Mixed Signals
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Monday 9 June 2008, 11:42 AM
BBC threatens iPlayer hackers with mild annoyance
With the tedious inevitability of an unloved season, the BBC's iPlayer has provoked a chain of events with as much predictability as a Bond movie.
The plot is simple: the BBC wants to do its job, which is to provide entertainment, information and education to Britain with as few barriers as possible. The Internet being to television what television was to radio, the BBC knows it has to be there, and be there properly. Hence the iPlayer, which delivers TV to people's computers.
People like this. The BBC likes this. Others in the TV industry, never entirely happy with this 'broadcasting' idea in the first place, insist that every effort is made to prevent the wrong people from doing the wrong thing, for various definitions of wrong, so the iPlayer has various mechanisms designed to stop it working under certain circumstances. You know the drill.
Quite a lot of people, some of them very clever, have different definitions of wrong from some in the industry. Thus, these clever people set themselves the task of defeating iPlayer's mechanisms and, being clever, normally succeed. The BBC, having agreed with the industry that this is bad, then has to change its mechanisms - and the whole cycle repeats. As we've seen this with every 'anti-copying' mechanism ever introduced, this is about as surprising as Bond copping a snog from an exotic woman of questionable alliances, then finding himself in great peril as a result.
But the BBC, being a public service broadcaster, is in two minds about the rights and wrongs of the whole business. This may be most obvious from the latest changes made to prevent suspect people -- who appear to be defined as those not running Windows -- from actually saving content (which you can do in about fifty different ways already, but we'll let that pass). Those clever, naughty people had previously found that if they make their computers pretend to be iPhones, they get an unencrypted stream delivered.
At first, the BBC just tried to check harder that it really was an iPhone on the other end - but this never works.
So, at the the end of last week, it switched in some new encryption. At first, the community of clever, naughty people thought that this was Fairplay, Apple's own DRM system. But over the weekend, the truth came out - it was at heart a simple XOR with a sixteen-bit fixed key.
In cryptographic terms, this is as effective as threatening Bond with a poke from a Hello Kitty pencil. "You expect me to talk?" "No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die. Laughing."
It's hard to imagine why anyone thought this worth the effort. The iPlayer-tweaking community will fix this in microseconds, as anyone capable of writing the latest change will know, and those who aren't tuned into that community will be excluded from the fun already.
The only explanation I can think of is that the BBC has to be able to tell the rest of the industry that it's trying, while simultaneously avoiding committing huge resources to a fight it knows it can't win and doesn't believe in anyway.
But it'll happen again and again anyway. That's the problem with the BBC. Bloody repeats.
PreviousComments on this post
From my point of view, I see a television in much the same way that I see a media player. They are basically just there to display something. I dont have any DRM in my television in Australia, so I dont think I should have any DRM in any media player.
And frankly, why do we have so many formats? Why cant everyone just pick one format, and run with it? All it results in is just a waste of peoples time.
When I get my hands on a beta cassette, do you think I'll waste time trying to make it play? No. Similarly, if there is content that doesnt work on my Microsoft Media Player, then I just dont bother.
If you want to stay relevant in the world, you have to make things easier for people, nit more difficult. However you try and justify it, and bring in a proprietary player, it is simply a world full of consumers who have enormous choice. To ignore that, is folly.
The encryption may be technically worthless, but it's legally significant.
Now, anyone who wants to download iPhone files without an iPhone has to "crack" encryption to use the file. Cracking encryption is clearly illegal, much more so than "downloading an iPhone file to your computer".
Also, any program which cracks encryption is illegal under the US DMCA law (and possibly under similar UK laws), which will force the iPlayer workaround tools underground and make them harder to find.
This is a response conceived by enthusiastic lawyers, and implemented by halfhearted engineers.
I don't see that it's legally that much different. It's illegal enough to access a computer without permission - has been since the first Computer Misuse Act in 1990, which led on from the failure of the Counterfeiting Act when applied to hacking - and pretending to be an iPhone when you're not is arguably very similar to using other fake ID to obtain a service.
What UK law do you think is similar to the DMCA?
Yes, yes, but so what? I have a USB Freeview adapter connected to a Linux box to make a very handy PVR, so as far as I can see, putting content protection on iPhone downloads is like putting 3 security bolts and a portcullis on a very small back door when the front door is wide open and everyone is invited in anyway!
Pretending to be an iPhone is not quite similar to using a fake ID. Ask yourself a question; 'which one would you rather get caught with'?
An iPhone emulator is a computer program for which there are perfectly legal purposes, such as product testing. For example, web developers, instead of running every single web browser there is, can use an emulator which pretends to be the various browsers and shows them what their site looks like in each browser.
