Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#21

Post by rewqfdsa » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 9:25 AM UTC

thatone wrote: post #14

Drakim wrote: post #6

What I don't really understand is how this could be used to stop piracy. Sure, you could stop recording on a machine with Intel Management Engine, but wouldn't pirates simply use a computer without Intel Management Engine to rip media? Unless the media becomes impossible to consume without Intel Management Engine (sounds unlikely, how would you explain that to customers), how does it prevent anything?

More importantly, why would software be required to engage in all activity by piping through such a hardware interface. I would expect that open source alternatives and virtualization could easily bypass its necessity. At first glance, dumping the contents of any source media, or capturing network streams properly, should readily provide the raw, unencrypted content data, which is then decoded by an application that…

> the contents of any source media...should readily provide the raw, unencrypted content data

Once this crap becomes ubiquitous, why would companies ship unencrypted bits at all? They could send files encrypted with all the major OEM "protected content" keys. If you're running on non-supported hardware, well, sucks to be you, pirate. I imagine it's rather difficult to extract the private key from DRM hardware.

In the end, big media wins.

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#22

Post by MichaelGG » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 9:27 AM UTC

thatone wrote: post #14

Drakim wrote: post #6

What I don't really understand is how this could be used to stop piracy. Sure, you could stop recording on a machine with Intel Management Engine, but wouldn't pirates simply use a computer without Intel Management Engine to rip media? Unless the media becomes impossible to consume without Intel Management Engine (sounds unlikely, how would you explain that to customers), how does it prevent anything?

More importantly, why would software be required to engage in all activity by piping through such a hardware interface. I would expect that open source alternatives and virtualization could easily bypass its necessity. At first glance, dumping the contents of any source media, or capturing network streams properly, should readily provide the raw, unencrypted content data, which is then decoded by an application that…

The goal is that the decoding is done by trusted hardware, not by software keys. So you can run VMs and open source, but they won't have the keys to decrypt the content.

Same deal with HDCP, where PCIe is treated as an unsafe bus, so data goes encrypted from the kernel to the GPU to the display device (something like that).

It's also why sometimes people have trouble watching Netflix or so on, because some part fails. Apple TV + Toshiba TV at my parents' has this problem maybe 1/10 times we try to play.

But you're right that encrypting a million end user devices is pointless if there is even one unencrypted point. No doubt hardware companies, movie companies, and Netflix are already wetting themselves with the prospect of having no unencrypted holes left. Still seems highly unlikely to actually work - piracy finds a way.

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#23

Post by rando289 » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 9:29 AM UTC

rewqfdsa wrote: post #11

Drakim wrote: post #6

What I don't really understand is how this could be used to stop piracy. Sure, you could stop recording on a machine with Intel Management Engine, but wouldn't pirates simply use a computer without Intel Management Engine to rip media? Unless the media becomes impossible to consume without Intel Management Engine (sounds unlikely, how would you explain that to customers), how does it prevent anything?

> the media becomes impossible to consume without Intel Management Engine That's why Intel management keeps greenlighting this project. Intel thinks that it if it can convince content producers to distribute media as blobs encrypted with Intel's public key (and maybe, say, Samsung's or Apple's), then we can transition to a world where consumer video files do work on most consumer hardware, but can't be decrypted outs…

Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#24

Post by rewqfdsa » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 9:32 AM UTC

rando289 wrote: post #23

rewqfdsa wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the media becomes impossible to consume without Intel Management Engine That's why Intel management keeps greenlighting this project. Intel thinks that it if it can convince content producers to distribute media as blobs encrypted with Intel's public key (and maybe, say, Samsung's or Apple's), then we can transition to a world where consumer video files do work on most consumer hardware, but can't be decrypted outs…

Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison. https://www.gnu.or…

In our universe, the "debugging tools" that could defeat this scheme are ones that can depackage an Intel chip and read its EEPROM directly. What do you even use for that, a scanning electron microscope?

