RFID DRM? Yes, says UCLA
p2pnet.net News:- RFID has reared its head as the latest in DRM technology which could be used by the entertainment cartels in their wasted struggle to find a way to stop people from copying CDs and DVDs.
RFID is short for Radio Frequency Identification and it`s one of those technologies which offers possibilities for both good and bad uses.
Now, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, are working on a Net-based RFID application, that would provide consumers a means of watching DVDs of movies as soon as they hit the theaters but could also be used, to address one of Hollywood’s biggest concerns: piracy of digital content, says the RFID Journal.
Of course, in their fruitless quest to stop piracy of digital content the major record labels, movie studios and software makers also stop their customers from making back-ups of discs they`ve paid good money for.
On top of that, DRM (digital rights management) is a non-starter, and always has been.
It`s obvious: anything that can be seen or heard can be copied by one analog or digital means, or another.
RFID DRM is being developed by UCLA’s Wireless Internet for the Mobile Enterprise Consortium (WINMEC), which also is working on RFID middleware, sensor networking devices and online applications for mobile media,
WINMEC is, developing the software and hardware components of a system that would embed DVDs with an RFID tag and DVD players with an RFID reader so that the tagged DVDs would play only in RFID-enabled players and only if the reader could authenticate the DVD’s tag, says the RFID Journal.
In order to authenticate, the player would also need to link to some type of online network, similar to the EPCglobal Network, that would associate the DVD with a legal sale. Through this system, the copyright owners (the film production company and any other license-holders of the content) would have digital rights management over the work. But viewers would not be able to play the DVDs without an RFID-enabled player because the tag would essentially lock the disc.
Broadcast Flag, in other words.
Stay tuned.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
RFID Journal – Group Studies RFID to Stop Digital Piracy, May 12, 2005
Also see:-
MP3s suck: Hilary Rosen, p2pnet, May 10, 2005
Control through DRM, p2pnet, May 10, 2005
May 12th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
WINMEC is, âdeveloping the software and hardware components of a system that would embed DVDs with an RFID tag and DVD players with an RFID reader so that the tagged DVDs would play only in RFID-enabled players and only if the reader could authenticate the DVD’s tagâ
So basically you’re trying to sell a piece of crap, laced with crap, only played on a piece of crap that won’t work with every single existing DVD player currently on the planet.
And when this gets shot down faster then the broadcast flag, they’ll still wonder why.
May 12th, 2005 at 3:27 pm
This is amusing and sad at the same time. They want to have additional key/identification information in an RFID, with the only thing they are stopping is the bulk commercial duplication-without-decoding which is possible with CSS. With CSS you can just bit-for-bit copy a DVD with a commercial-grade reader and burner (which is different in that the software doesn’t hide the part of the disk where the key is stored), and don’t even have to circumvent any TMP in order to duplicate the CD (IE: just illegal under regular copyright, not under the added provisions of the DMCA). This was one of the most amusing things about the CSS system: it accomplished nothing as far as making it harder to copy DVD movies.
Anyone who wants to get an unencrypted video (what you want if you are going to “share it over the net” anyway) is in the same position with the RFID as they are with any other such scheme: every “player” is by definition a “circumvention device” in that you have all the key/etc information assembled in one place to decode the movie.
I know that these “tech” companies will sell snake-oil for as long as the technologically illiterate content industry asks for it, but just how stupid are these old-media content companies anyway?
May 13th, 2005 at 10:16 am
reporting to “some type of online network”… I for one do not want anyone to know I’ve bought & watched the latest pr0n DVD out there…
I think adult industry knows this, and as we’ve heard before – pr0n makes technology evolve… so no, this will not fly
May 13th, 2005 at 11:16 am
“But viewers would not be able to play the DVDs without an RFID-enabled player because the tag would essentially lock the disc.â
How does a passive radio tag lock a DVD? By what dark sourcery does it modify the content of the disc while not receiving the correct radio signal? And where would they put it anyway? a DVD isn’t exactly briming over with excesses space, or is that how they make it incompatable with normal DVD players, it’s just too big to fit because of this radio tag thing?
May 13th, 2005 at 11:18 am
Well after actually reading the source article, it seems they don’t know how to fit these things into DVDs yet, they’ve only just proposed the idea, and have a six month research project to see if it’s feasable.
May 14th, 2005 at 5:07 am
Here’s another kick in the butt I haven’t seen mentioned yet.
“…âIn order to authenticate, the player would also need to link to some type of online network…”
The non-radio frequency part has already been put into use. There was a story last year or so about a fellow that bought a dvd here with a extra disc in the set. Since he lived in England naturally the region encoding wasn’t a problem as he just used some back up copyware to take care of that. However the bonus disc was another movie. The hitch on the bonus disc was it was to by played with the computer. It required media player to play. The guy was very thoughtful in reading the minimum requirements before buying. What he found out when he attempted to play it was a nightmare. First media player had to be updated to match the disc specifications. After that a third party software was needed to contact the web site for approval. So he got the website, downloaded the program. On opening it, the first thing he found was it needed an update. Once that was done he was all ready to play this bonus disc, so he thought. Wrong again.
Turns out the website was only good for the US region. The website checked the ip and since it wasn’t us in origin he couldn’t get the approval to play the disc he had purchased. He solved that by using a US proxy which the website promptly passed and gave him a play key. Only the key wasn’t a from then on key. It was for a week. If he wanted to play it again next month, he needed a new key, yet again.
Beyond the need for media player, none of the other stuff was mentioned in the requirements.
The point of this on line update is that it is a way to change the drm at anytime by changing the requirements that come with the purchased movie. By changing the conditions to obtain the key, literally they can control when you will watch, under what conditions you will watch, and how you will watch.
And they want me to buy this crap, lols. I ain’t buying download. Not today, not tomorrow, not next year. If I buy it is mine, that is the reason to purchase. But what I see here isn’t buying and I won’t pay for it as a subsistute for owning.
May 16th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
Embed the electronics in the hub. Encrypt the data on the disk and use the RFID tag to decrypt. Useful for hardcoding other stuff.