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the drm sausaGe factory
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The DRM Sausage Factory
(Originally published as “A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How DRM Becomes Law,”
InformationWeek,
July 11, 2007.)
Otto von Bismarck quipped, “Laws are like sausages, it is better
not to see them being made.” I’ve seen sausages made. I’ve seen
laws made. Both pale in comparison to the process by which anti-
copying technology agreements are made.
This technology, usually called “Digital Rights Management”
(DRM), proposes to make your computer worse at copying some
of the files on its hard drive or on other media. Since all computer
operations involve copying, this is a daunting task — as security
expert Bruce Schneier has said, “Making bits harder to copy is like
making water that’s less wet.”
At root, DRMs are technologies that treat the owner of a com-
puter or other device as an attacker, someone against whom the
system must be armored. Like the electrical meter on the side of
your house, a DRM is a technology that you possess, but that you
are never supposed to be able to manipulate or modify. Unlike
your meter, though, a DRM that is defeated in one place is de-
feated in all places, nearly simultaneously. That is to say, once
someone takes the DRM off a song or movie or ebook, that freed
collection of bits can be sent to anyone else, anywhere the net-
work reaches, in an eyeblink. DRM crackers need cunning; those
who receive the fruits of their labor need only know how to down-
load files from the Internet.
Why manufacture a device that attacks its owner? A priori,
one would assume that such a device would cost more to make
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