DVD chips 'to kill illegal copying'

I would just like to know how accurate this chip is...like what if I lived in an apartment complex and the guy below me has the same DVD as me, but is burning it. Could it possibly realize that there is one above me? I just don't think that the GPS on this thing could be anything special therefore nullifying the whole thing.

Originally posted by smalllight
The plastic, and the foil, and metal on top of the mircochip, which is about 2 inches in lengh, and about quarter of an inch wide, the insallation of the plastic, the foil, and the metal allow for the chip to work by GPS when needed. The locations of the investgatory cites to find these distrubitors are on multiple rental properties through out the world. Mostly by college students, since their the most likely ones to distrubte works illegally.

A common GPS is a receiver only, that is one of the reasons for its small size. If they want to know the position then it has to be a also a sender, so it can use the GPS satellites and then send the position to somewhere.

The only GPS I tried was incapable of "seeing" the satellites when inside an house, it could only get a connection when near a window, so I think the method they will use, if true, would not be something like this, its not usable.

Originally posted by ArMaP

Microsoft is saying that they will use DRM on all files because they do not know how to tell the difference between the ones who really are copyrighted and the one who aren't.

There is a way to tell Creative Commons licensing from DRM but its just easier for them to go across the board. I haven't bought an Ipod nor will I ever buy one of these things. Just another way to control what you do, hear and see.


Pie

I have over 4 GBs of music, all off of Limewire. Every single song I am able to play on my ipod. What's your point, PieMan?

I'm not sure, they use cell phone towers, etc. He wasn't going to specific about it with me.

Ahh, I guessed right

But mobile phone towers only have a very limited footprint, as proven by the shortening bar on your phone. Now admittedly mobile phone transceivers on towers point slightly downwards, but it's not like there are towers everywhere. This system would only reliably and accurately work in cities and large towns.

But I still don't understand how the chip sends back a signal!

Hey, he's a professional at his job, he told me that's just how it works.

I seriously doubt this system works. The only feasable method in getting a "signal" from the chip would be through the computers. If a DVD were inserted into the computer drive with the anti-piracy software running with the movie/music playing through a media player, it could send back a signal to the company through the user's net connection, but that would require the video player to recognize the chip as "legit" or nonlegit. I still don't see how this would stop piracy, if the movie/song were in digital format.

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks
Ok, thanks smalllight, but how do the people tracking the CD know where it is?

How does the microchip send out it's location to these satellites?
To emit a signal, the chip would have to have a power-source. Now unless it was designed to receive power from the DVD player/burner (is that possible?), it would have to have a battery within the actual disk. Now since there isn't a battery in the disk, you have to presume that the chips would work like RFID's, where they reflect or otherwise return EM energy from a transmitter. BUT RFIDs are only meant to work if you hold the transmitter within a few feet, inches in most cases.

So how powerful would a transmitter have to be if it was to get returns off of chips that could be anywhere in the entire United States? Surely a single satellite could not push out that much energy, not with just solar cells providing it's main power source, so I'd guess that there would be ground-based transmitting stations, like the company just sticks transmitters on the tops of mobile-phone towers. But even then, that's a lot of energy they're going to use.

The mobile phone network uses huge amounts of electricity, and that's with the phone's themselves transmitting.

Of course, I know nothing about any of this stuff, so if anybody knows how these things will work, I'd sure like to know.

This is an RFID chip ... already in use by a lot of retail stores for commercial purposes. The use of RFID chips is expanding daily ... they are talking about totally streamlining the RFID use in the next 3-5 years to the point that everything you buy in a grocery store will have an RFID chip in it's packaging. The purpose is not to track you or know what is in your residence ... it's to make the inventory process easier, quicker and more accurate.

An RFID chip can only be read by a scanner within a few feet of it ... someone would have to be in your house to know you had it.

There are actually some neat kinds of possible advances that these RFID chips will allow. Such as a "smart house" that would have scanners built into the cabinetry and refrigerator ... when you get short on staples your house could let you know before you run out.

The use in CD/DVD's would be that manufacturers will start to make players that look for RFID chips on the DVD ... if it's missing the newer players would refuse to play the CD/DVD. I'm assuming there would be some data code on the CD/DVD that would tell the player there is supposed to be an RFID chip ... I'm sure it won't take long for someone to come up with a way to change the data so it tells the player there shouldn't be an RFID chip. Or we can just keep the DVD players we have now that are incapable of using RFID chips.

