Zack's Kernel News

Zack's Kernel News

Article from Issue 208/2018
Author(s):

Zack Brown discusses implementing digital rights management in-kernel, improving lighting controls, and updating printk().

Implementing Digital Rights Management In-Kernel

Content providers are always interested in ways to stream audio and video in such a way that the data cannot be copied by the recipient. Sean Paul recently posted a patch that the Chrome OS team has been using for three years to control content on Exynos, MediaTek, and Rockchip hardware. The patch can be used to turn content protection entirely off, it can request that content protection be enabled by the hardware driver, and it can actually stream protected data.

The patch was received with suspicion by kernel developers.

Pavel Machek specifically said that he couldn't see any case where a user would set the feature to anything other than "off." He also asked, "If kernel implements this, will it mean hardware vendors will have to prevent user[s] from updating the kernel on machines they own?" And wondered, "If this is merged, does it open kernel developers to DMCA threats if they try to change it?"

[...]

Use Express-Checkout link below to read the full article (PDF).

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Kernel News

    Zack Brown reports on fixing printk() bit by bit, kernel internationalization (or not), and kernel encryption and secure boot. 

  • Kernel News

    Chronicler Zack Brown reports on the latest news, views, dilemmas, and developments within the Linux kernel community.

  • Kernel News

    Chronicler Zack Brown reports on the latest news, views, dilemmas, and developments within the Linux kernel community.

  • Kernel News

    Chronicler Zack Brown reports on printk() wrangling, persistent memory as a generalized resource, making Kernel headers available on running systems, and Kernel licensing Hell. 

  • Kernel News

    This month in Kernel News: Shared Processes with Hyper-Threading; Cleaning Up printk(); and Rust in the Kernel.

comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News