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W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

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Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#361

Post by bhhaskin »

tdy721 wrote: post #243
bhhaskin wrote: post #33

We are allowing large corporations to dictate and push the web toward a closed system. A future where there has to be an App for that, and if you don't keep your head down you will be censored and cutoff from the rest of the online world.

If you want the masses to care, the masses will have to lose first. They (not hackers) don't get it, and it's inconceivable that they ever will... Until they notice the closed system. Is there even a war taking place? Battles are often forgotten. Yes, we (the hackers) allowed this to happen. We need to think about it now. I feel like the YOU in your comment is slightly misaddressed. What can WE do about it? jus' trol…

Once a system becomes closed it is very difficult to become open again. It's like personal liberty & freedoms, if you/we give them up they are almost impossible to get them back.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#362

Post by nebabyte »

jancsika wrote: post #240
Ajedi32 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tim Berners-Lee isn't dead. And if you read the article, you'll see that he was actually the one who originally overrode the EFF's objections to publishing a DRM standard in the first place.

I read that as the poster being sarcastic-- the logic being that if the W3C made this decision, it must mean that the spirit in which Tim Berners-Lee created the web died some time ago. So Tim Berners-Lee "must be rolling in his grave," quite aside from the fact that he is still physically alive and doing fine.

Perhaps people are simply projecting what they think "the spirit in which Tim Berners-Lee created the web" is on the man?

Even if he put words to them early on, it's easy for someone to claim lofty ideals when creating something and later realize that's not true to what they believe in.

This whole fanboy-heroism is probably a big part of why people don't act for themselves and are left to cry when their 'glorious leaders' "betray" their interests.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#363

Post by AndrewUnmuted »

smsm42 wrote: post #156
noir_lord wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The really insane part is that the DRM is pointless anyway, you can go onto any file sharing/streaming site within minutes of a Netflix release dropping and it's there in HD. I still maintain my netflix account 1) because my mum uses it with her Roku and 2) because they should be paid for providing value and good TV. I have the technical skills (like nearly all HN readers I'd imagine) to stream whatever I want with e…

I remember I has signed up for Audible - and was completely prepared to pay their subscription fees, despite a lot of content being available on pirate sites for $0. But I am old enough to value my time and pay reasonable fee for just mere convenience. And also it's the right thing to do, right? Turned out, however, that I could not play this content on most of my devices, because it was DRMed into something awful, d…

You can get rid of the DRM easily with FFmpeg:

ffmpeg -activation_bytes 1CEB00DA -i test.aax -vn -c:a copy output.mp4

See: http://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-all.html#Audible-AAX

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#364

Post by DrJokepu »

pedrocr wrote: post #141
tptacek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems self-evidently unharmful, in that we appear to be in a golden era of delivering content online so extraordinary that it threatens traditional television networks. I understand that this is an extremely unpopular sentiment on HN, but here goes: at least with respect to video content, the industry seems to have largely proven DRM concerns unfounded. Update: modulo the Hickson concerns below. Continuing: DRM ce…

>DRM certainly has kept some (power) user-friendly features off the market. Is watching Netflix at 1080p or more a power user feature? Because currently that's heavily restricted by DRM. Not possible on any open-source operating system, restricted to a few browsers on Mac and Windows. 4K is only enabled on Microsoft Edge and only if you also activate a bunch of hardware DRM features. So I have to watch 720p content o…

> Is watching Netflix at 1080p or more a power user feature? Because currently that's heavily restricted by DRM. Not possible on any open-source operating system, restricted to a few browsers on Mac and Windows.

Consuming content anything else than the mainstream browsers on anything else than the mainstream operating systems or devices is definitely a power user feature, yes.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#365

Post by nucleardog »

nebabyte wrote: post #311
nucleardog wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your assertion that standardizing DRM forces everyone to use it makes about as much sense as the assertion that teaching teenagers about condoms will make them all have sex.

"Don't worry, once we standardize it we won't have to use it!" Sure, I'd be happy to relegate you to subset of people I just ignore on the basis of their inability to learn from history.

And if we don't standardize it, no one will use DRM, right? Just like how we don't have DRM right now?

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#366

Post by wolfgke »

Sargos wrote: post #287
wolfgke wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And what's your solution (proposal) for the problem they faced? Make the zero-tolerance for DRM a unique selling point of Firefox.

