

Highly recommended piece by security researcher Peter Gutmann. It  
details how Vista is intentionally crippled, to protect "premium  
content". Also possible effects on OSS, drivers and such. For IP, if  
you wish.


<excerpt>

            A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
            ===================================================

                 Peter Gutmann, [email protected]
         http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
                      Last updated 27 December 2006


Executive Summary
-----------------

Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in  
order to
provide content protection for so-called "premium content", typically  
HD data
from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources.  Providing this protection incurs
considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability,  
technical
support overhead, and hardware and software cost.  These issues  
affect not
only users of Vista but the entire PC industry, since the effects of the
protection measures extend to cover all hardware and software that  
will ever
come into contact with Vista, even if it's not used directly with  
Vista (for
example hardware in a Macintosh computer or on a Linux server).  This  
document
analyses the cost involved in Vista's content protection, and the  
collateral
damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry.

Executive Executive Summary
---------------------------

The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute  
the
longest suicide note in history.

[...]

Disabling of Functionality
--------------------------

Vista's content protection mechanism only allows protected content to  
be sent
over interfaces that also have content-protection facilities built in.
Currently the most common high-end audio output interface is S/PDIF
(Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format).  Most newer audio cards, for  
example,
feature TOSlink digital optical output for high-quality sound  
reproduction,
and even the latest crop of motherboards with integrated audio  
provide at
least coax (and often optical) digital output.  Since S/PDIF doesn't  
provide
any content protection, Vista requires that it be disabled when playing
protected content.  In other words if you've invested a pile of money  
into a
high-end audio setup fed from a digital output, you won't be able to  
use it
with protected content.  Similarly, component (YPbPr) video will be  
disabled
by Vista's content protection, so the same applies to a high-end  
video setup
fed from component video.

[...]

Elimination of Open-source Hardware Support
-------------------------------------------

In order to prevent the creation of hardware emulators of protected  
output
devices, Vista requires a Hardware Functionality Scan (HFS) that can  
be used
to uniquely fingerprint a hardware device to ensure that it's (probably)
genuine.  In order to do this, the driver on the host PC performs an  
operation
in the hardware (for example rendering 3D content in a graphics card)  
that
produces a result that's unique to that device type.

In order for this to work, the spec requires that the operational  
details of
the device be kept confidential.  Obviously anyone who knows enough  
about the
workings of a device to operate it and to write a third-party driver  
for it
(for example one for an open-source OS, or in general just any non- 
Windows OS)
will also know enough to fake the HFS process.  The only way to  
protect the
HFS process therefore is to not release any technical details on the  
device
beyond a minimum required for web site reviews and comparison with other
products.

</excerpt>


-- 
Gunnar Helliesen, Norwegian at large.
Blog at http://luni.net/