W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns • Hacker News Board

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#711

Post by GraulPaham » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 6:29 AM UTC

ashark wrote: post #327

sboselli wrote: post #38

Shame, shame, shame. We're losing the internet day by day, if we haven't done so already. I've seen people and posts here and there calling for attention on these issues, but imho it's all too subtle. We should start using harsher terminology for what's actually happening. This is flat out CORRUPTION, and I'm not seeing anyone express it as such. It's probably too late already, and unfortunately, this is merely a ref…

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…

> 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.

Why not just do this yourself? Fork chromium and start commenting stuff you don't want out. It would likely only take a weekend or two of hacking...

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#712

Post by jpttsn » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 6:46 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #607

dsacco wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do the consequences affect everybody, all the time? Why is the price too high? I'm not being obtuse, this is legitimately not obvious to me. Unpack your reasoning a bit, because I still don't see why it's axiomatic that DRM can't be a valuable tradeoff.

As was said before, DRM implies that no user controls their machine because it implies that someone else's content is always "safe" on that user's machine. DRM is inherently pernicious to everything from basic computer security to a democratic society. The right to read: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

I still control my machine. I just run software that I don't understand to get content to play.

If I wasn't able to run a certain subset of software, i.e. DRM, then my machine would be less universal, not more.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#713

Post by sigi45 » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 6:49 AM UTC

zanny wrote: post #429

sigi45 wrote: post #309

I think i don't get it. A company called Microsoft builds a software which is able to render html. This company makes money and talks to another company called google which also is making money by selling movies and stuff and which builds a software which is able to render html. And those two companies are talking to a third huge company, who makes a shit ton of money and also makes a software which is able to render…

> to make it easier for there consumers. No, never. DRM Is never easier for consumers. What happened was that Apple banned alternative browsers and plugins like Flash on iOS which meant there was a sizable platform of - importantly - semi-rich people that did not have a usable DRM solution outside being told to install an app. The user dropoff from demanding you install an app is huge . They were losing money, plain…

Those companies made it easier for the consumers because those companies would have never accepted non DRM Video (period).

You still can watch h264 on all modern webbrowser.

And still it is there choice how they wanna offer there content.

Don't get me wrong, i don't like DRM but it is still there choice and they are big enough to do it and the just did because it is and was there standard for there internet to reach there consumers.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#714

Post by DCKing » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 6:50 AM UTC

_phaq wrote: post #672

DCKing wrote: post #241

Can anybody explain to me what will change because of this decision? DRM has been very much part of the internet since 1995 when RealPlayer was released. DRM has been part of content delivery ever since then. It has not ever seem to have decreased in popularity, quite the opposite. The browsers that 99.9% of people use have already implemented this standard for years anyway. It's not obvious to me that this decision…

The fear is that this makes it far too easy to use DRM for webpage owners. Previously, you had to pull in a slow-ass Flash-plugin or similar, which was very much known to bring all kinds of security issues. Now you just say "DRM this" and it does it, and you have the security issues whether you use DRM or not. As a result, webpage owners might start DRMing things that were previously just not worth DRMing. Like image…

> The fear is that this makes it far too easy to use DRM for webpage owners. Previously, you had to pull in a slow-ass Flash-plugin or similar, which was very much known to bring all kinds of security issues.

"Previously" in this case would have been four years ago, would it not? Ever since then, EME has already been reality. If EME has been reality and commonplace since then, what does this W3C decision really change?

> Now you just say "DRM this" and it does it, and you have the security issues whether you use DRM or not.

> As a result, webpage owners might start DRMing things that were previously just not worth DRMing. Like images, text.

> If you want to cite a news article in the future, you might have to type it off by hand instead of copy-pasting the part.

I would like to see some evidence for that. From a very brief read of what the EME spec defines, I don't believe this is technically possible in the spec. The spec only applies to 'protect' byte streams sent to audio and video codecs. If it were possible I think we would have seen implementations already since implementations have existed since 2013.

I hate DRM as much as the next guy, but we shouldn't need FUD to get that point across.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#715

Post by sitkack » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 6:54 AM UTC

ABCLAW wrote: post #115

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…

There are additional concerns associated with DRM that aren't revealed in the Hickson post - he speaks solely to the point of intention behind DRM. That begs the question: are there unintended victims of DRM? Yes, there are. Copyright law in most countries is the result of a long history of back-and-forth fighting between content creators and content consumers. Copyright infringement has a number of carve-outs that a…

> between content creators and content consumers

I think of it as the triumvirate of creators, owners (distributors) and consumers. The owners argue as if they create, the do not, they simply own the rights to distribute and take money. The vast majority of creators are getting shafted as well.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#716

