What Every Citizen Should Know About DRM, aka - Public Knowledge

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What Every Citizen Should Know About DRM,a.k.a. “Digital Rights Management”to enable the use of the computer running theoperating system as a Web server.)To understand how intertwined peer-to-peer filesharing is with the Internet itself, it helps to considerwhat the Internet actually is. One way tounderstand the Internet is to say that the Internetconsists of special computers called “routers” interconnectedwith fiber optic lines, cable and dialupmodems, and the like. General purpose “host”computers, including your personal computer, connectto the routers to use the Internet to communicate,and in effect they become part of theInternet as well.The end-to-end design principleRouters are functionally similar to postal sortingmachines. But instead of sorting paper envelopes,they handle small electronic “packets” of data fromand to the host computers. By design, routers provideonly a minimum set of services. All other processingis done on an “end-to-end” basis by thehosts. This “end-to-end principle” was and continuesto be extremely influential in the developmentof the Internet. The principle serves two vital purposes:it simplifies and reduces the cost of theInternet infrastructure, and it facilitates the developmentof new and innovative Internet applicationson the host computers.This end-to-end architecture has a profoundeffect on the viability of any mandated technologicalcopy-protection scheme implemented withinthe Internet itself (i.e., in the routers), as opposedto the host computers connected to it. Just as apostal sorting machine looks only at the addresseson the outsides of envelopes without openingthem, Internet routers only need look at the Internetprotocol “header” on each packet. The contentof each packet is wholly arbitrary, and is not necessarilymeaningful to anyone but the host to whichit is addressed. This is especially true when thepacket has been encrypted with a key possessed byonly the source and destination hosts. Several security(encryption) protocols are already widely usedon the Internet, including SSL, SSH, TLS andIPSEC.Since end-to-end encryption can completelyhide the meaning of each packet, use of encryptionwould make it completely impossible for Internetrouters to scan encrypted packets for “broadcastflags” or any other copyright information so thatthe transfer of such packets could be blocked.Making things worse for would-be infringementdetectives, even when Internet Protocol (IP) communicationstraffic is not encrypted, IP “sniffing”(sampling of packets) is not particularly effective atdetecting infringement. A single IP packet cancarry only a limited amount of data (1500 charactersis the usual maximum) and it is both permittedand fairly common for the different IP packets thatmake up a transfer to follow different paths to theirdestination. To determine by“sniffing” packets whethercontent is being infringed The Internet’s robustwould require the gathering,buffering, and examinationof whole files, or“end-to-end” designleast large chunks of them, makes it difficult toeven if they were transmitted“in the clear.”defeat or deterWhat this discussionsuggests is that any technologymandate thatinfringement at therequires core Internet network level.components (routers, transmissionlinks, and so on) toimplement schemes to thwart the transfer of copyrightedmaterial is likely unworkable and easily circumventable.This means that copy-protectionmandates, if they are to work at all, would requiremechanisms and measures to be implemented inthe Internet hosts.B. Who’s a Host On Today’s Internet?This is a broader prescription than it may firstappear to be because nowadays virtually everycomputer on the Internet can function as a host.This was not always the case, however. In theyears before the personal computer revolution(which can be said to have begun approximatelyin 1976), Internet hosts were usually physicallylarge, continuously operating computers thatacted as both servers and clients, depending onhow you used them. They communicated asequal peers.27
IV. The “Threat Model” of Universal Infringement,and the Potential Threats Posed By DRMWith the personal computer driving the Internet’sexplosive growth in the mid to late 1990s,clients and servers began to differentiate. Today,many and perhaps most personal computers functiononly as clients; they rely on services providedby relatively few dedicated “server” hosts. ManyInternet service providers (ISPs) provide servertypeservices to their customers so that they maypublish web pages and other information. Oneconsequence of this design is good news for contentowners: Specifically, when a user publishesinfringing material on his ISP’s server, it is relativelyeasy to identify andMany observers regard contact the ISP staff torequest removal of thethe broadcast-flag infringing materials.But this aspect of Internetuse is changing, and ininitiative as a first stepa way that harkens back totoward comprehensive the original structure ofthe Internet. With thedesign control over availability of high speed,“always-on” Internetcomputers and other access by cable modemand DSL, of advancedproducts. operating systems such asGNU/Linux and BSD andlater versions of Windows, and of continuingprice/performance improvements in computerprocessors, memory and disk storage, individualscan now run their own servers, accessible to anyoneon the Internet. Users no longer necessarilyrely on ISP-provided servers; they need only basicInternet connectivity. Individual users become, ineffect, “hosts.” This is why, while some perceiveuser-run peer-to-peer servers as a novel development,they are actually nothing more than a returnto the Internet’s original model as a network ofcomputers as equal peers, each acting as both clientand server.The implication of this development is bothclear and disturbing for those who wish to outlawpeer-to-peer services as such — one probably cannotbuild effective DRM at the router level 38 , andbuilding it in at the host level probably requiresbuilding DRM into every personal computer thatcan connect to the Internet.This is a tall order, but at least some representativesof content companies hope to approach thisgoal. One way to do so is on a step-by-step basis.For example, content companies could seek regulationsand other measures that affect the design ofcomputers that receive television content (as anincreasing number of personal computers are ableto do), or that affect the design of devices that canbe connected to TV receivers (this would cover abroad range of digital and consumer-electronicsdevices). Indeed, many observers regard the contentcompanies’ push for a broadcast-flag regulationto be evidence of such a step-by-step strategy.The step-by-step approach can be used in morethan one arena. For example, content companiescan seek DRM-based design changes through privatecontracts (e.g., by refusing to license contentto cable or satellite-TV companies that don’tincorporate certain DRM measures into theirequipment, including the equipment they licenseconsumers to use). At they same time they can seekto advance the ubiquity of DRM by public regulationsuch as the broadcast-flag proposal submittedto the Federal Communications Commission,which the FCC has adopted, albeit in significantlyaltered form.The content companies’ efforts to make DRMmore pervasive in the digital world are complementedby efforts in the computer industry, somemembers of which hope to establish through“trusted computing” and similar initiatives a kindof DRM-based secure space inside your next computer— secure in ways that benefit you, perhaps,but also secure in ways that prevent you from havingfull control over your computer, especiallywhen it is being used as a channel for delivery ofcommercial content.28
Page 1 and 2: What Every CitizenShould Know About
Page 3 and 4: AcknowledgementsThis “DRM primer
Page 5 and 6: I. A Brief Introduction To DRMand i
Page 7 and 8: What Every Citizen Should Know Abou
Page 11 and 12: II. What Does DRM Look Like?system
Page 13 and 14: II. What Does DRM Look Like?The “
Page 15 and 16: II. What Does DRM Look Like?The “
Page 17 and 18: II. What Does DRM Look Like?support
Page 19 and 20: II. What Does DRM Look Like?sion br
Page 21 and 22: II. What Does DRM Look Like?ing tel
Page 23 and 24: III. Should DRM Be ImposedBy the Go
Page 25 and 26: III. Should DRM Be ImposedBy the Go
Page 27 and 28: IV. The “Threat Model” of Unive
Page 29: IV. The “Threat Model” of Unive
Page 33 and 34: V. Conclusion: Can ThereBe a “Hum

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