[geeks] Vista cost

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html#response

The quotes were included at the bottom for amusement, but really, they
aren't funny.

People with nearly brand new machines are finding that encrypted HDMI
either isn't supported or has very high resource costs even on new
machines.  Evidently this stuff is already being enforced, despite
rumors that it would be years before we saw DRM becoming serious.

In particular note the people with LCD displays that find they cannot
play high-def movies because the protection system won't allow it, due
to the LCD not being encryption compliant. The funny thing is the guy is
talking about a movie that came with his system specifically to show off
it capability.

Also note that nothing is free: if your devices are encryption
compliant, CPU usage goes up because obviously it takes processing power
to send encrypted signals.

Even if the performance was acceptable, who wants DRM running all the
time, and causing potential data loss in the future?

My question about any protection system is this:

If I buy this and your company goes out of business in five years, how
will I use it ten years from now? How will I authenticate when the
authentication servers are gone, or I'm not on the network?

Even if all of this stuff worked perfectly, it is still unacceptable.

Sigh...

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than
the sage amongst his books For to you kingdoms and their armies are mighty
and enduring,  but to him they are but toys of the moment to be overturned
by the flicking of a finger." - anonymous     ]