Ask Andre Hedrick About Hard Drive Copy Protection

You've read about it here on Slashdot and elsewhere: How the 4C Entity is developing copy protection mechanisms for removeable drives (floppies, DVDs, etc.) that can also be used on hard drives. But Linux kernel hacker Andre Hedrick, member of both linux-ide.org and the industry-wide Technical Committee T.13 that sets ATA hard drive interface standards, has been raising a ruckus about copy protection on your hard drive, and he, along with EFF and EPIC, is trying to get this idea killed (or at least muted). So post any questions you have for Andre about this whole thing below, and tomorrow we'll shoot 10 of the highest-moderated ones to him by email. We'll post Andre's answers as soon as he has time to get them back to us, which may be a bit because, he warns,"everyone else is hounding me ..."

How voluntary is voluntary?

Is making the CPRM spec a feature that can be turned off truly making it voluntary, given that presumably some content will not be supplied to users who fail to leave CPRM enabled? Would it not end up being as "optional" as DVD CSS encyption and non-zero region encoding?
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Choices...

I apologize for the open-endedness of this question, but I have to ask it anyways. :)

If this copy protection were to become mandatory, I can definately imagine the effects that it would cause. But what effects - both long and short term - do you feel this would cause?

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I thought that ATA CPRM was already dead.

In the Boston Globe (where I first found out about 4C and their nefarious plans), I read about the CPRM strategy, and how they whined that they wouldn't be able to implement it globally for computer hard drives. Unfortunately, the craze with firmware-enabled hard-drive controllers (of which HighPoint, Promise, and CMD are the three main culprits) could change this. However, I don't think that the gov could force everyone to replace their hard drive controllers.

Either way, go get 'em Andre! I hope that you'll keep the Win2K users in mind as well, because no anti-DMCA techie leaves another anti-DMCA techie behind.

What can we do to help you?

This proposal is a tragedy to personal liberties and freedoms (and rates pretty high on the Suck-o-Meter), and your efforts thus far are admirable.

So, I want to know, what can we do to help? Letter writing, calls, faxes? Stand around and go "Brrbbrrbb" with our lips?

How can we aid your efforts in the most effective way?

Can we REALLY win?

As in, is there a >0 probability of this monstrosity NOT making it into the official stardard? (as opposed to merely becoming "optional", which would be the proverbial foot in the door)

How to defeat it?

If this is forced through the industry, how would one write a DeCSS-like tool to defeat it? Is it in some way bypassable in software?

Better solution?

The hard-drive copy protection scheme seems to me to be yet another attempt (in the vein of DVD/CSS, DPMI, etc.) to maintain a legal structure (that of multinational corporations with scarcity-based proprietary information models) with a technical fix. On /., it may be taken as an article of faith that such efforts are doomed - smart people solve legal problems with lawyers, and technical problems with technology, and know the difference.

My question, though, stems from the fact that (like it or not) software companies are within their rights to get paid for software they write, and to set up their own price structure, and to prosecute those who steal their software.

So the question is: If this misguided idea of hardware-based copy protection gets successfully scuttled (and I hope it does), what better solution might there be for proprietary-model software companies that has the benefit of providing them superior protection from pirates without screwing the rest of the world out of the benefits of the currently open hardware model, such as "fair use" under copyright law?

My US$.02: Coming up with such a "third way" solution could go a long way toward killing media-based copy protection - give them an out, and they might take it.

OK,
- B
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I don't listen to MP3s or play DVDs

I don't use my Linux machines to read "entertainment files" (MP3s, DVDs etc) or run any closed source software. I just read Slashdot, send email and hack code. Is there any reason why I wouldn't be able to continue doing this on one of these crippled drives?

How does 4C justify their position?

What is 4C's reponse to "why don't you push for enforcement of the current copyright laws instead of an unpopular techno "fix" that will be thwarted upon release?" How do they justify their position?

John

protections on fair use rights

How will (or will) consumer rights to fair use of content be protected through all this?

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Put your feet out and stop ... climb out and hang ...

I'm still confused

Can you please start by providing an idiot's guide to how this CPRM thing is actually supposed to work.

