Cory Doctorow is not the first person to say it, nor will he be the last, but he certainly said it well in his popular talk on DRM he gave at Microsoft (Microsoft Research DRM talk):
DRM systems are broken in minutes, sometimes days. Rarely, months. It's not because the people who think them up are stupid. It's not because the people who break them are smart. It's not because there's a flaw in the algorithms. At the end of the day, all DRM systems share a common vulnerability: they provide their attackers with ciphertext, the cipher and the key. At this point, the secret isn't a secret anymore.
However, DRM does hide (sort of) secrets, they just have nothing to do with the plaintext. Read on...
Of course, everything that Doctorow says about DRM's effectiveness is correct. There will never be DRM for consumer media that can't be broken. It simply cannot prevent determined attackers from breaking it; at best, it merely slows them down for a relatively trivial period of time.
The fact that DRM will always fail isn't why DRM is important. From a technical point of view, DRM is a joke. Really, the long term usefulness of any particular DRM scheme isn't in the technology, but in the law that defends the technology. Once broken, all of DRM's usefulness is provided by statute, by the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA.
For example, CSS, the DVD encryption scheme, was broken years ago. Anyone with half a clue can now get ahold of DeCSS and decrypt DVDs. Yet, Hollywood studios still encrypt DVDs, not because of the remaining efficacy (none) of the encryption scheme, but because the encryption scheme is the pass that gets them in the legal door of the draconian DMCA. No manufacturer of DVD players refrains from making a DRM-free DVD player because they are stymied by CSS, but because the draconian penalties for violating the DMCA are more than adequate deterrence.
Why, then, are companies spending so much money on researching and developing "robust" DRM systems? Even if you spend millions on development, in the unlikely best case scenario, your encryption scheme will last for a few weeks or months. After the DRM scheme is broken, all the research and development dollars spent on making strong DRM no longer provide any return. The only return is coming from the fact that you have DRM at all, because the DMCA doesn't care whether the DRM is weak or strong. The DMCA only cares if it is "effective," which most people take to mean, well, pretty much that it is an encryption scheme, period
For example, I don't see any reason why a slightly more sophisticated version of a Vigenere Cypher wouldn't trigger DMCA protection for a media that used it. The company using the slightly modified Vigenere Cypher would have all the legal protections with few of the costs. No one could sell a device that used the same cypher without permission without running afoul of the law. So, why not?
I think it is because it would demonstrate quite clearly what the DMCA is really about. Obviously weak encryption would make it clear to everyone that the DMCA isn't about stopping pirates, but controlling the market and raising barriers to entry. In contrast, if you use a "robust" DRM scheme, it looks like you are really concerned about piracy, that the DMCA is really protecting something very valuable.
DRM is hiding a secret, but it is doing so much as a Potemkin Village hides a secret.
Ernest Miller pursues research and writing on cyberlaw, intellectual property, and First Amendment issues. Mr. Miller attended the U.S. Naval Academy before attending Yale Law School, where he was president and co-founder of the Law and Technology Society, and founded the technology law and policy news site LawMeme. He is a fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.
Ernest Miller's blog postings can also be found @
1. Seth Finkelstein on June 23, 2004 12:03 AM writes...
It's CYA and security-by-obscurity. If a designer makes an attempt, which they may know deep in their heart of hearts is doomed to failure, and it gets cracked, well, it's Not Their Fault. Were they to say "This is futile. It'll be cracked immediately. Let's not even try.", then the suits would say "You are a negative, can't-do person, and I want a CAN-DO ATTITUDE!".
CSS was not exactly a cryptographic tour-de-force. I t was a do-something response.
Permalink to Comment2. Seth Finkelstein on June 23, 2004 12:54 AM writes...
Also, it's not completely unreasonable to try to push the necessary reverse-engineering skill up to the point where the programmer probably isn't judgment-proof, which complements the legal strategy. That may be a bit past ROT-13 (pun unintended).
Permalink to Comment3. Rolo Timassie on June 23, 2004 04:01 AM writes...
