- From: Clarke Stevens <C.Stevens@cablelabs.com>
- Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2012 10:17:36 -0700
- To: Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi>, Glenn Adams <glenn@skynav.com>
- CC: "john@netpurgatory.com" <john@netpurgatory.com>, Andreas Kuckartz <A.Kuckartz@ping.de>, "HTML WG (public-html@w3.org)" <public-html@w3.org>, Adrian Bateman <adrianba@microsoft.com>, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>, David Dorwin <ddorwin@google.com>, Mark Watson <watsonm@netflix.com>
I do think the confusion was that the word "adversary" in the technical DRM sense is fine, but that usage wasn't clear at first. In the nontechnical usage the word is highly prejudicial. I think part of the problem may also have been that we were talking about the "user" as an adversary rather than the "unauthorized user." This may be semantics, but of course we must ensure that the "authorized user" has the necessary credentials to remove the encryption. -Clarke On 2/27/12 12:01 AM, "Henri Sivonen" <hsivonen@iki.fi> wrote: >On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 9:20 PM, Glenn Adams <glenn@skynav.com> wrote: >> >> On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 11:55 AM, Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi> wrote: >>> >>> On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 8:12 PM, Glenn Adams <glenn@skynav.com> wrote: >>> > You over-generalize when you >>> > imply that one such restrictive license effectively prohibits a >>> > meaningful >>> > use of a mechanism with a non-restrictive policy. >>> >>> What would be a meaningful use of the proposed mechanism with a >>> non-restrictive policy? (HTML5 video already supports cases where the >>> user is not treated as an adversary.) >> >> adversary? customers aren't usually viewed as adversaries... let's tone >>done >> the hyperbole please > >On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 9:22 PM, Clarke Stevens <C.Stevens@cablelabs.com> >wrote: >> I must be missing something here. I don't understand the use of >> inflammatory language (treating a user as an adversary) to describe a >> common commercial relationship. > >As Kornel pointed out, I used the word "adversary" in the technical >sense as part of cryptography terminology: >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adversary_%28cryptography%29 > >I was inspired to use this word, because the proposal under discussion >has this sentence: >"Everything from user-generated content to be shared with family (user >is not an adversary) to online radio to feature-length movies." >http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-media/encrypted-me >dia.html#faq-use-cases > >My understanding of the quoted sentence (given background information >about DRM) is that it means to imply that in the cases of online radio >and feature-length movies, the user is an adversary. > >The first part of the sentence doesn't make sense to me, because the >proposal isn't needed to support cases where the user is not an >adversary, because HTML <video> already supports such cases. > >Treating the user as an adversary is the reason for existence for DRM. >(The other purpose DRM can serve is adding competitive barriers >between technology providers.) The point of DRM is to "protect" the >unscrambled content from the user--i.e. the user is the adversary. If >some content proprietors didn't view end customers as adversaries, DRM >wouldn't exist. (If you are OK with revealing the unscrambled content >to the user and only want to hide it from third parties, you just use >https.) > >If you take issue with the notion of treating the user as an >adversary, it would be logical for you to oppose to a DRM proposal. > >-- >Henri Sivonen >hsivonen@iki.fi >http://hsivonen.iki.fi/ >
Received on Monday, 27 February 2012 17:23:10 UTC