I'm not sure "doesn't work with most major video sites" is an actual selling point.

> I'm not sure "doesn't work with most major video sites" is an actual selling point.

You just have to reframe it to something like: "protects you against websites that try to plant DRM-malware on your computer".

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#367

Post by bhhaskin »

tdy721 wrote: post #249
movedx wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most users don't even know what open source software is, much less where to find any; they use what comes with either Windows or OS X or their smartphone. This is an educational issue at the social level. The technology is still available.

Exactly, I don't want a password for my online banking, I actually despise the fact that my bank would ever even ask for one. I want a bank where I can deliver an SSH key. The tech is here. It's been here all along.

That would be pretty amazing.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#368

Post by ashark »

EGreg wrote: post #339
ashark wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone launches a new HTML-based Web with crippled javascript ( no network comm access, for one, including ability to trigger links or forms), some small, restricted subset of CSS, and much better built-in dynamic table and form elements, I'm there . This Web's about to be eaten by DRM and WebAssembly anyway. Pretty soon it'll just be a way to deliver QT apps (or some other framework that runs in WebAssembly and…

Wait, what? Perhaps you are right, but how do you make the leap from "W3C standardizes DRM" and "the Web is about to be eaten by DRM?" The Web is used for so many things these days. It is a publishing platform that allows anyone to host their own content to the entire internet, thanks to Web Browsers just loading it. I can see IPFS being an improvement over the Web but besides the web server being a single point of f…

DRM and webassembly. The end of openness in both cases—though at least WebAssembly means we eventually won't have to write Javascript anymore, which is nice as far as that goes.

Sure, Javascript uglifiers and frameworks mucking with HTML standards and the DOM had already made "view source" nigh-worthless, and there were DRM'd plugins of course, and browsers had supported some schemes for a while as a de facto standard, but this still feels like a last-straw kind of situation to me.

> My own company is developing an open source platform for communities to run their own social networks (https://qbix.com) so what is this "eating" you speak of?

Sure, it's already the world's premiere delivery mechanism for "apps", advertisements, and mass surveillance software. I know. That's exactly the kind of thing that I don't mind living somewhere, but I'd like it not to be all mixed up in my networked hypertext document reader.

This Web's over. Anyone hosting an After-Web? I could do with a little more Webbing.

[EDIT] Though actually your thing seems fine. I saw "social network" and glossed over the rest. Sorry.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#369

Post by icebraining »

tptacek wrote: post #148
yarrel wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who are not fooled by the ideology of DRM are fully aware that DRM is a legal strategy, not a technology. That doesn't change the technological harm of DRM. Putting a DRM-shaped hole in web standards makes browsers less secure, less stable, and less maintainable. iTunes copy protection used to be broken in a few hours, Blu Ray is long since cracked. DRM is neither secure nor cryptographically sound ( http://cr…

I don't know a lot of software security people who work on browser security that agree with this. The prevailing sentiment is the opposite: that standardize DRM reduces the attack surface of proprietary DRM down to that of a CDM, rather than full-featured browser plugins. By doing so, EME is improving security, not damaging it.

We could have neither, though.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#370

Post by appleflaxen »

cbhl wrote: post #314
5_minutes wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In 2013, EFF was disappointed to learn that the W3C had taken on the project of standardizing “Encrypted Media Extensions,” an API whose sole function was to provide a first-class role for DRM within the Web browser ecosystem" With so much money involved here, it's quite naive to believe the W3C members are virgins here and did this out love for the web and for the consumers. And: "It is clear that the W3C allowing…

A lot of people think that the battle here is EME versus DRM-free content, but that's not the case. You can still have all the DRM-free content you want, whether that's YouTube videos or iTunes MP3s. Really, the decision being made is between EME and Adobe Flash. Flash was the one cross-platform way to serve DRMed content before EME. And now that EME is ratified, Adobe, Microsoft, Google and Mozilla can all work toge…

but the converse is also true: if they don't implement EME, then you are welcome to install any third-party attack surface on your PC that you wish.

so why should _I_ have to install the un-auditable attack vector on _my_ machine?

you are well-positioned to understand this issue, so I'm baffled about how you can conclude this should be part of the default software suite in a browser.

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