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).
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.