How Important Is Protecting Streaming Media? 182
spaj writes "In the ongoing battle with the MPAA and RIAA, there seems to be an ongoing argument about who is to blame. If you leave a $20 bill on the sidewalk, can you report it stolen when someone takes it? Of course you can, but will you be taken seriously by the authorities? When my car was broken into, I was told by the responding police officer that I might have prevented it by keeping my seats and visible areas clear of junk that would entice criminals. So, who is at fault when it comes to users abusing their right to capture streaming media for personal use? According to Applian.com's Legal FAQ, the RIAA will not come after you if you make a recording for your own personal use. I have often been torn on this issue, and I am looking for input. Adobe recently released a new format of their widely used streaming protocol, RTMP, that includes 128-bit encryption (RTMPE). I can only interpret this as an attempt to prevent capturing of the streaming media content for personal use. However, Applian has already circumvented the RTMPE protection, and you can read about it on Adobe's forums, where some users seem quite dissatisfied that their content is not protected enough by Adobe's technology. I think the main question boils down to: Who is to blame? Can you blame Adobe for not making a better encryption? Or do you blame Applian for bypassing such security features? Or do you blame the authors of stolen content for leaving the security of their material in somebody else's hands?"
Re:Nobody is to blame (Score:5, Informative)
There is no strong or weak DRM. At some point the data is decrypted, and at that point you extract it. End of story.
It just takes one person to make it into a "cheap off the shelf tool that requires no expertise", and there will always be at least one programmer out there scratching their own itch.
Re:Nobody is to blame (Score:4, Informative)
There is no defense against an intelligent hacker with a soldering iron.
Re:Nobody is to blame (Score:4, Informative)
There is no strong or weak DRM. At some point the data is decrypted, and at that point you extract it. End of story.
Imagine a CPU that can apply AES encryption to sensitive blocks of RAM. In that case, you'd have to tap the CPU's L2 cache (not likely without expensive tools) to extract anything decrypted.
Re:You Blame Adobe (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The last one (Score:3, Informative)
It's not difficult at all, fire up Audacity and set the recording source to "What U Hear", hit record.