DRM - Why is it crackable?

[bob.f]

I was wondering - it is clearly possible to make encryption that is effectively uncrackable (e.g. online financial transactions, password managers) and yet whenever a certain dominant ebook vendor upgrades their DRM protection, it's usually not long before some smart cookie comes up with a way around it.

Was just wondering about the apparent disconnect here. Thoughts?

[Sirtel]

Those uncrackable encryptions require internet connection. Ebooks have to be readable offline, which means the key is stored locally and is therefore much easier to crack.

[rantanplan]

Because if they implement new DRM schemes, everyone has to implement them to be successful. If Adobe implements ADEPT-DRM 5.0 with online verification (e.g. every 7 days), e-reader manufacturers might not adopt them, so publishers won't adopt them, and it'll just die.

The only party that could potentially roll out such a DRM scheme is Amazon, because they control the whole ecosystem.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Those uncrackable encryptions require internet connection. Ebooks have to be readable offline, which means the key is stored locally and is therefore much easier to crack.

Precisely this. No connection means the device has to have the key to decrypt anything/everything.

[jhowell]

With encryption of communication the user is hiding information from a remote third party.

With DRM the book seller is trying to hide it from the person in possession of the reading device. That is a more difficult problem to solve.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by jhowell

With encryption of communication the user is hiding information from a remote third party.

With DRM the book seller is trying to hide it from the person in possession of the reading device. That is a more difficult problem to solve.

It's not just more difficult, it is fundamentally impossible. DRM is and always has been snake oil. The only thing it is good for is making it slightly harder to exfiltrate content from a walled garden, which is why purveyors of such keep trying to adopt it.

You *cannot* prevent someone who is consuming the content from copying it, the very act of consuming it creates a copy. If the device used to consume it is not in the end users control, then the end user can exploit the analog hole to extract the content, simply photograph the pages and use OCR in the case of ebooks.

[Aleron Ives]

DRM is fundamentally a misuse of encryption technology. The point of encryption is to grant full access to a limited set of people (those who can decrypt the data), while locking everybody else out completely. DRM wants to use encryption to grant limited access to a limited set of people, which is not something encryption can do. In order to read the book, you must decrypt it, and if you can decrypt it, you can have full access to make copies. There is no way to escape this fact; it's only a matter of time before somebody figures out how to do it.

[Frogm4n]

Cory Doctorow has several articles/podcasts talking about how flawed DRM is as a concept, let alone a technology that has been implemented by humans and all of our flaws. And, as Kovid has pointed out, the analog hole is always waiting at the very end of any DRM technology stack. If a human can consume the content there will always be a way to duplicate.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/02/t...-heist-part-i/

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Precisely this. No connection means the device has to have the key to decrypt anything/everything.

EXACTLY

Inherently that's why HDCP, DVD, offline readable ebooks etc are about control of consumption, not anti-piracy.

All streaming also can be defeated, simply by copying the analogue visible or audible output.

Only things like games or application/programs that are interactive and need an always on connection can be 100% locked by DRM.

[rantanplan]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Only things like games or application/programs that are interactive and need an always on connection can be 100% locked by DRM.

Video game piracy begs to differ.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

Video game piracy begs to differ.

Some people pirate video games because the DRM is very restrictive. They don't pirate games with no DRM. So remove the DRM and these people will stop pirating.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by bob.f

I was wondering - it is clearly possible to make encryption that is effectively uncrackable (e.g. online financial transactions, password managers) and yet whenever a certain dominant ebook vendor upgrades their DRM protection, it's usually not long before some smart cookie comes up with a way around it.

Was just wondering about the apparent disconnect here. Thoughts?

Encryption is only effective so long as the decryption key remains a secret.

With ebook DRM, the end user must be able to decrypted the ebook in order to be able to read it. So the end user must have access to the decryption key.

As the end user must have access to the decryption key, the only difficulty is knowing how to obtain the key and how to use it to decrypt the book.

DRM removal systems do NOT crack the encryption. They just decrypt using the decryption key.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Some people pirate video games because the DRM is very restrictive. They don't pirate games with no DRM. So remove the DRM and these people will stop pirating.

I have some older retail games that I have to use NoCD crack because Windows rightfully blocked the DRM for being practically a rootkit.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I have some older retail games that I have to use NoCD crack because Windows rightfully blocked the DRM for being practically a rootkit.

Another issue is that if the game uses a DRM that requires access to a DRM server, if the server is shut down, the game won't work.