Fake IDs on the other hand are simply used for deciet, it'd be tough to explain!
Chris: that's the silliest thing of the lot. It's not at all clear what is being protected or why: if you hang out on the UK TV torrent trackers, stuff appears within minutes of broadcast, all carefully captured from Freeview via cards. Moreover, it's clear (to me, at least) that these trackers do a very good service that is -- if not quietly encouraged -- not unappreciated by the broadcasters.
And what on _earth_ is the aftermarket of iPhone-quality free-to-air content?
DRM is all about maintaining distribution models based on outmoded ideas of territory and restricted access. Every time a new technology turns up, existing interests try and bully it into a model of what had gone before. They always lose, and by some bizarre twist of fate the creative industries end up making good use of the result.
I was at 3GSM, the mobile phone industry's annual jamboree, a couple of years ago, when Steve Ballmer stood up and praised the Lobster TV phone. I visited the stand where these devices were being demo'd - only they weren't. Despite the company setting up a media server, a little cell and all the supporting gear, the phones were reporting a licensing error and refusing to play anything.
If you see your customers as your enemy, things will not work out well for you.
Harpless: sorry, I forgot what fake ID means in the US (we don't card people in the UK!). I meant to say - using access details that are not your own. If you are developing iPhone apps and using the simulator to access iPlayer, then you could be OK. If you're not, then you're not.
If I understand things correctly. The problem is really when it comes to playing fair with those who paid for the content in the first place. The TV License payers. The vast majority of whom are UK residents.
This is where "The BBC Trust" comes in. A group of notable individuals who's task it is to represent the interests of the License payers. The BBC Trust forces the BBC jump through a number of hoops. Every new service the BBC wishes to start up has to go through a "public value test". Here are the gory details for the sleep deprived amongst you
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/framework/public_value_test/
In a nutshell a group of people discuss the new service and make sure it is not a service that could be got elsewhere and that the License payers interests are protected. The iPlayer was the first new service to go through this process and It was The Trust who insisted that all this protection and time limits were put in place.
Their point was that the UK citizens paid for the content to be created, so why should the whole world have free and unrestricted access to it, Yes they know that there are other ways of recording and distributing BBC output which do not have the technical limitations of iPlayer, after all, we've had home video recorders for over 30 years now. It is just that an un-restricted iPlayer service was making things too easy for all those naughty poeple out there.
Another point not often mentioned is that in order to keep things cheap (or to make best use of the License money, whatever your point of view might be), The BBC tends to only buy the UK rights for any performances. Therefore they must be seen to prevent old johnny foreigner getting his grubby mits on it. that is why music is edited out on BBC radio podcasts, and satellite decoder cards are not sent to ex-pats living on the Costa Brava.
Geographic limitations fall solidly into the severe annoyance category. I've no problem with chaps from overseas seeing our television. Call it cultural generosity (or cultural imperialism), if you like, and lord alone knows I pay for enough stuff from which I get no direct benefit.
Likewise with ZDNet.co.uk - we are visible anywhere in the world, but the advertisers only want UK readers. Is that a problem? Could be. Is it in fact an opportunity? Could be.
There are undoubtedly some interesting commercial issues. We need new ways of thinking, not the continuation of out-of-date models by any means.
To be fair to the BBC, the DRM issue is not all of their own making, and neither is it due to the BBC Trust. It turns out that the BBC doesn't actually completely own most of its content, and is therefore not free to do with it whatever it likes. The DRM rules chosen were regarded as a reasonable compromise for the content owners (and working out who they all are is not always a trivial matter).
The need to apply a DRM scheme was the major reason for not supporting anything other than (certain versions of) Windows for downloads, as a WIndows-only DRM was chosen.
Geographic limitations were imposed more because of bandwidth considerations than anything to do with British licence payers.
I think the British ISPs might have something to say about that one, but that's another can of worms that can stay shut for today.
Rupert your "cultural generosity" is highly commendable but would you feel happy if the BBC Trust took a similar view on behalf the entire UK. There is always going to be someone who disagrees. People like to take personal ownership of the BBC. How many times have you heard the expression "That's my license fee they are spending"
Here's another angle. What if people around the world spent all their time watching the superior TV from the BBC (other good UK TV outlets are available) and didn't bother watching their own TV output. The local advertisers might be a bit miffed.
I agree that the viewing habits and methods are changing fast and the content creators such as the BBC are working hard to keep up. I've seen a number of ideas that look quite interesting (BBC Trust permitting), but for the period of the current 10 year charter, the BBC's finance model is based around the UK TV owner paying for his License. By the time the charter is up for renewal, I suspect it will look very out of date. Until then, that is it.
