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The recommendations come as opposition builds against a proposed bill that would force hardware makers to add anti-copying features to MP3 players and other devices. Although legislators and device makers both see a need for a hardware solution to securing digital content, the groups are at odds over the government's efforts to regulate such technology.
"Every single device has to be secure," said Darko Kirovski, a researcher studying watermarking and security technologies at Microsoft Research. "If one device is not secure, then this (digital content protection) doesn't work."
Kirovski's comments underscore the enormous difficulties facing the consumer electronics and entertainment industries, which have been struggling for years to agree on anti-piracy standards. Now a legislative backlash against hardware makers is gathering force that could further polarize the two sides.
On Thursday, Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C., introduced the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, which mandates that devices handling digital content have an industry standard means of protecting that content from piracy.
Previously known as the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act, the draft legislation has been widely criticized. Some technology companies say it meddles in the development of digital content distribution; civil-rights advocates contend it breaks the balance between the rights legally given to copyright holders and citizens' rights to information.
In a technical briefing earlier in the week, Kirovski wouldn't comment on such issues, but he spelled out what must be done to secure copyright holders' digital content in what he called "an idyllic world."
"In order to prevent piracy, you really cannot rely on the current hardware and software," he said. "You cannot build software which is trusted if your hardware is not trusted."
Kirovski outlined several research advances at Microsoft's March Silicon Valley Speaker Series on Wednesday. In an ideal world, where every device is secured for digital content, techniques could be used not only to protect content but also to embed digital fingerprints in a media file, helping copyright holders track the pirates who work together to break protected content.
Some manufacturers have already been pushing an industry standard for locking down content at the hardware level. The 4C Entity, made up of Intel, IBM, Toshiba and Matsushita Electric, has created technology called Content Protection for Recordable Media that would add a piracy-blocking mechanism directly into data storage drives. The National Committee on Information Technology Standards turned down the proposal last year.
Despite those efforts, the proposed anti-piracy bill has run into a wall of opposition from high-tech companies who contend it will hamper their copy-protection efforts by imposing inflexible requirements.
Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer for network protection firm Counterpane Internet Security, said the bill would essentially lock up all content in boxes controlled by copyright holders no matter what device or computer the information is on. The legislation would also have far-reaching effects on the software and computer industry, making almost all of today's software and hardware illegal and putting open-source software in a tight spot, he said.
"If the only thing you want to do in your life is protect the content of the record companies and Hollywood, then the (proposed bill) is a great thing," he said. "If you put everybody in a box and locked them all in, then you wouldn't have murder either...For the entertainment industry to put this forward just shows how much of the economy they are willing to sacrifice for their ends."
Some companies that make the current technology for protecting digital music, known as watermarking technology, also don't fully support the bill.
Matt Smith, vice president of product marketing for content-protection technology maker Liquid Audio, called Kirovski's research "interesting, but not really applicable" in a world where anyone can burn a CD into an MP3 file. He said a government-mandated solution is not desirable either.
"These things take time," he said. "It's an evolutionary process. It takes patience to allow the secure infrastructure to be built out."
UniKey Supports Director
UniKey Supports BSD
Powerful UniKey Pro Released
New powerful Unikey Pro was released on Feb 9th 2007. Unikey Pro takes the Unikey product like to new heights with its improved features and functionality. The new features include: supporting Network Environments, regardless of Internet or subnet connections, black and white list support, zero configuration and its 100% compatible with Windows XP SP2 firewall.
1. New Features
a. No artificial limitation of concurrent users (no more than 65535-1024, which is the max number of available socket)
b. Black and white list support Black listed IPs will be unable to access Unikey Pro
c. Working mode set by developers. For example a developer can set it to search for a local key first and then search for a key on the network or vice versa. (It is also called floating license)
d. Assign the server an IP address or let clients find the server automatically via broadcast.
e. Unikey Pro can work with different networks, even over the Internet or through different subnets.
f. Unikey Pro automatically adds itself in the WinXP sp2 firewall for ease of use.
g. No change for All the APIs.
h. The Network DLL can work with Unikey (the local/standard key).
i. Zero-configuration is necessary, just remove the .ini file and you?re done.
j. Network key servers need aren?t necessary. Unikey Pro is a 100% green software and keeps the same tradition as the driverless dongle. Just copy the .exe and run it.
2. The difference between UniKey pro and standard alone,
a. There are no artificial limitations to the number of concurrent network user with the network key.
b. The standard key can also work on the network, but it can only accept one remote client/access. (It is good for demo and special customer who needs only 1 license).
UniKey Supports Director
UniKey support for Director MX 2004 is released; you can download the new library from our download area. Now UniKey is supporting a wide range of programming languages, including VC6.0, VC2005 (both 32bit and 64bit), VB, VFP, PowerBuilder, BCB, VS.Net, C, Delphi, Java, RealBasic, MinGW, AutoCAD, WinDev and Director. SecuTech Solution provides a sample for each programming language and offers FREE SDK for customer's evaluation.
UniKey Supports BSD
SecuTech solution released the UniKey support for FreeBSD to extend supported OS of UniKey dongle. Please download the new FreeBSD support from our download area.
To apply a free SDK, please go to,
http://www.esecutech.com/free-SDK-evaluation.htm
About SecuTech and UniKey
SecuTech Solutions Inc. is a company specializing in software license management business systems focusing on the international market with their class leading UniKey product range. Having an extensive and in-depth range of experience within the Software Management Licensing market,
SecuTech has drawn upon this experience to utilize today's cutting-edge technologies to introduce a COMPLETE and affordable solution for today's software vendor markets worldwide
SecuTech Solution Inc.
www.eSecuTech.com
Support@eSecuTech.com
SecuTech Solution Inc, a leader in driverless software protection dongle business, has launched video protection solution-UniKey Video Protector, a comprehensive applications that provides video software vendors a straightforward way to safeguard their video content from piracy and illegal distribution.
Online video is being increase dramatically, which has led up to the increasing risk of piracy，therefore there are huge requirements to ensure the video content is used by legal users
UniKey Video Protector intends to protect video/audio files like MPEG, AVI, WAV, RM and RMVB. It is an easy-to-use solution for software vendors who want to sell video data to customers while scared of illegal usage and distribution.
Just a click, video vendors can easily encrypt video files and send to the end users. In order to play the encrypted file, the end users must insert the correct UniKey dongle to play encrypted files.
Industries like online education, AV production can fully take advantages of UniKey Video Protector
SecuTech Solution Inc.
SecuTech Solutions Inc. is a company specializing in software license management business systems focusing on the international market with their class leading UniKey product range. Having an extensive and in-depth range of experience within the Software Management Licensing market, SecuTech has drawn upon this experience to utilize today's cutting-edge technologies to introduce a COMPLETE and affordable solution for today's software vendor markets worldwide
SecuTech Solution Inc.
Sales@eSecuTech.com
www.eSecuTech.com