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Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

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Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#171

Post by wyager »

klodolph wrote: post #143
marcosdumay wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still your computer... Capture the firmware when loading, and decompile it. The problem starts only when "they" decide to mandate in our hardware. (And yep, "they" are already doing it, for several values of "they". We are fighting the wrong war here.)

That won't work, you'll need to try harder. I have some insider knowledge of how these chips work. First, you get the chips with crypto keys already installed, so having a copy of the firmware source code won't help. Second, the keys are unique to the device, so getting it won't give you much. Third, the firmware is authenticated so modifying the firmware won't help. Fourth, the chip is designed to be resistant to ph…

You don't need to compromise every chip. You just need to compromise one. That's not particularly hard. You can use some fancy equipment to extract the private key, and then you can decode any video the chip could decode.

Or, if you want to be lazy, just hook a VGA cable up to a transcoder.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#172

Post by dchichkov »

ep103 wrote: post #138

There are so many people here claiming this is the wrong choice, and yet I wonder what percentage of the commenters here are using chrome? By most sources I've seen, Chrome has 2x the marketshare, and actively pushed FOR EME. Perhaps if FF had Chrome's current marketshare, they would have been in a position to say no, but its the users who made that impossible. Mozilla should be commended for fighting as far as they…

Interesting. So literally, what we see here is Google pressing Mozilla to support DRM... Google... Don't be evil. Please? Pretty please?

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#173

Post by Dylan16807 »

farresito wrote: post #18
chimeracoder wrote: post #4

From a comment by a Mozilla employee on another thread, it seems that the UI for this has not yet been determined[0]. It's possible that this may be presented to the user in a way similar to a plugin installation, except that the plugin happens to be provided by Mozilla (not a third-party). This isn't great, but to the end user, it looks the same as Flash and Silverlight. Especially if Mozilla were to add click-to-pl…

What really worries me is the fact that now it's going to be way easier to implement something with DRM. A lot of users nowadays are not willing to install some third party plugin. The fact that it comes with the browser means that it's extremely easy to implement something with that DRM. I might be wrong, since I haven't read much about it.

It doesn't come with the browser.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#174

Post by mongrol »

wolfgke wrote: post #25
suprgeek wrote: post #9

Mozilla had to be dragged into this acceptance kicking and screaming (metaphorically). They were faced with a hard choice, Not implement EME (HTML5 DRM) and risk users moving to other browsers (user loss) or implement EME and risk looking like they are contradicting their core mission (trust loss). They figured a little loss of trust is worth keeping most of the users on the Mozilla platform - which in my view is the…

For people who want DRM there are already enough browser choices. On the other hand for people who refuse DRM there's only one choice - and soon zero.

Nonsense. http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#175

Post by azakai »

pessimizer wrote: post #152
rbanffy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is the wrong choice. WHat would the web gain if Mozilla lost most of its user base? Could we trust Apple, Microsoft and Google to have a moral backbone?

What would the web gain if Mozilla could just be pushed into chasing whatever Apple, Microsoft, and Google decide to do for fear of some users jumping ship? edit: Mozilla needs to cultivate its brand, and set itself apart from the other browsers through actual differences in philosophy. Maybe they need a John Legere...

Mozilla has been different in philosophy. It's the only browser created by a nonprofit, and it fights for open web causes all the time. I think people that care about that are aware of it.

But the facts remain that the vast majority of users don't care about the philosophical differences. When Chrome and Internet Explorer started shipping EME, almost no one switched browser. When Snowden's revelations came out, almost no one switched browser. Etc. etc.

edit: clarified what i meant

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#176

Post by aylons »

fabrice_d wrote: post #84
toyg wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla has had real power for a brief period, when both MS and Google had their eyes off the ball. Once Chrome matured, the game was up. It didn't help that it took them ages to fix widespread performance problems in FF... This said, if they go back to their roots as "ayatollah of open web and open source", I might consider them again; but until they're just another ad-backed bureaucracy, I might as well stick to a…

Mozilla was never "ayatollah of open web and open source". If it has been, firefox would have never been available on Windows, like some people at the time argued. Google did well technically on Chrome, but investing a huge amount of marketing dollars (like bundling chrome with other nice things like toolbars) didn't hurt them.

Well, even emacs is available for Windows. I guess not even ayatollahs are that extreme.

