Copy protection of ordinary disk drives?

[Tom Vogt]

Brian Lane wrote:
>   Maybe I'm being dense today, but I don't see how this is going to
> work. So
> they have a key on your drive, they encrypt the data using this key, but
> at
> some point the data has to be decrypted and used, which means that it
> can be
> intercepted.
> 
>   The article isn't too clear, but it appears that a 'compliant
> application'
> is going to be needed to do the encrypt/decrypt? All software is subject
> to
> disassembly, so there is no real protection there.

I'd suspect that this is part of the "protect our(!) hardware from the
consumer" process that's been going on for a few years. most likely, the
whole event will happen inside the disk, which will be made more or less
tamper-resistant.

now remember that there've been planned for a fully encrypted bus system
for quite some time. the basic idea is that the raw bits are never
accessable in software. the software will just tell the hardware "hey,
could you please push the encrypted bits of that song over the encrypted
bus to the crypto-speakers?".


interesting change in culture. not too long ago, knowing how your home
electronics actually work was the sign of the geek. not too far in the
past, knowing how your home electronics really works will be the sign of
the criminal.