Comments on: Hollywood and IPTV

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 04:48:58 +0000

so what’s the latest on Widevine?

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 01:00:32 +0000

Hmmm…it is 2007 and last I checked Widevine is still running well at ChungHwa. I guess they did not get fired yet.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 05:38:43 +0000

The Studios are far from monolithic in their approaches and requirements for IPTV content security. The ground-floor Studio questions are simple enough:
1) Are these software-only solutions proven security solutions? Answer:there are no proven software-only security solutions at this point. 2) Are they superior to the proven physical (software and hardware) systems such as smart cards and SIMs? Maybe.. maybe not. There are advantags and disadvantages, security-wise – to both types. They – and the revocation and key schemes used with them – will continue to develop – especially after challenge by commercial realities.
Binary Obfuscation is a recognized and ever-morphing toolbox of measures to create an increase in difficulty for hackers who rely on decompile methodology and the like.

The Studios recognize the need to monetize, keep track of and be able to revoke access to their content. They also recognize that sorry state that the ’security duopoly’ has created in US markets – a situation MS simply wants to replace with its own ’security monopoly’.

The world of IPTV content security is still in its infancy. The more security players a device can utilize, the healthier the market and the more rigorous the security regimens will become. Its too early to say that one players is the winner. The game is yet to begin.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 05:27:49 +0000

While you can’t blame a deadline driven journalist entirely for being spoon-fed on disjointed drivel, perhaps Peter could have made at least some sanity checks here.

Yes, Microsoft may have many issues, but flailing around with disjointed drivel is not going to help anyone least of all Widevine. Also Microsoft does answer questions. You just need to know what to ask, or listen to one of their many public presentations or read their web site. I didn’t see 17 seconds. I did see a lot of “instantaneous” and you can too if you take 5 second to do a Google search. Could “Microsoft TV instant channel change” be that hard?

And how many times can Widevine re-release the same press release about the 600K customers that they might have had by 2007 if their system actually worked? How do you have 600K customers on 20K non-working STB’s? How can you have 600K customers if you are about to be fired from the deal? A few phone calls please before publishing…

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 01:59:29 +0000

Well I guess that leaves out us folks that are concerned with security. Hackers normally use pings to find computers and see if they can hack into them. One of the best ways to prevent this attempt is to block the computer from responding to the ping. While it is normally setup that a computer waits and listens for the ping, another part is setup to respond to that ping with an equivalent of “I am here and waiting” responce. The return message is the hackers invitation to where you are on the net.

Typically, I block all responses to pings with the firewall. Doing so helps stealth your computer from prying eyes. So it appears that to use this sort of encryption you gotta open yourself up to responses in the computer world. In otherwords, if you want to “enjoy” content, you are going to do so at the cost of security. So you will have to purchase yet more programs to try and protect yourself from prying eyes.

This is a setup for another security breach and I for one don’t like it, won’t have it, and won’t be using it.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 21:05:30 +0000

Scramble scramble scramble.. like the rats you are…grasp at straws and gradually alienate even the sell out consumer electronics makers willing to allow your wicked puppeteering.

In the mean time we will continue to crack and crack and crack until you FINALLY realize we won’t take it.