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                Date: 2000-12-26
                 
                 
                Copyright: IBM, Intel verlieren den Verstand
                
                 
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      Entweder haben IBM und Intel völlig den Verstand verloren,  
meint John Gilmore, oder die Film-Mogule haben etwas  
gegen dies Frimen in der Hand. Wie sonst ließe es sich  
erklären, was obgenannte Firmen in den  
Standardisierungs/instituten - wo die wahren Schweinereien  
dieser Zeit passieren - an Standards für kopiergesicherte  
Festplatten aushecken...  
 
-.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- Andrew Orlowski in  
San Francisco  
 
Posted: 26/12/2000 at 09:35 GMT  
 
John Gilmore, co-founder of the Electronic Freedom  
Foundation, has urged users to boycott hardware containing  
CPRM copy-control mechanisms. Last week we broke a  
story of moves to build CPRM (Copyright Protection for  
Recordable Media) cryptography into the industry standard  
ATA hard disk specification. If implemented, the initiative  
could rapidly end the use of the PC and new emerging  
devices for freely exchanging audio, video and information.   
 
Users, says Gilmore, should demand a policy declaration  
from vendors that they eschew "covertly controlled hardware",  
and only buy products that are truly open, he argues in a  
post to the C2 crypto mailing list.   
 
"No copy protection should exist ANYWHERE in generic  
computer hardware! It's up to the BUYER to determine what  
to use their product for," writes Gilmore. "It's not up to the  
vendors of generic hardware, and certainly not up to a record  
company that's shadily influencing those vendors in back- 
room meetings."  
 
Gilmore says moves are also taking place to build copy- 
control into monitors ... BIOSes and the operating systems.  
Some of these we've heard of but, not all - but if you have  
then get in touch.   
 
"I don't know whether the movie moguls are holding  
compromising photos of Intel and IBM executives over their  
heads, or whether they have simply lost their minds," he  
wonders.   
 
Gilmore also argues that by giving their customers the  
freedom to own digital media - or at least, to decide when  
they want to own it - hardware vendors stand to increase their  
own bottom line.   
 
ATA drives are not only used in PCs, but in the emerging  
digital video recorder business led by TiVo and Replay, and  
are also appearing in MP3 players such as Creative's Nomad  
portable jukebox. Under the CPRM scheme, local file  
ownership permissions are trumped by crypto keys issued  
by the "publisher" of the content, who strictly controls  
copying, moving and deletion of the data on the local device.  
The move will also cause immediate problems for PC RAID,  
backup and file optimisation software, IBM acknowledged  
last week.   
 
Source http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/15686.html
                   
 
-.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- Here's the full text  
of Gilmore's call to arms:-  
 
To: cryptography@c2.net Subject: IBM&Intel push copy  
protection into ordinary disk drives Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000  
13:16:03 -0800 From: John Gilmore  
 
The Register has broken a story of the latest tragedy of  
copyright mania in the computer industry. Intel and IBM have  
invented and are pushing a change to the standard spec for  
PC hard drives that would make each one enforce "copy  
protection" on the data stored on the hard drive. You wouldn't  
be able to copy data from your own hard drive to another  
drive, or back it up, without permission from some third party.  
Every drive would have a unique ID and unique keys, and  
would encrypt the data it stores -- not to protect YOU, the  
drive's owner, but to protect unnamed third parties AGAINST  
you.   
 
The same guy who leads the DVD Copy Control Association  
is heading the organization that licenses this new technology  
-- John Hoy. He's a front-man for the movie and record  
companies, and a leading figure in the California DVD  
lawsuit. These people are lunatics, who would destroy the  
future of free expression and technological development, so  
they could sit in easy chairs at the top of the smoking ruins  
and light their cigars off 'em.   
 
The folks at Intel and IBM who are letting themselves be led  
by the nose are even crazier. They've piled fortunes on  
fortunes by building machines that are better and better at  
copying and communicating WHATEVER collections of raw  
bits their customers desire to copy. Now for some  
completely unfathomable reason, they're actively destroying  
that working business model. Instead they're building in  
circuitry that gives third parties enforceable veto power over  
which bits their customers can send where. (This disk drive  
stuff is just the tip of the iceberg; they're doing the same  
thing with LCD monitors, flash memory, digital cable  
interfaces, BIOSes, and the OS. Next week we'll probably  
hear of some new industry-wide copy protection spec,  
perhaps for network interface cards or DRAMs.) I don't know  
whether the movie moguls are holding compromising photos  
of Intel and IBM executives over their heads, or whether they  
have simply lost their minds. The only way they can succeed  
in imposing this on the buyers in the computer market is if  
those buyers have no honest vendors to turn to.  
 
 
Or if those buyers honestly don't know what they are being  
sold.   
 
So spread the word. No copy protection should exist  
ANYWHERE in generic computer hardware! It's up to the  
BUYER to determine what to use their product for. It's not up  
to the vendors of generic hardware, and certainly not up to a  
record company that's shadily influencing those vendors in  
back-room meetings. Demand a policy declaration from your  
vendor that they will build only open hardware, not covertly  
controlled hardware. Use your purchasing dollars to enforce  
that policy.   
 
Our business should go to the honest vendors, who'll sell you  
a drive and an OS and a motherboard and a CPU and a  
monitor that YOU, the buyer, can determine what is a valid  
use of. Don't send your money to Intel or IBM or Sony. Give  
your money to the vendors who'll sell you a product that YOU  
control.   
 
- John  
 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/15620.html  
 
 
Since retiring from Sun Microsystems (he was the  
company's fifth employee) Gilmore has spent a decade  
campaigning on privacy and free speech issues, advocating  
the wider availability of strong cryptography, and supporting  
the GNU free software project.   
 
Footnote: We've been inundated with mail since we broke the  
original story - for which, many thanks - and roughly half of  
this correspondence requests links and contact information  
for people to shout at. The T.13 committee which administers  
the ATA standard, the 4C Entity (IBM, Intel, Toshiba and  
Matsushita), which owns and advocates CPRM, and John  
Hoy's LSI, LC all have public websites. Let us know what you  
hear.®  
 
 
 
 
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edited by  
published on: 2000-12-26 
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