[Info-vax] OT: Arun Kishan

[George Cornelius]

In article <52ad4f92-3143-44a2-a864-12998ae7c970 at p24g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>, John Wallace <johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk> writes:
> Kernel mode, or even the emulator, on its own doesn't buy you much if
> the high value content is encrypted till it reaches not just the
> graphics card but the (in theory) HDMI-connected HDCP-protected
> display, which is supposed to do a key exchange thing at connect time

OK, well those are some specifics I was not aware of, but of course
addressed in general terms in my original post.  The ATI HDTV product
required a feature of DirectX 9.0 called 'Digital Overlay' before
it would render an HDTV picture.  It's just possible that since
a typical PC monitor is already high definition, they will use
a special encrypted path to overlay all or part of the display
with the protected content.  No key exchange, no protected content,
and that portion of the display is black.

You realize, of course, that if true end-to-end encryption in that
sense were in place there would be no reason for Vista or Windows 7
to have special features to protect the content on their own.

But the thinking, no doubt, is that it will take time for the
majority of PC hardware to support full end-to-end encryption,
and in the interim there must be tools that don't use it and
for which the O/S will do its best to provide hacker defenses.

George Cornelius

> before it will work in proper HD mode... it's not about making it
> impossible, it's just about making it look too tedious (or, from a
> DMCA point of view, too dangerous) to be worth doing in general.