September 9, 2009 at 16:28DPP (Digital Personal Property) Technology Details
As Ars Technica learned , IEEE has set up a specification working group for the Digital Personal Property (DPP) format, which is seen as an alternative to DRM. This is a very unusual technology. It is all built around the paradoxical idea that you can lose your rights to digital property , and this opportunity will be specially realized technologically. Simply put, the concept of impunity theft of rights to view files is introduced.
Encrypted DPP files can be freely copied from device to device on the Internet, but they will be distributed in encrypted form and there is one trick here - viewing a file is impossible without access to a crypto key (playkey), which is stored separately from the file and only in a single copy. The key represents ownership. Moreover, any person who gains access to the content has the opportunity to “steal” it from you, that is, transfer the crypto key to your device. Then he can change the rights, for example, prevent you - the former owner of the file - from viewing it.
DPP offers to perceive a digital file as if it were a physical object. For example, you can lend your car to a friend or relative, but you will not leave it near the house with the keys in the ignition, otherwise you will simply lose your property. The same thing will now be with files. You can do anything with the file - open access for hundreds of people (if you are sure of these people), make archive copies, even sell the file. But you cannot share it with the whole world, because there is surely someone who will rewrite access rights.
Thus, record corporations are trying to instill in users a new culture of dealing with digital content. In their opinion, only the threat of theft can make people value and protect their property.
The idea of realizing ownership of digital content using cryptography methods is truly respected. Still, people with imagination have not yet transferred, even in the community of copyright advocates. Such ideas are exclusively idealistic in nature, because to realize them in life you need to completely destroy all "open" file formats and all devices that can play them, and all programs that can record such files that are not protected by a crypto key. How can you ban all this software and hardware in practice? Of course, nothing.
But the idea is still interesting.
Encrypted DPP files can be freely copied from device to device on the Internet, but they will be distributed in encrypted form and there is one trick here - viewing a file is impossible without access to a crypto key (playkey), which is stored separately from the file and only in a single copy. The key represents ownership. Moreover, any person who gains access to the content has the opportunity to “steal” it from you, that is, transfer the crypto key to your device. Then he can change the rights, for example, prevent you - the former owner of the file - from viewing it.
DPP offers to perceive a digital file as if it were a physical object. For example, you can lend your car to a friend or relative, but you will not leave it near the house with the keys in the ignition, otherwise you will simply lose your property. The same thing will now be with files. You can do anything with the file - open access for hundreds of people (if you are sure of these people), make archive copies, even sell the file. But you cannot share it with the whole world, because there is surely someone who will rewrite access rights.
Thus, record corporations are trying to instill in users a new culture of dealing with digital content. In their opinion, only the threat of theft can make people value and protect their property.
The idea of realizing ownership of digital content using cryptography methods is truly respected. Still, people with imagination have not yet transferred, even in the community of copyright advocates. Such ideas are exclusively idealistic in nature, because to realize them in life you need to completely destroy all "open" file formats and all devices that can play them, and all programs that can record such files that are not protected by a crypto key. How can you ban all this software and hardware in practice? Of course, nothing.
But the idea is still interesting.