Encryption Chip - Solution Or Another Weak Hurdle?
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Upon hearing about this new encryption chip that has surfaced, designed to make PC video game piracy a thing of the past, I was intrigued. While this is clearly targeting gaming, could this not also work well to police other activities on your computer? Despite this likely being something that would have to be maliciously flashed to be a threat, anything that is restricting what I do with my computer is not welcome in my home. DRM is yet, another example…
I fully understand and even agree to a certain point that software piracy is an issue. Yet magically, for some mystical reason, the otherwise ineffective means of piracy prevention have prevented these affected companies from going bankrupt? Why? Simple, because most people are willing to buy a product than dance around like some crazed madman in a weak attempt to break the existing product keys and pirate the software.
Case in point - Windows 2K and back, each of these releases were amazingly simple to pirate should the user opt to. As long as there was a valid key, it would install. And yet, Microsoft appears to be doing pretty well for themselves, despite this apparent piracy threat.
Maybe it is time to take the Apple approach, as their OS licensing is a much easier thing to get ones mind around. Besides, am I the only one finding it rather suspect that the founder of the long since DOA Atari is making the suggestion that this chip will put an end to piracy? Come on!
2 Comments
Rick
May 24th, 2008
at 10:16am
Let’s be honest enough to admit one thing: software “piracy” is theft, not some grey area.
There is no difference between sticking a DVD under your jacket and sneaking out the door and downloading “pirate” software - except for the cost of the media, packaging, and distribution in the first case, and the relative risk of ending up getting charged by police between the two.
Piracy is simply a litmus test of the ethics and honesty of computer users. If the risks and consequences of piracy were about the same for downloading off the internet or via sneakernet as they are for shoplifting the exact same software, I doubt stolen software would be very prevelant at all. It definitely wouldn’t be the issue it is today.
Comments about whether software publishers are going bankrupt or not as a result of theft of their product is both irrelevant and dumb. Should it be acceptable to steal Bill Gates’ car just because he wouldn’t even notice the cost of the loss? Why should anyone take an attempt to steal from Warren Buffett seriously when he has more money than anyone could spend in a lifetime? Why not just shrug our shoulders at any act of property crime against wealthy corporations and individuals? If the condition is that it must be done over the Internet to be okay (like most software piracy), then logically online identity theft, fraud schemes, etc are all right as well - provided the victim is wealthy of course.
The fact that companies are stolen from yet don’t go bankrupt shouldn’t be news to anyone. Stores and businesses have dealt with shoplifting, till tapping, employee theft, etc since long before the first computer was ever invented. The fact that they budget for those losses doesn’t mean that theft is okay - or that they shouldn’t constantly seek ways to reduce their losses due to criminal activity. Needless to say, included in their budget for theft is the movement of the expected losses due to crime into their pricing index - in short, the honest customer gets to pay for what is taken by thieves. Why should I pay more to support the actions of thieves?
You can of course argue that software pricing is unfair. It may well be, but that is a different issue than theft, and as a consumer you have the right to decide whether you are going to patronize the software developer or go to something else if you think their pricing is unreasonable. Nobody FORCES you to get your credit card out and buy a game or whatever.
The only real difference between the physical theft of digital media from a store and the electronic theft of digital media over the internet is that the risk is much higher for physical theft of a product - and software thieves might attempt to justify their actions, but the bottom line is the don’t have sufficient courage of their convictions to just go shoplift a copy and try their arguments out in court.
I have no disagreement on the issue regarding software/hardware that intends to restrict how I can and can’t use my computer. On the other hand, if this chip does nothing other than make a computer identity unique in the world as part of a license verification model, just how does this restrict how I can use my computer? Assuming it does nothing more than establish a one-to-one relationship between that computer and a software license, just how exactly is it “restricting” how I use my computer? Other than potentially preventing me from stealing software, of course…
From my point of view the more important issue here is how vendors propose to service customer requests when the consumer buys a new computer and wants to move their software to that machine and similar issues like that. While the vendors have a right to enforce a license that says “one machine only” by legitimate means, they also have an obligation to reasonably ensure that consumers can move a license to a new computer reasonably easily.
Marvin
May 26th, 2008
at 10:21pm
Bushnell has been working with a pair of technology wanna-bes named Marvin Winkler and Kevin Donovan. Marvin made his fortune buying surfwear companies had a string of failed attempts attempting to leverage TPM and smart card technology don’t worry none of them have done anything but suck the investors dry. Looks like bushnell is the next fatted calf to get sucked in by winkler and company