From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@invweb.net>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 13:29:07 +0800
To: Jonathan Wienke <JonWienk@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Superdistribution development/release
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19971203195235.006e7318@popd.netcruiser>
Message-ID: <199712040524.AAA26313@users.invweb.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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In <3.0.3.32.19971203195235.006e7318@popd.netcruiser>, on 12/03/97 
   at 07:52 PM, Jonathan Wienke <JonWienk@ix.netcom.com> said:


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>At 07:27 PM 12/3/97 -0500, Robert Hettinga wrote:
>>Yet Another Watermark...

>[snip]

>>From: "Blair Anderson" <blair@technologist.com>

>[snip]

>>Persistent Cryptographic Wrappers (RightsWrapper) - No matter where the
>>digital document (financial newsletter, educational test, minutes from a
>>court proceeding, sensitive health care records, etc.) goes, no matter
>>how it gets there, whether it is used and then subsequently
>>redistributed, etc. the document is always encrypted.  It is never left
>>decrypted and exposed even while it is being viewed.

>[snip]

>>Metering and Enforcement (RightsClient) - Provides decryption services,
>>meters use, and sends usage information to the RightsServer via secure
>>middleware.

>"It is never left decrypted and exposed" but the software "Provides
>decryption services."  Doesn't this sound oxymoronic?  These guys need
>help.

I think the point they were trying to make was the data is not left in the
clear on the storage media (this is typical marketing droids at work). 

For practical reason data must be in the clear in memory at some point in
time. Also the data must be transferred into some type of peripheral so
the user can do somthing with the data (read text off a monitor, print a
document, listen to music, ...ect).

This is the biggest failings in these systems. Once the user has the
ability to decrypt the data the game is lost. One does not need to break
the crypto system as they give you the keys with the product!! 

Will this prevent John doe from giving a copy of the document to a
friend?? Nope as he will just give the friend the passphrase (or what ever
mechanism they use) along with the copy.

Will this prevent the Warez groups?? It may slow them down some but it
woun't get rid of them.

Will it stop commercial pirating?? HAH!! It will not even slow it down, a
minor inconvenience at best.


- -- 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html                        
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