Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Save Firefox

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 266 posts

Re: Save Firefox

#191

Post by bzbarsky »

adrusi wrote: post #37
RubyPinch wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah but so? from my read-through, its not literally "save the one and only firefox", its "we need an environment that allows for other browsers to enter the field" which DRM prevents

Does EME prevent new browsers from implementing it freely. I admit I haven't read the spec but from what I've read second-hand, it seems like it enables the vendor to ship the DRM code as a binary blob that runs natively in a sandbox. As I understand, EME doesn't lockout new browsers , it locks out new architectures and kernels. But any new architecture that comes along that anyone would want to use to view DRM-encum…

EME doesn't prevent browsers from implementing EME. But since EME doesn't describe how the browser should talk to the CDM (just how scripts on a page talk to the browser), implementing EME is not useful in terms of working with actual CDMs that exist in the real world...

Re: Save Firefox

#192

Post by Bombthecat »

dasil003 wrote: post #24
azakai wrote: post #5

> [The W3C] needs to hear from you now. Please share this post, and spread the word. Help the W3C be the organization it is meant to be. This isn't about the W3C. This is about EME, and about the companies that created it and promoted it: Google, Microsoft and Netflix (as you can see on the spec, for example https://www.w3.org/TR/encrypted-media/ ). Telling the W3C not to do DRM is not going to be effective. The only…

Your last sentence is exactly right. Sure DRM is bad, but you can't tell people not to build things a priori like that, and DRM will be built because the content studios demand it, and the studios hold the content which everyone wants. The EFF greatly overestimates the amount of influence browser makers have. No amount of technical pressure will make an ounce of difference, because browser makers have literally no le…

Exactly, I think you can't win versus a drm movement. The only thing you can do is make the thing as open, public, regulated and planned as possible.

But I think they will try to block it, because, reasons. And then we will end with an implementation for chrome, ie, opera and a plug-in for Firefox...

Re: Save Firefox

#193

Post by binaryanomaly »

Eupolemos wrote: post #12
binaryanomaly wrote: post #9

As much I would love to... Just recently switched from FF to Chrome since the latter just works technically a lot better :-( Hope the new servo engine can make FF shine again otherwise I fear the worst.

You really should have read the article before posting.

True ;)

Re: Save Firefox

#194

Post by AnthonyMouse »

nialv7 wrote: post #159
jflatow wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be consistent, and relates to the main question I have: Why does the CDM need to be a blackbox? Couldn't the decryption be standardized with all proprietary information boiling down to secret license keys?

Because what they want to achieve is fundamentally impossible, and have to be done in a security-through-obscurity way.

> Because what they want to achieve is fundamentally impossible, and have to be done in a security-through-obscurity way.

Which clearly cannot both be true at the same time. It isn't that it's impossible but there is actually some way to do it. It's just regular unadulterated impossible.

So why not give up the charade and publish the source code to the DRM? That can't cause it to be ineffective because it's already ineffective. It's not even a fig leaf, it's just security theater.

Re: Save Firefox

#195

Post by alexvoda »

gajjanag wrote: post #162
rayiner wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't want DRM, don't watch media that requires DRM. Nobody is making you use it. It's something you use because want to use Netflix, etc.

Exactly. What I have found is that when I examine deeply enough, most DRM content is not even worth it, and even for purely entertainment purposes, there exist plenty of non DRM solutions: movie theaters, libraries, outdoor activities to name just a few. I found Michael Niedermayer's quote very nice in this regard: "Breaking DRM is a little like attempting to break through a door even though the window is wide open a…

This is exactly what I do, I disable EME in all browsers I use first thing after installing. Anything that is DRMed is not worth my time.

Re: Save Firefox

#196

Post by TheDong »

incompatible wrote: post #153
icebraining wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

closed source DRM module that can do arbitrary things on the host platform I don't know about other browsers, but at least Firefox is sandboxing EME modules so that they can only do a few approved things (security bugs aside, of course).

Perhaps the new browsers can implement the Firfox interfaces and install the same proprietary modules if they are so inclined.

Not legally because of the DMCA anti circumvention clauses, as the post points out.

Reverse engineering or borrowing firefox's code might be technically possible, but that doesn't make it legal.

