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Intellectual Property Protection And Security

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DQC Bureau
New Update

With the proliferation of digital systems and embedded sys-tems,

security and copy protection issues are getting more and more complicated.

Efforts are on, for standardization of encryption technologies. Out of these

efforts may soon evolve the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

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As of now, many people prefer to evolve their own protocols

and algorithms, further complicating the issues. A federal registration entitled

the ‘Security Systems Standards and Certification Act’ may soon be

introduced in the USA. We Indians know very well what happens when anything

needs a compulsory certification by the bureaucracy!

As encryption technologies advance, so do the technologies

for breaking the encryption. As the copy protection schemes advance, so do the

technologies for defeating the copy protection schemes.

Backup is inevitable

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There are many forces pulling these issues in opposite

directions. When one buys a costly software package, there is a need to be able

to make a backup copy of it to avoid future problems if the system crashes or

there is a virus attack.

One must be able to install the software from the backup copy

again if anything goes wrong with the original distribution media. The rights of

the content creator are directly in confrontation with the rights of the

consumer who buys that content - may it be a software package or a game or any

other form of entertainment.

With more and more products depending on Internet

connectivity, and download-able updates and upgrades, security and

authentication issues start becoming roadblocks for the consumer.

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With services like ATMs, phone banking, mobile banking,

Internet banking, online bill payments becoming popular, the consumer is caught

up in so many passwords, PINs and MINs and what not!

Security in the future

The embedded microprocessors are finding their way into so

many products of day-to-day use; security schemes will also be implemented in

these products soon. With ink cartridges being made with embedded microchips to

keep track of ink levels, the day will not be far off when you will not be able

to print a color document on the color printer without a password.

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All those who do not have the password will be able to print

only black and white documents! There will also be hackers who will find out a

way to send a binary code hidden in the print file to disable the security

scheme of the printer.

It is easier to protect ‘analog’ content than the ‘digital’

content. You can’t copy the formula for the Coca Cola concentrate but you can

easily make copies of a new popular song and distribute them free to your

friends or sell them to buyers willing to pay for the copies.

Till the song recordings were analog in nature, there used to

be a downgrada-tion of quality in every copy of the song you made. Not any more,

thanks to digital recording and playback systems.

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When music CDs were first introduced, it was very difficult

to make digital copies of the CD because the CD writers were very costly. But as

the technology advanced and production volumes of the CD writers increased,

prices fell to such a level that now a CD ROM drive and a CD writer are

available almost at comparable prices.

Soon the standard drives, like floppy drives and hard disk

drives will be able to read and write on the CD media. This has not only got the

music industry worried but also the software industry.

Software distributed on CDs was difficult to copy in the

early days of CDs. But now one can easily make copies of software or games

distributed on CDs.

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Protection of intellectual property

Protection of intellectual property in the digital form thus

follows the ups and downs advancing technology cycles and cost reductions

resulting from mass production.

Protection of digital assets will never succeed with only

licensing and legal means. It’s more of a cultural and commercial problem than

of a technology problem. One must also remember that the music industry never

collapsed with the introduction of the radio, neither did the film industry

crash with the introduction of TV.

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People are willing to buy original digital content when

priced right. Live shows of popular singers are always overbooked even though

you can hear them every day on your music system or see them on TV.

As there are intelligent programmers who create more and more

advanced protection schemes, there are intelligent programmers and engineers who

study the protection schemes and find means to defeat the schemes.

Engineers at Sony found a great way to protect their games by

writing some tracks on the CDs with invalid checksums, thus cheating the CD

writers which would be used to copy the CDs for PlayStation games.

Some smarter engineers soon found out a way to modify the

PlayStation motherboard with a new chip to cheat the host computer while reading

the data from the illegal copy of the CD.

Digital Watermarks have also failed to protect digital

content effectively because the watermark can get destroyed if the content is

converted to analog and then back to digital.

The best way, of course, is to make the original digital

content so attractive compared to a pirated version that consumers prefer to buy

the original. Even in countries where software piracy was at it’s peak,

increasing number of consumers are buying original software and digital content

that is priced right, or has a noticeable difference compared to the pirated

version.

Ashok Dongre

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