Putting A Trace On Copyrighted Booty

from the will-this-work? dept

Businessweek is running an interview with Paul Kocher of Cryptography Research about the work he's doing to offer the entertainment industry a way to track down pirates, without violating anyone's privacy. His plan is to put some code into the content itself that identifies where it was created, so that if someone is caught infringing then the material can be traced back to where it originated from. I'm a bit skeptical, even if Kocher does have a track record (he created SSL). Without knowing many of the details (and the article doesn't provide too many), I can think of plenty of ways that this could be defeated or lead to even greater scams, where people try to pin the blame for distributed content on other, innocent, victims.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    DV Henkel-Wallace, 30 May 2003 @ 3:54pm

    err, watermarks?

    Isn't this just "digital watermarking" that people have been talking about for ages, and that Felton says can be cracked with differential techniques?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    David, 30 May 2003 @ 4:16pm

    Previously, on Techdirt...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Csharpener, 2 Jun 2003 @ 8:41am

    Re: err, watermarks?

    It's essentially a sliding encryption. I think the scarey thing about this technology is what they are not telling you. Even with on disk logic and such, the problem remains that a key needs to be static at some point. And how does the disk get that static key, if it's using multiple layers of dynamic encryption that are unique for every player? hmmmmm?

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.