Re: Save Firefox

#197

Post by AnthonyMouse »

toyg wrote: post #129
pdkl95 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I go to a page with a video on it that uses flash, the rest of the page works just fine if I don't have the flash plugin installed. This is identical behavior to not having the CDM. If the rest of the page also uses flash, that's entirely separate. It is even possible that the rest of the page could be flash, while playing a video with either the native tag or through a CDM. Integration between the video and the r…

> Was the delusion that you're protecting anything worth Dude, that's just not how you make friends and influence people. He knows all the arguments, he said it. Wouldn't it be more interesting to try to find with him a way we can all work together towards a better future, without attempting to shame the counterpart into a public admission of moral failure which will, of course, never happen? That's why Linux has bee…

> If there was a safe way to deliver what they want (encrypted tamper-proof streaming) in an open-source package, they would likely consider it. But there isn't, afaik.

The problem is fundamentally that "encrypted tamper-proof streaming" is not possible regardless of whether the implementation is open source. It would be trivial to write free software that respects copying restrictions. And then people would be able to bypass it using the same methods used when the copying restrictions are enforced by proprietary software, i.e. by writing different software that doesn't respect the copy restrictions.

> That ain't gonna work, when there are billion of dollars and millions of jobs at risk.

There is no risk to money or jobs. There is literally more Netflix content on torrent sites than there is on Netflix. Netflix nonetheless makes substantial profits.

Eliminating DRM would reduce piracy by improving the experience of legitimate purchasers without having any effect on the experience of people who download from torrent sites.

> Are "we" building it? No, we try to slut-shame "them" into giving up.

When you encounter someone who is demanding that everyone look for water using a divining rod, you don't build them a divining rod. You teach them that it isn't possible to find water that way.

Re: Save Firefox

#198

Post by timlyo »

Endy wrote: post #151
jgon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. If Firefox had not put it in, nothing would have happened because programmers have (largely) decided to give chrome a majority market-share amongst them, and advocate it to their non-technical peers, increasing its market share amongst that group as well. If programmers actually used firefox and advocated it to the point where it had a majority market share then maybe their refusal would carry some weight.…

I don't understand anyone's desire to support a Google-backed browser.

I used to make an effort to use FF, but it gradually got slower, froze up more often, had problems with content I was viewing.

The final straw was when they had a big update. Instead of fixing any of these issues, they gave me the ability to call people with service I don't use by clicking a link :/

Re: Save Firefox

#199

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

> Literally none of the dominant browsers from a decade ago are in widespread use today.

Sorry to nitpick and detract from the real point here, but unless my memory deceives me IE was the dominant browser in 2006 and by a lot of measures still is. What a bizarre statement to make.

Re: Save Firefox

#200

Post by mynameislegion »

bzbarsky wrote: post #187
mynameislegion wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read many articles critical of EME and this is the first time I've heard this information. If true, as you said, it is THE issue. It was always my assumption that EME represented a standard way for CDM's to interact with the browser. EME is to CDMs as NPAPI is to plugins. That is to say, a CDM can theoretically work in any browser implementing the EME standard. Is this assumption completely false?

Sadly, the assumption is false. The EME standard is a standard for a way for scripts on a page to ask the browser to talk to the CDM. The actual interaction between the browser and the CDM is completely unspecified; it just needs to enable the browser to implement the EME APIs. I think a more apt comparison is that EME is to CDMs more like the 2D canvas API is to graphics libraries. At least in a world in which graph…

Thank you, bzbarsky. Please help us (me) understand the situation a bit better if you have the time.

1. Could you please describe a bit more about the browser-CDM interaction and what is implemented there?

2. Why do you think the browser-CDM interaction was left unspecified? Wouldn't a standard be beneficial to all parties, even CDM developers (no need to back-and-forth with browser developers: just follow the standard)?

3. For a browser to support a CDM, is a developer required to write CDM-specific browser code? That is, if CDM APIs are not standardized, then does the browser need to be modified to accommodate each API? Maybe this is obvious but I can't believe this is the state of things.

4. I, and I believe many others, have been under the impression from the beginning that EME was intended to globally constrain CDM behaviour. What you've described in this thread is entirely different. EME is just an API for CDM-script interaction and nothing more. Meanwhile, these blobs are integrated into the browser and the extent to which they're constrained is up to the browser developers. Unlike an NPAPI plugin, there is no standard for what they're allowed to do or know.

It occurs to me now that a standard defining browser-CDM interaction would never come from the W3C as it is simply outside their scope (ie. Web standards, not browser standards). CDMs can choose where to run today because there wasn't enough interest (or coordination) in establishing a standard browser-agnostic environment for them to run in. Now the CDMs are here, entrenching themselves, and the time to establish this environment is long gone. Is this an accurate representation?

Post reply on HN