Re: "Enclosed shops" Re: HTML5 and DRM - A Middle Path?

On Fri, 2013-08-16 at 11:23 -0700, Mark Watson wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 10:38 AM, Andreas Kuckartz
> <a.kuckartz@ping.de> wrote:
>         Mark Watson:
>         >> Would Netflix inform the public or shut down its operations
>         when it
>         >> receives a secret order to participate in surveillance by
>         using a
>         >> backdoor contained in a CDM which is already installed on a
>         users
>         >> computer? (After the shutdown of lavabit.com this
>         unfortunately is
>         >> not a rhetorical question.)
>         >>
>         >
>         > That question is somewhat above my pay grade,
>         
>         
>         You could ask someone who can answer the question. A positive
>         reply
>         would definitely be widely acknowledged.
>         
>         > but my point is that it is no more likely that a
>         browser-integrated
>         > CDM contains such a back door than that the browser itself
>         contains
>         > the same thing.
>         
>         
>         That seems to be true for proprietary browsers (and is a good
>         reason not
>         to use them), but it is not true for Open Source browsers
>         because it is
>         possible to verify that binaries and source code are related.
>         
>         > And equally, it is no more likely that an OS-integrated CDM
>         contains
>         > such a back door than the OS itself contains it.
>         
>         
>         For the same reasons as given above this is not true for Open
>         Source
>         operating systems.
> 
> 
Let me parse this part of the response:
> Obviously. I am talking about users who already have access to the
> content in question today. 
I care little about you and your Free Software. You don't have great
enough numbers for companies like Netflix to care. Move aside so our
customers that don't question anything can keep paying for service.

> If you are unwilling to install code you have not compiled yourself
> from source, then you are not using Flash or Silverlight today and
> nothing in this discussion affects you at all. 
Mind your own business. Only speak when spoken to.

> You either lose access to any content nor gain access to any content.
> I'm sorry that EME doesn't make the content in question newly
> available to you, but that's not a problem amenable to a technical
> solution.
>  
Because Netflix chooses to operate in a business model that requires
control of how your computer plays media streams, and you've chosen to
maintain that control yourself, Netflix has chosen to ignore any
technical solutions that would allow you to gain access to this content.
Look on the bright side chump, you're not losing access, so quit
complaining.


>         > So, EME and DRM are completely irrelevant to your
>         > concerns.
>         
>         
>         As we have already discussed for several months now (and we
>         seem to
>         agree) it is unlikely that the most relevant CDMs will be made
>         available
>         as Open Source. EME and DRM therefore are more relevant for my
>         concerns
>         than virtually all other components of an operating system.
>         EME is the
>         only specification discussed within the W3C which has such
>         issues.
> 
> In the respects we are discussing here then EME is clearly an
> improvement over <object>.
 
In what way? To my knowledge <object> only allows for non-free objects
to be embedded in pages but it doesn't require them to be non-free and
it certainly wasn't doesn't for that and nothing else.
> 
>         
>         And to repeat: I am not aware of *any* operating system or
>         *any* browser
>         explicitly claiming to enable "silent monitoring". That is a
>         feature DRM
>         only shares with (other) spyware.
> 
> 
> Well, the browser vendors will need to decide whether such a feature,
> whatever it is, is compatible with the privacy/security promises they
> make to their users. Again, that approach is an advantage of EME
> compared to the existing situation where the browser vendors have
> limited control over what proprietary plugins do and certainly
> browsers are not making any promises to users about what plugins do.
> 
No and this is why we need something better than proprietary software to
solve this problem. You're presenting to evils and expecting everyone to
be agreeable because one is less evil than the other.
> 
> ...Mark
> 
> 
>  
>         
>         Cheers,
>         Andreas
> 
> 


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Received on Saturday, 17 August 2013 03:05:02 UTC