I gain the impression that compliant (presumably closed source) software encrypts data as it flows on and off the drive using keys which are specific to each drive. So, if the file is moved to a different drive it won't decrypt any longer? Have I got the right idea? If so, its only applicable to those prepared to run closed source software, right?

Re:Nodding to civil disobediance?

Making this a legal part of hard drives would be very hard. It would require that somehow they get import controls on hard drives. That they get all the older drives out there to convert etc. etc. More likely is that some software just would not work on drives that do not have it. Think about it you can get DVDS that do not have or use the MPAAs copy protection it is not a legal mandate that they have to have it. You just can't have certain content if you don't. The same would go for drives odds are all the drive builders would build drives that have it and that don't. Just like Sony builds a DVD player that can use more than one region code. It would then be about content and OSS would win another one. Not to say it is not scary but unless you try and crack it to use some bit of software that needs it on a drive that does not have the protection it would never be illegal to have drives that do not have the protection and use software that does not care.

What in the mood of the T13 on this issue?

To be honest I'm leary here. When I look at the officers for the T13 (Maxim/Quantum personel), and add that to the locations the meetings take place: Microsoft, Dell, Seagate, Western Digital, etc. I can't help but to think that the end result is going to be business interests ahead of consumer interests.

What is the mood of the T13 on the issue? Are you part of a minority, or part of the majority on this issue? Do you think you will win on this issue?

Beneficial uses for this

Are there any possible beneficial uses for this technology, like implementing some sort of improved filesystem security model under Linux (or *BSD or Windows) that would be helpful to the BOFH?

Re:Choices...

This type of tech is what scares me. Obviously readers of this (and others) have some sort of idea what these practices lead to in the future if left unchecked and unopposed, but the rank and file computer users rarely involve themselves in this. Most of them never even know such technologies are in their PC's, TV's, VCR's, etc... until they want to do something and they can't, or a mainstream news source picks up on it.

I wonder though if those same users realize what we (meaning all those opposing these types of issues) are trying to save for them. If these censorship technologies get too strong of a foothold in the everyday lives of people, if it becomes impossible to buy a TV without some sort monitoring devce, or a HD with a chip that checks to see if you are "allowed" to copy that file, and these same technologies are protected so that we cannot remove them legally...Think of the future, it makes 1984 look simple.

So to Andre I ask:

Why do I supposedly need these tech in my HD, and how am I to be assured that it will never prevent me from using my PC in a matter that I wish whether that is legal or not?

Re:How does 4C justify their position?

What is 4C's reponse to "why don't you push for enforcement of the current copyright laws instead of an unpopular techno "fix" that will be thwarted upon release?" How do they justify their position?

Most importantly - how does the 4C justify their position to the consumer? How is this in the consumer's best interest?

Re:Isn't this just encryption support?

Very good point. Has anyone pointed out to 4C that CPRM could cause a user in the UK to be in breach of our Oh-So-Wonderful RIP law?

"Sorry Mr. Judge, I cannot supply the data that was on the drive, as it is CPRM compliant and I do not have the keys to decrypt it any more."

Enforcement on Open Source platforms

How can copy protection of data be maintained on hard disks and other media if the operating system has the ability to use partition types that encrypt? Wouldn't a layer in an OS kernel be able to circumvent a good portion of the measures if the data does not reach the drive in its original form?


"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."

What happened to our right to archival copies?

It seems that in the name of stopping copyright infringement in the way of piracy, we have lost our right to make archival copies of whatever media we purchase.

This right never seems to be mentioned in the debates that I've seen, and yet it is something that is extremely important to the individual, especially when you are looking at software packages beomcing more and more expensive every year. If we've paid several thousand dollars for an Enterprise package like, say, Visual InterDev, having an archival copy of it is extremely important.

It doesn't appear as though the schemes for hard drive copy protection have any such concerns, much like all of the current pushes to reform copyright law.

We're living in an age when individual rights are being thrown over left and right in the name of profit margins, and it's projects like this that are eroding them.

What's does 4C get from copy protection?