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#25

Post by MichaelGG » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 9:33 AM UTC

The other downside is that you can't use custom software to fix up video. Netflix has a fairly poor player - more than one I've had to go torrent something I was trying to watch in Netflix due to one playback issue or another. From brightness to subtitles, to frame positioning (shifting the whole playback area down to fit better on my wall when projecting very wide formats) - Netflix offers nothing. Even worse for audio, where I often pump center channel dialog and perform normalization.

It's sad how advanced the tech is compared to how limited our use is. (For instance, it's technically trivial, but usably difficult to add Rifftrax (MST3K reborn) to a movie on Netflix.)

Edit: The really nasty part is that this technology in general isn't bad. I love TPMs, for instance. Gives me a fairly easy way to get relatively strong security, say, to store my disk encryption keys, without memorizing a passphrase. Trusted computing can allow the user to remain in control. But slipping in DRM gets people understandably upset.

OTOH, I can't find details on exactly how this video stuff works. Wikipedia points at the GPU part, making it seem like it's just the same HDCP-kinda stuff that's been around for a while. (Annoying, but ultimately a decision of your kernel to enable. As in, media isn't encrypted at the source to some Intel key.)

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#26

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 9:37 AM UTC

pbprabhuram wrote: post #15

mercurial wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You completely missed the point of the article. "Trusted computing" is back with a vengeance. The fact that your computer runs complex firmware (your coprocessor's firmware can run a webserver?) which bypasses anything above it is the problem. It means you don't own your computer anymore: your overlords grant you the right to use it under certain conditions.

Nope I did'nt that is one way to bypass the problem

[deleted]

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#27

Post by jrockway » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 9:38 AM UTC

This is all ultimately pointless because it's not like the video decoder checks the integrity of its own code or the CPU running it or the compiler that compiled it or that the OS it was tested against is actually running. (Reflections on trusting trust.) Nothing actually cares about secure boot or end-to-end code validation; Apple doesn't even include equipment on their mainboards to do this anymore. Meanwhile, if you're going to grab pixels to pirate video, that's easy: HDCP is broken, so just grab it at the link layer. The key you need is on Pastebin!

Consumer DRM has always been a hardware-selling maneuver as far as I can tell. "You need HDCP in order to watch this video." "I do? But HDCP is broken." "Just buy a new monitor anyway." The Management Engine sounds like a similar scheme. "You need an Intel Management Engine to watch this video." "I do?" "Yes, it's very convenient for us that you need to buy a new computer even though your current computer works fine otherwise."

Intel's just using Hollywood's fear of piracy to sell new computers, ignoring the fact that the pirates are still pirating movies without any problems. It's more funny than sad.

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#28

Post by kuschku » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 9:56 AM UTC

rando289 wrote: post #23

rewqfdsa wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the media becomes impossible to consume without Intel Management Engine That's why Intel management keeps greenlighting this project. Intel thinks that it if it can convince content producers to distribute media as blobs encrypted with Intel's public key (and maybe, say, Samsung's or Apple's), then we can transition to a world where consumer video files do work on most consumer hardware, but can't be decrypted outs…

Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison. https://www.gnu.or…

This actually already happened, with the judge that declared wget as hacking tool...

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#29

Post by juliendorra » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 10:31 AM UTC

Just a note on the discourse: the point "I own it, I should be able to use it the way I want" feels like not really effective (as a rhetoric) in many part of the western world and in many social circles. I really feel for example in France it would be easily brushed off using analogy to construction permits or driver licenses, or just put the person in some crazy-libertarian box ("the kind that want to print firearms at home"). There might be ways of framing the issue that fit better in a socio-democrat context (Europe, etc.). Ideas?

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#30

Post by thomasahle » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 10:41 AM UTC

juliendorra wrote: post #29

Just a note on the discourse: the point "I own it, I should be able to use it the way I want" feels like not really effective (as a rhetoric) in many part of the western world and in many social circles. I really feel for example in France it would be easily brushed off using analogy to construction permits or driver licenses, or just put the person in some crazy-libertarian box ("the kind that want to print firearms…

I'm not sure either. But at least in by country the leftish parties seem the most interested in protecting consumer rights, which might be a way to go. The libertarians seem more worried about protecting the company's "intellectual property" and include management engines in "their own" products.