This is silly. There isn't a lock that can't be picked. So people shouldn't use locks? Laws against breaking and entering are unconstitutional infringements on the right to travel?
Some content protection systems have been broken. Some haven't. And even for those that have, the fact that some guy in a basement figures out a workaround doesn't make them valueless. We're not talking about nuclear secrets here, but movies and television shows. Any content protection system that requires you to whip out a solder iron in order to circumvent it is pretty effective at its job. Your idea that all content protection systems approach zero value within months except as a legal marker buoy is ludicrous.
Permalink to Comment4. Ernest Miller on June 23, 2004 05:00 AM writes...
Rolo,
When every criminal who wants to will have the chance to break into my house, when once they've broken into my house they can make a copy of everything I'm trying protect, when those copies will then be readily available to every criminal who doesn't have the ability to bypass my lock, then I would say, yes, people shouldn't waste their money on locks.
Name one content protection system that hasn't been broken but is widely available and protects popular mass content.
Name some popular mass content that isn't available via any of the major filesharing networks free for the taking.
Permalink to Comment5. matt perkins on June 23, 2004 02:41 PM writes...
I'd guess there's also another reason why content producers avoid elementary tools and stick with more expensive & complicated DRM systems:
The knowledge to circumvent a character-shifting DRM system can be gained through simple English descriptions and intuition. The knowledge to circumvent CSS (for example; not rocket science but definitely more complicated) doesn't look like speech in the same way that "choose the letter four down from R" looks like speech.
The more complex the DRM, the less a 1201 circumvention device looks like speech. The content industries can't afford strict scrutiny against 1201.
Permalink to Comment6. Rolo Timassie on June 24, 2004 05:48 AM writes...
OK - first, Ernest, we do not currently have the situation where "everyone can break into the house." Despite the existence of DeCSS, it is illegal, and not that many people can use it. (Much like lockpicking equipment.) Therefore, the thieves are, relatively speaking, sparse. Ergo, locks still make sense. You can spin out conspiracy theories if that makes you happy, but this is the motivating force here.
Second, as you well know, the two most widely used content protection systems at the current time are Macrovision and CSS. CSS has been cracked, and I have seen reports of Macrovision work-arounds. But there are others that have not been cracked. Almost every cable and satellite system, and every cable programmer such as HBO or Showtime, uses an encryption or scrambling scheme to transmit their content to where it's going. Most of those systems have not been cracked, although such things such as forged smartcards exist. (I suppose it depends on what you define as a crack, but something that requires obtaining a physical object, or modifying a piece of hardware, is much less destructive to the overall system than a exploit put in a downloadable executable file, and I would argue only the latter would have the devastating impact you claim magically affects all content protection systems at age 6 months, sort of like a shortened version of "Logan's Run.") There are also content protection systems that have existed for years and are coming into widespread use now that are secure, such as DTCP.
As for your last (rhetorical) question, I don't understand why you think this is an argument *against* content protection, instead of *for* it. If you lock up your bike with a chain, and it gets stolen, you buy one of those solid metal thingies; you don't leave your bike unlocked.
Permalink to Comment7. Ernest Miller on June 28, 2004 02:38 AM writes...
Rolo,
The locks work, but for what? Keeping the movies off filesharing networks? Nope. They might prevent some very minor sneakernet copying, but they aren't going to stop anyone with any significant desire for the movie; they'll simply get it off the internet without having to break CSS. Just like everything worth stealing in my home would be widely available. You can stretch and try, but your physical locks analogy isn't terribly convincing in a digital world.
The DRM systems you speak about as not being cracked? They are broadcast systems. There are differences to cracking broadcast systems using hardware as opposed to cracking fixed media files. However, let me simply note that everything that is worthwhile on these broadcasts is also available via filesharing.
By the way, DTCP has been cracked.
Because the solid metal thingy only costs more without offering much more in the way of protection. It is like putting multiple deadbolts on your door, but not being able to do much about the unlocked window next to the door. By all means, add more locks to the door if it makes you feel better, but all you are doing is wasting your money. Yours is the argument that doesn't make much sense.
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