I don't understand why drive manufacturers would want to impose copy protection on their customers. How does a company like IBM benefit from cooperating with this scheme?

I don't think that there are many customers who would prefer a copy protected drive. Why would a rational company ignore the desires of its customers in order to satisfy the desires of the companies who will benefit from these crippled drives?

Are they afraid of lawsuits? Legistlation? Are they being paid? Are they simply standing in solidarity with other multi-national corporations?

I don't understand why drive manufacturers are on board, and it seems to me that knowing why they're doing what they're doing would help us to think of effective strategies to comabat this noxiouis proposal.

How will linux deal with the copy protect feature?

As the IDE subsystem developer for Linux, how will you deal with this misfeature? Will you merely work around it in software, or will you stay true to the SPECS and implement the copy protect feature? Or perhaps have the copy protect a CONFIG option? Or will this be a layer below the kernel(in the chipset) and in such case, hack around that too(XORing the file as it goes to disk obscuring any goofy signatures and reversing the operation on the way back?).

Aaron

That huge bank of keys

I admit freely that I do not understand the technicalities of this, but there seems to be a large are reserved for various encryption keys. Where do they come from, how do they get to the disk, and most of all, who controls them? How long before Napster Inc, Gnutella.Org, and EFF have their own keys that just happen to be identical over all machines?

How can it work, anyway? Data goes to the disk, Data comes out of the disk, and can be grabbed. Encrypted data goes to the disk, comes out decrypted, and can be grabbed. If nothing else, someone can simulate a display/sound card on a virtual machine, and grab the data at that point. Once *one* person has extracted the data, it can be shared like any other data. They can not seriously hope to stop all email and file transfers, can they?

Is there a central authority?

Do you know if there are any patents or other legal tricks involved, so that ultimately, a manufacturer who decides to create CPRM-compliant drives will be forced to sign a contract with some single controlling monopolistic entity?

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Is this already approved for SCSI and Firewire?

Last week we read that a copy-control scheme similar or identical to CPRM has been already approved for SCSI and Firewire (without objection...probably because no one knew about it.)

First off, is it true? Secondly, why hadn't we heard about this before? Can we expect this technology to be built into all new SCSI and Firwire hardware, or is "optional" there too?

W
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Re:Hmmm...

I think you're a little too overconfident - there is a very real chance that, for the first time, you'll be up against real encryption technology - the kind of stuff that military intelligence can't break.

If things go badly, the only workable "crack" might need to be installed with a soldering iron and some expensive components. And once it's done, you might still need to crack all your legitimate software just to get it to think it's running on a compliant device rather than some evil pirate's machine.

It may be less than a year before we hear "If you've got nothing to hide, why do you have a problem with CPRM?"

Re:What about educational fair use?

>or would we no longer be able to exercise our fair use rights as an educational institution?

Going by what Kaplin's ruling suggests, merely having the right to fair use does not give one the right to have the means to achieve that right.

If they can rig the market to preclude fair-use-compliant devices being sold, that's their prerogative.

Hopefully Kaplin's idiocy will be overturned, but I fear it might be the idiocy of the legal system at large.

Re:Microsoft's stance.

Copy protection is only tangentially related to piracy. It is very easy (logical, IMHO) to be anti-piracy and anti-copyprotection.

This will just create additional expense for Microsoft, without having a significant effect on piracy. Copy protection normally only hurts legitimate users, not pirates.

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Re:Isn't CPRM actually a Good Thing?

The Right to Read [fsf.org] is a small story written by RMS which I read some time ago.

When I first read it, I thought that (a) RMS is not a very good writer and (b) what he sketches is vastly exaggerated.

After seeing this copy protection scheme I still think RMS doesn't write very good stories, but I'm beginning to suspect that his dystopia isn't that far-fetched at all.

You see, hard drive encryption is not where it ends! Soon, everyone will be using it and you won't be able to get anything done for your school or company without it. Until now we have managed to avoid things like this but when cryptographic hard drives are involved, things will get a lot tougher. What will they come up with next?

