Digital rights management is Microsoft's Trojan horse

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April 18, 2002 (Computerworld) --

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A few weeks ago, I installed Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2002. Finally, I would be able to fly a Boeing 747 under the Golden Gate bridge, a pleasure denied me under FAA regulations. The installation procedure purported to provide me with a series of choices about which of the many programs on the three CD-ROMs I could install.

In truth, there were few choices. I was compelled to install a variety of files, including all that pertained to Microsoft's digital rights management (DRM) system. I was compelled in the sense that the game required those files to operate. I dutifully installed them.

The game is terrific -- I save at least $10,000 every hour I fly the 747 on the computer.

Curtis Karnow, a partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal

But I and the many thousands of others who use this leading flight simulator have installed Microsoft's DRM system on our hard drives. And looking into this quiet distribution, I found it was the tip of an iceberg: For well over a year, Microsoft has been building DRM directly into Windows. It has inextricably linked the operation and distribution of its propriety DRM system and its multimedia technology, called Windows Media.

"We see [Microsoft's DRM] as a core service in the operating system -- this is going to be a core technology for anything that's distributed across the Web," said Microsoft's Michael Aldridge, lead project manager for the digital media division, in a CNET story.

Because older audio encryption systems can be avoided by simply tapping into the sound path just before it hits the speakers (by which time it has been decrypted), Microsoft is also building Secure Audio Path into the operating system. Secure Audio Path scrambles output from the computer sound card to the speakers. Of course, only certain speakers compatible with Security Audio Path will work with that input. Microsoft has also thoughtfully provided an audio file converter that translates ubiquitous MP3 files to the Windows Media Audio (WMA) format. With DRM, WMA music files can be programmed not to play after, say, 10 days, or DRM can prevent the files from being transferred to a CD-ROM (see Microsoft 'tunes' up Windows XP).

The audio DRM system was broken last October by a hacker using the alias Beale Screamer, who detailed Microsoft's encryption scheme and released a program to strip audio files of their protection. Beale suggests, in an open letter to the Justice Department that accompanies his files, that Microsoft's DRM poses serious antitrust issues. The Microsoft DRM system requires a certified public key for the required communication -- that is, a form of digital certificate that authorizes the encryption and decryption processes to work.

Control issue

Microsoft controls the certification. Thus, Microsoft also controls the revocation of these certificates, which means that Microsoft can remotely disable any software that depends on the certificate for communication. There are good reasons to disable certificates -- especially because they may be forged or used without authority to create unauthorized software. But revocation is a stunning power to put in the hands of a third party, especially if it's a competitor.

This is a package of protection that will be hard for content providers to resist. They will be attracted to the benefits of DRM built deep into the most widespread operating system. But they now must work with Microsoft to utilize the DRM systems and distribute the required certificates.

This is so even if those content providers are Microsoft's competitors. And they need to do this even if they may not want to alert their most powerful competitor to their plans, and even if they recall with some horror past mismanagement of Microsoft's digital certificate processing (see PC World story).

And each one of us armchair pilots is an unwitting assistant, for we pave the way for the establishment of the Microsoft-managed DRM standard every time we install Microsoft's simulator.

Karnow, a partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, E-Business Group in San Francisco, is the author of Future Codes: Essays In Advanced Computer Technology and the Law, (Artech House, 1997). Contact him at cek@sonnenschein.com.

References:

DMCA Protester Cracks Microsoft's Copyright Protection Code

"Mad as Hell About the DMCA," by Beale Screamer

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