LuminousVoid

So Intel is going to build DRM at the hardware level in its new chips: Intel quietly adds DRM to new chips.

Officially launched worldwide on the May 26, the new offerings come DRM-enabled and will, at least in theory, allow copyright holders to prevent unauthorized copying and distribution of copyrighted materials from the motherboard rather than through the operating system as is currently the case.

Looks like my earlier idea to move to Mac is getting another boost. Why would I want hardware that gives someone else control over what I do with my computer, and takes it away from me? Of course, I shouldn’t put it past Apple to do this sort of stuff too, given their content focus.

However, Tucker ducked questions regarding technical details of how embedded DRM would work saying it was not in the interests of his company to spell out how the technology in the interests of security.

I really hope that’s PR, and not an actual security-through-obscurity plan. This new DRM is supposed to come with an on-board “active management technology” which gives a lot of firmware level (ie, your hardrives, your BIOS settings etc..) access to remote users. That’s very troubling from a security perspective.

I’m really curious how this DRM is going to work. It can’t be that hard to use software to fool your hardware into playing content that’s locked up.