Post by l0b0 » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 6:56 AM UTC

near wrote: post #710

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

Basically, unless you are writing a browser with decent marketshare, you defacto have no voice in making the standards. Basically, the only voices that matter are Mozilla (Firefox), Apple (Safari), Google(Chrome), and Microsoft (Edge/Explorer). Despite what any standard says, web developers are going to go by the behavior of the browsers do. The only company on the list of browser makers that really has any desire to…

The web has been engineered to a complexity level so grossly obscene that it is all but impossible for independent developers to produce fully independent web browsers anymore. You would need hundreds of millions of dollars in capital and strong leadership to produce a browser that would be successful in today's world. I could dedicate the rest of my life working 100 hours a week on a browser, and I would die before…

You wouldn't need to scrap all of it by a long shot. You could take a small subset of the stack and make something enormously simpler to implement. Start with supporting only one version of HTTP, TLS, (X)HTML, CSS and JS and fork them if necessary. Even drop CSS to start with and finally start relying on semantic markup and good browser defaults. Use existing open source libraries where available, such as for TLS and markup/media parsing. Pull out libraries for everything so the browser is easily composable and forkable. You don't want JS support at all? Compile without it.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#717

Post by thinkloop » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 6:57 AM UTC

near wrote: post #710

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

Basically, unless you are writing a browser with decent marketshare, you defacto have no voice in making the standards. Basically, the only voices that matter are Mozilla (Firefox), Apple (Safari), Google(Chrome), and Microsoft (Edge/Explorer). Despite what any standard says, web developers are going to go by the behavior of the browsers do. The only company on the list of browser makers that really has any desire to…

The web has been engineered to a complexity level so grossly obscene that it is all but impossible for independent developers to produce fully independent web browsers anymore. You would need hundreds of millions of dollars in capital and strong leadership to produce a browser that would be successful in today's world. I could dedicate the rest of my life working 100 hours a week on a browser, and I would die before…

> If people want to do something about it, they need to fork the web itself. HTTP, TLS, HTML, CSS, JS ... the entire stack needs to be scrapped and replaced with something sensible with a focus on simplicity.

That's flash.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#718

Post by sitkack » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 7:04 AM UTC

7952 wrote: post #703

tptacek wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an admirer of well-done DRM technology but I think I agree with the subtext here, which is that DRM doesn't have much of a future. Ironically, the thing that is likely to end DRM is standardized DRM. By making it easier for technology/content companies to deal in premium content, content providers are making it easier to compete with them for their middleman role in funding content.

What annoys me is that DRM could be great for consumer privacy. I could have chat windows that are encrypted streams rendered fully in hardware. There are numerous legitimate reason to want to avoid data being generally accessible. But DRM seems to focus exclusively on content.

Maybe Mozilla should up this up to end users. Then Feinstein will make silicon valley break DRM and the NSA will enable 4k Netflix everywhere.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#719

Post by wiz21c » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 7:09 AM UTC

forapurpose wrote: post #698

Iv wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me a while to understand how politics are very different than the binary world of logic and strictly enforced rule of my CS universe. In politics, very often, there are no strictly enforced rules, there are groups of pressures pushing in opposing directions. W3C has no way to prevent proprietary browsers for doing what they want, they just put some pressure on them. They know that going through W3C is the eas…

> In politics, very often, there are no strictly enforced rules, there are groups of pressures pushing in opposing directions. All power is ultimately politics, not rules. People can use politics to change the rules, which happens often through lobbyists, influence, or even force. Powerful actors operate on the level of politics; they write the rules. The plebeians operate at the level of rules. If I'm unhappy with s…

>>> The issues most people deal with in their everyday lives aren't important enough to motivate political action.

Save for the fact that their life is completely shaped by politics.

I like your analysis a lot, but I don't like your conclusion. Because ultimately, humans make politics, so one can influence them. In french there's a saying : if you don't care about politics, then politics will take care of you...

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#720

Post by wiz21c » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 7:11 AM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #6

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

Basically, unless you are writing a browser with decent marketshare, you defacto have no voice in making the standards. Basically, the only voices that matter are Mozilla (Firefox), Apple (Safari), Google(Chrome), and Microsoft (Edge/Explorer). Despite what any standard says, web developers are going to go by the behavior of the browsers do. The only company on the list of browser makers that really has any desire to…

This is really the issue. If we could convince media rightsholders that DRM is harmful and unnecessary then all of this heartache wouldn't be necessary. I don't expect this to happen in my lifetime. Any slight glimmer of hope from Apple ditching DRM on iTunes has died as nobody else shows the slightest interest in following their lead.

You'd have to convince them that DRM is against their best interest or provide them with something event better than DRM for their best interest. That's much tougher.