Or as a last resort we could not pirate any products and actually pay for them!

I don't think this will roll out as easily as they make it sound.

First, it's cost-prohibitive. Embedding the chips will require an additional step added to the CD creation process, which is a highly automated system. This means the companies that physically make the DVDs will have to pay for this new software and hardware.

Second, as the article mentioned, the only way is by rolling out new DVD players that can read the chips, which are going to be more expensive because they'll have to get the new hardware/software compatibility. So the company making the DVD players has to eat the cost.

Third, there's a lot of potential problems that will crop up. According the article, the DVD player won't read the disk if it's in the "wrong geographic location". So, this means if I go to California for vacation and buy a movie, I can't watch it at home in Texas? The software to work around that would cost money as well.

I don't think this will roll, because I don't believe manufacturers will eat all these additional costs just to keep those poor millionare movie stars outta the poor house.

Originally posted by solidshot
so the've tried region coding and other forms of anti pirating software and now they want to follow you home and see where you live

Since peopel provide public registrys for where they live, that'd be a pretty wasteful way to go about it.

Home DVD players will eventually be able to check on the chip embedded in a disc, and refuse to play discs which are copied or played in the 'wrong' geographical region, the companies behind the technology expect.

People will allways be able to make copies of the movie, one way or another. Let them waste their money and cut into their profits this way.

so they can track them from the factories to your home.

It wont' track it. The chip has to be read by a reader machine, they'll scan it in the factory, scan it when they put it on the shelf, and then the dvd player will scan it when its inserted. If it doesn't have the right code, it will not play it.

Presumably they could also sell dvd players that are 'internet ready', and that you'll connect to the internet, and which would then report that you tried to play an illegal disc.

But its not like they're going to know what route you took going from the store to your house, or any 'tracking' like that.

[edit on 17-9-2006 by Nygdan]

THIS IS NOT GOING TO WORK FULL STOP !!!!!.


For the past 6 odd years i have watch P2P programs grow 10000 fold from the early days of just having the odd sond and porn on Napster to now full albums on soulseek to 0day movies on torrents. Now throughout that time i have seen COUNTLESS forms of digital protection from Safedisk to Safeguard defeated on a almost routinly basis by hackers.

Just a quick list of products with digital protection cracked

PS1
PS2
Xbox
PC games
DVD movies
Software of all types
Audio CD's
PSP
Gameboy

The list goes on and on, what makes you think this lastest Microsoft brain fart will be any different ?

Along kind of the same lines, I personally lost my IP provider for a time because I was accused of sharing a particular movie. I was asked, no told, to remove the movie and then given a warning before my IP was reinstated.

How will the ensure that people buy the chip readable DVD players? Making the disks so that they only play on those DVD players would hurt the industry, would it not? I doubt people would be lining up to buy a new DVD player and throw away their old one to see 'From Justin to Kelly' on DVD.

This is the stupidest DRM idea i have heard yet do they expect people to throw away all the DVD's they have already bought and give up being able to burn home movies etc and view them.

Absolutely stupid presumeably the new players wont play anything without the chip make all DVD's up till now completely useless.

But saying that whats to stop someone from putting a Disk with a chip on top of the player and playing anything they like anyways.

Actually its even worse than you think, (at least for Blueray), if the DVD player doesn't get the RFDI signal or thinks in any other way the disc is an illegal copy, it wont just refuse to play, they are thinking of making it destroy your disc!

That is not just some idol chatter from a webpage but information from a well respected electronics mag here in Australia "Silicon Chip".

And even if you never pirate any movies, is it going to be totaly reliable for every brand of player using every different branded disc? One small mistake and you will forever have a coaster. Doesn't fill me with a whole lot of confidence in the next gen technology.

maybe smalllight's friend just wanted to mess with her?

Originally posted by smalllight

The plastic, and the foil, and metal on top of the mircochip, which is about 2 inches in lengh, and about quarter of an inch wide, the insallation of the plastic, the foil, and the metal allow for the chip to work by GPS when needed.

Those are actually magnetic strips that are placed within DVD cases, CD cases, and a lot of other consumer products to prevent them from being stolen. If you try and take them out of the store without paying for them they will sound an alarm when you go through the detectors at the door. Have you ever noticed the cashier rub the cases on a bad before putting them in your bag? What they are doing is deactivating it. It isnt a tracking chip. I think you friend may have told a tall tale.