Microsoft DRMOS Palladium -- The Trojan Horse OS

Reviewing the Microsoft DRM OS (Palladium Patent) it became apparent Richard Stallman's short story, The Right to Read is indeed visionary. Stallman wrote the story back in 1997, about a dystopian society which borders on Orwell's 1984.

The "Right to Read" can be found here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

You must read this story to understand the issues outlined below. Stallman's bad guys in the "Right to Read" have come to pass, and the unbelievable society they create looks suspiciously like our own future.

Below the story has been applied to new patents for a Digital Rights Management (DRM) OS and the similarity will have you thinking Stallman ahead of his time.

Although it has been difficult to clearly articulate to the general computer user, it should now be clear the DMCA represents not only risk to fair use and other such issues, but represents a tool by which new technologies such as the DRMOS can be enforced. It and other new laws (SSSCA/CBDTPA) are the legal infrustructure required to make the public use these new DRM technologies and enforce punishment/fines when they are circumvented.

Content from MS DRM OS Patent quoted under the practice of fair use for comment and discussion purposes.

The DRM OS Patent can be found here: http://cryptome.org/ms-drm-os.htm

The following are quotes from the DRMOS Patent itself:

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The Content Provider (ISP) must maintain a registry of "subscriber computers". This is the SPA and Central Licensing:

Therefore, the content provider would have to maintain a registry of each subscriber's DRMOS identity or delegate that function to a trusted third party. ... Because the basic DRMOS and additional components always have the same identities when executing on a specific type of processor, the content provider has only to maintain a list of the identities for the combinations of the basic DRMOS and additional components that the provider trusts. Each identity uploaded is then checked against the list.

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Soon, changing your PC's system clock could become illegal:

This alternate embodiment requires a secure time source to be available on the subscriber computer so the user cannot simply turn back the system clock on the subscriber computer.

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Pay-per-use operating system and components:

As described above, components may be valid only until a specified date and time, and content may also be licensed only until a certain date and time. The monotonic counter described earlier can also be used to ensure that the computer's clock cannot be set backwards to allow the replacement of a trusted component by an earlier, now untrusted version.

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Stallman is right again, DEBUGGING IS NOW ILLEGAL, enforced under Section 1201 of H.R. 2281 (The DMCA):

DRMOS Patent: An example of one kind of procedure that must be prohibited is loading a kernel debugger because it would allow the user to make a copy of the content loaded in memory. If the user of the subscriber computer attempts to load a kernel debugger into memory, the DRMOS can either 1) refuse to load the debugger, or 2) renounce its trusted identity and terminate the trusted application that was accessing the content before loading the debugger. In the latter case, the memory must also be purged of the content before the debugger is loaded.

See The Right to Read, Stallman: There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal. Dan had had a classmate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging tool, and used it to skip over the copyright monitor code when reading books. But he had told too many friends about it, and one of them turned him in to the SPA for a reward (students deep in debt were easily tempted into betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger.

Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison.

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You can no longer delete specific data from your hard drive:

DRMOS Patent: For example, the DRMOS can allow the user to delete an entire content file but not a portion of it. Another example is that the DRMOS can allow the user to terminate all the threads of execution for a trusted application but not just a single thread.

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Again, debuggers are not permitted:

DRMOS Patent: Finally, a DRMOS must protect the trusted application itself from tampering. The DRMOS must not allow other processes to attach to the process executing the trusted application. When the trusted application is loaded into memory, the DRMOS must prevent any other process from reading from, or writing to, the sections of memory allocated to the trusted application without the explicit permission or cooperation of the trusted application.

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Users may not share data:

DRMOS Patent: Such a facility is used when downloaded content can be accessed only by a particular user. Moreover, if downloaded content is to be accessed only by a particular user and by a particular application, the secret to be stored may be divided into parts, with one part protected by an application-specific key and the other part protected by a user-specific key.

Applied to Stallman's Right to Read. Bear in mind these are e-books and sharing would be a form of copyright circumvention:

He had to help her--but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong--something that only pirates would do.

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The "Key Vault" and trusted third party (Central Authority):

DRMOS Patent: Once the data is encrypted using the storage keys, there must be a way to recover the keys when the DRMOS identity changes (as when the operating system is upgraded to an incompatible version or an unrelated operating system is installed) or the computer hardware fails. In the exemplary embodiments described here, the keys are stored off-site in a "key vault" provided by a trusted third party. In one embodiment, the DRMOS contains the IP addresses of the key vault providers and the user decides which to use. In another embodiment, the content provider designates a specific key vault and the DRMOS enforces the designation. In either embodiment, when the user requests the restoration of the storage keys, the key vault provider must perform a certain amount of validation before performing the download.

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Your computer cannot be used to copy content:

For example, one property might be that the application cannot be used to copy content. Another example of a property is one that specifies that the application can be used to copy content, but only in analog form at 480P resolution. Yet another example of a property is one that specifies that the application can be used to copy content, but only if explicitly allowed by an accompanying license.

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Looks like the MPAA has been engaged in some Retail Politics:

In one embodiment, the access predicate takes the form of a required properties access control list (ACL) as shown in FIG. 10. The required properties ACL 1000 contains a basic trust level field 1001, which specifies the minimum rights management functions that must be provided by any application wishing to process the content. These minimum functions can be established by a trade association, such as the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), or by the DRMOS vendor.

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More Pay-per-view OS functions:

As described briefly above, the license data structure 1100 can limit the number of times the content can be accessed (usage counter 1101), determine what use can be made of the content (derivation rights 1103), such as extracting still shots from a video, or building an endless loop recording from an audio file, or a time-based expiration counter 1105.

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Pay-per-listen feature:

The sublicense rights 1107 can impose more restrictive rights on re-distributed content than those specified in a license for content downloaded directly from the original content provider. For example, the license 1100 on a song purchased directly from the music publisher can permit a song to be freely re-played while the sublicense rights 1107 require a limit on the number of times the same song can be re-played when redistributed.