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.