Thread: TM: An alternative to DRM? Let's discuss.
View Single Post
Old 03-26-2008, 06:36 PM   #11
moz
Addict
moz once ate a cherry pie in a record 7 seconds.moz once ate a cherry pie in a record 7 seconds.moz once ate a cherry pie in a record 7 seconds.moz once ate a cherry pie in a record 7 seconds.moz once ate a cherry pie in a record 7 seconds.moz once ate a cherry pie in a record 7 seconds.moz once ate a cherry pie in a record 7 seconds.moz once ate a cherry pie in a record 7 seconds.moz once ate a cherry pie in a record 7 seconds.moz once ate a cherry pie in a record 7 seconds.moz once ate a cherry pie in a record 7 seconds.
 
moz's Avatar
 
Posts: 370
Karma: 1553
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Melbun
Device: Kobo H2O
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan View Post
I invite comments. I'm interested to hear what others think of the workability of this idea.
I think you misunderstand encryption.

Insofar as encryption works, it does so by making it much, much cheaper to encrypt something than to decrypt it without the secret. Over time, of course, the quantity "cheaper" changes in absolute terms, making last decade's "hideously expensive" todays "embedded processor". So provided you're willing to wait 10 years, anything you find today can be decrypted and inspected for naughty content. But for any given instant, it's possible to build an encryption system that cannot be broken in any reasonable time - to date the graph of "increasingly easy to crack because of improvements in cryptography" intersects with "processing power available at any price" a few years in the future. As we find problems with RSA we invent TwoFish and so on.

The consequence of that is that I can encrypt a file today using AES/7zip and send you something called "totally illegal filez.7z" and without the key for it you just have to wait. Either for your billion dollar supercomputer/cracking array to grind through AES key attempts, or for some smarty to find a problem with AES that means you only need a $20M array of computers to crack it within a month. Wait 10 years and you'll be able to download a crack tool off the net that will crack it in a week on your home PC (assuming political compatibility for both you and your chosen place of residence).

So: inspecting everything that goes over the net in near-realtime is not possible.

FWIW, pedophile rings are normally cracked because of human factors, not technical attacks. Viz, some moron slips up.
moz is offline   Reply With Quote