From: Smigrodzki, Rafal (SmigrodzkiR@msx.upmc.edu)
Date: Sun Mar 24 2002 - 20:27:32 MST
Hal Finney [mailto:hal@finney.org] wrote:
The basic idea is that content is kept encrypted until it reaches a
hardware display device that has a key built into it. At that point
the data is decrypted and presented. The goal eventually is to get to
a point where the data is encrypted everywhere that it is in digital
form, only being decrypted in the same hardware device that will turn
it into analog signals. This will prevent the data from being captured
and duplicated with the full fidelity of the original.
### But what happens if some tinkerers open the case, and subvert the
loyalty of the device?
If the decrypted data is transferred anywhere on the board between
integrated circuits, it will be possible to capture it (as in tapping the
wire from the sound chip to an amplifier - if my fuzzy ideas about the
insides of stereos are correct). And if you buy a high-fidelity device,
there will have to a very high quality analog line, essentially
indistinguishable from the original, at the latest right before reaching the
solenoids of the loudspeakers, also susceptible to tapping and digitization.
There might be a huge market for kits for do-it-yourselfers.
I think the megacorporations will achieve their goal of total control of IP
only when they manage to fully subvert and control the state, and enforce
universal, real time surveillance of almost everybody. Until then, we the
little people, will squeak by somehow.
Rafal
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