TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: What Happened To Channel 1

Re: What Happened To Channel 1

Dan Lanciani (ddl@danlan.com)
Fri, 1 Apr 2005 02:46:44 EST

ihatespam@crazyhat.net (DevilsPGD) wrote:

> In message <telecom24.134.12@telecom-digest.org> Dan Lanciani
> <ddl@danlan.com> wrote:

>> Except that (according to the original proposal) it won't run in the
>> clear anywhere you can "tap" without relatively sophisticated die
>> probing equipment. Are you aware of some change in the approach or
>> are you just assuming that the manufacturers will screw up the
>> implementation? If the latter, remember that the original proposal
>> also incorporates key revocation for compromised device families.

> Sure, but imagine the legal backlash if suddenly Sony's TVs no longer
> work.

I don't imagine that there would be much legal backlash as long as
"legitimate" users were supplied with an upgrade, especially if that
upgrade were provided before the remaining devices were made to fail.
Note that this seems to be exactly what is happening with some
receivers that predate the broadcast flag mandate (you remember, the
receivers that the FCC and broadcast flag apologists claimed would
continue to work unchanged after the flag was enabled) so there is
precedent. See for example:

http://product.samsung.com/stb_upgrade/

Now of course, there are cost tradeoffs between plugging a hole and
placating the "legitimate" owners of the equipment you need to
upgrade. Given that the original broadcast flag proposal was pretty
much a rehash of existing digital rights management proposals for
other consumer content (and the broadcast flag mandate is a great way
to get that DRM infrastructure deployed) I suspect that the costs of
key revocation have already been considered.

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: Tim@Backhome.org: "Re: Vonage May Route 911 Call to Congress, FCC"
Go to Previous message: TELECOM Digest Editor: "Book Review: The Great Telecom Meltdown"
May be in reply to: davisdynasty83: "What Happened To Channel 1"
Next in thread: Martin McCormick: "Re: What Happened To Channel 1"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page