They may concede if they think it will help their great goal.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#177

Post by tzs »

michaelt wrote: post #17
themoonbus wrote: post #3

Can some one explain to me why having, say, an HTML 5 based video player with DRM would be worse than one implemented in a closed platform like Silverlight or Flash? I'm genuinely curious, and not trying to make an argument here.

The whole point of replacing Flash with HTML5 video is to get rid of buggy third party plugins that crash all the time and have shitty cross-platform support. If HTML5 video is going to rely on buggy third party DRM plugins, we lose the benefit that was the whole point of HTML5 video.

> If HTML5 video is going to rely on buggy third party DRM plugins, we lose the benefit that was the whole point of HTML5 video

Only HTML5 video that has DRM will rely on EME plugins. We've lost nothing. In fact we've gained. HTML5 video now has a strict superset of the capabilities it had before.

Without EME:

                    Flash   HTML5
                  +------+--------+
    non-DRM video | yes  |  yes   |
                  +------+--------+
    DRM video     | yes  |  no    |
                  +------+--------+
With EME:

                    Flash   HTML5
                  +------+--------+
    non-DRM video | yes  |  yes   |
                  +------+--------+
    DRM video     | yes  |  yes   |
                  +------+--------+

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#178

Post by Steko »

msbarnett wrote: post #124
IgorPartola wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's more important Mozilla or the web? This is a case where Mozilla thinks that by sticking around they can do more good than by killing this particular attack on the free web. Can we justify this completely? IMHO, no. Perhaps the whole existence of Mozilla was leading up to this point where it could commit ritualistic suicide and take this DRM proposal with it. Of course nobody at Mozilla will see it that way. Or…

> Perhaps the whole existence of Mozilla was leading up to this point where it could commit ritualistic suicide and take this DRM proposal with it. Except, if Mozilla had committed "ritualistic suicide" over EME, it wouldn't have taken EME with it. Users would move to every other browser with HTML5 DRM implemented, Mozilla would die accomplishing nothing. A world with entrenched HTML5 DRM & Mozilla strikes me as stri…

EFF is basically Walter Sobchack in this scenario to Mozilla's dude.

EFF: Has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the open web? Dude. This is it. Let's take that hill!

Mozilla: what's the point, man? why should I die on this hill?

EFF: it's a fucking important hill dude. Unchecked DRM aggression.

Mozilla: what about my browser market share?

EFF: What the fuck are you talking about? Browser share is not the issue here, Dude. I'm talking about drawing a line in the sand, Dude. Across this line, you DO NOT...

Mozilla: Well, the problem is... They're gonna kill my browser share! Man!

Donny is the open web I guess. His death was predestined by circumstances and certainly not the Dude's fault. Also, I think it would be best if no one tells the EFF how DNS works.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#179

Post by pessimizer »

pdkl95 wrote: post #119
GuiA wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ding ding ding! You've hit the nail on the head. Mozilla has no real power over the web. Google, Microsoft, and Apple have the power (look at the names associated with EME DRM - what a surprise). Mozilla has an illusion of power, which is tolerated by the other actors because it makes everyone happy. But no one should mistake it for real leverage.

"pride goeth before a a fall" It was just a few years ago that Mozilla though so highly of themselves that they thought they could use their market position to force the world to change from h.264 to VP3 (with hopes that Google would gift the world VP8 later on). They failed at reading the situation then, and are failing again now.

The world wasn't using h.264, it was being forced to move to h.264, and Mozilla eventually caved, like they're caving now.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#180

Post by pessimizer »

verbin217 wrote: post #94
revelation wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the evergreen of explanations by those that betray their principles and users (or, you know, voters). They exercised a freedom of choice they had, and this is the decision they made. This is what we judge them on. No backsies, no "but I didn't want to", just pure "go fuck yourself Mozilla".

Bullshit. Sometimes you're forced to either do something shitty or be competitively displaced by actors that will do it anyway. Do you really want Mozilla to fall on their sword and leave us with worse alternatives? I don't understand how you could be upset with Mozilla about this. The decision is basically being made for them.

What's the reason to prefer Mozilla if they're just going to implement all the crap too? Might as well try to figure out the combination of plugins that will make Chrome comfortable. It'll sync with my Android phone easier anyway.
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