Ironically, in this capitalist world it may not be the state muffling free speech and human rights but large corporations and cartels. We need a cushion between consumers and companies, being able to copy materials at will is one such cushion.

Re:criminalization of current practices?

So many current practices (like encrypted filesystems) would bypass this technology. Do you predict the 4C will attempt to have these outlawed under DMCA if this effort is successful?

My guess would be no need - an encrypted filesystem just makes the HDD look like a non CPRM compliant device. Once CPRM is established in the market, there will be a little label on the software box you buy:

Requires Pentium4 1Ghz, 256Mb RAM, 300Mb CPRM HDD.

If you're running an encyrpted filesystem, tough luck. Ditch your system or ditch the software. You can't have both. A non-CPRM disk will probably be like DVD player without CSS descrambling.

What about CPRM's sister technologies?

OK, here's my question:

CPRM is obviously just ONE of several technologies designed to build the CPSA (Content Protection System Architecture) framework, as described in the CPSA whitepaper [4centity.com] published by the 4C Entity.

Reportedly you're trying to convince the T.13 committee of introducing a possibility to opt-out of CPRM support for Linux.

What are your views on CPRM's sister technologies like CPPM (Content Protection for Prerecorded Media), DTCP (Digital Transmission Copy Protection), HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) etc. and their possible inclusion in upcoming devices such as DVD-RW recorders, Firewire and USB devices, DVI displays, etc.? Will Linux just not support these devices?

What Are The Hard Drive Manufacturers Thinking?

Hi Andre.

What the content providers really want is to impose their controls on the data they provide. E.g., they want to be able to impose policies like "single use", "pay-per-use", "time-limited", "give up to 4 copies to your friends", and so forth. They want to impose these policies using technology. That's fine by me: if customers find value in it, the content providers will get rich; if customers find insufficient value, content provider CEOs and VPs will find their bonuses shrinking when the stockholders hear they flushed millions of $$$ down the toilet.

To control content, the PC needs a tamper-resistant crypto module under the content provider's control. It could be a PCI card, a smart card, a parallel port dongle, a FireWire box, integrated with the motherboard chipset, yadda yadda yadda. The are only three requirements: 1) high bandwidth, and 2) tamper-resistance, and 3) easy access to a power supply. As long as these criteria are met, it really doesn't matter what location or form the cryptographic module takes.

It looks to me like the content control people listed every PC subsystem, and wrote off the ones that couldn't work. "RS-232 is too slow." "Smartcard reader is too expensive." "Video card OEMs would laugh at us." "Sound card OEMs would laugh at us." What they were left with was IDE/ATA: it has plenty of volume, power, and bandwidth, and hard drive OEMs might buy their stories.

This begs a question: why will the hard drive OEMs design, manufacture, and distribute their crypto module for free? What is in it for them? Designing custom, tamper-resistant silicon and firmware is expensive, and superfluous for data storage. Manufacturing the custom chips is expensive. (If a hard drive engineer told his boss he'd just added $2 to the manufacturing cost, he'd be picking his teeth up off the floor.) Supporting it will be tremendously expensive, requiring cooperation with OS vendors. Data loss and guilt-by-association could besmirch the OEM's reputation.

So here's my question(s): Have the hard drive pointy-haired bosses been sold swampland by the content providers? Will the crypto survive the merciless budget slashing manufacturing engineers at Seagate, IBM, Maxtor, and friends? Do the content providers really believe hard drives need crypto, or are they just looking for a free ride from the OEMs?

RAID, Defragging, Backups

I'm having a lot trouble sorting the paranoia from the reality here regarding RAID, Defragging, and Backups. I have seen the following questions answered and debated, but it'd be nice to have more knowlegable answers.

Specifically, with RAID5, for example, which could very likely want to spread CPRM data across a number of disks, will CPRM muck up this process? Will the new spec allow me to swap disks if one is defective and retain my data? What are realistic problems with various RAID implementations?

Regarding backups, will restoring CPRM data to replacement disks abort a restore, either in part or in total? Will it limit itself to blocking just the CPRM data restoration or could it block the whole process?

Can I defrag a CPRM file?