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RE[5]: Simple All right
by Alfman on Thu 23rd Aug 2012 14:56 UTC in reply to "RE[4]: Simple All right"
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"It's probably not illegal to reverse-engineer DRM in Finland."

It's probably legal to reverse engineer the software in many places, even the DMCA offers some rights in that direction.

However I still can't help but feel that it's wrong for companies to prohibit legal rights through technological means, which is what DRM does. The (in)effectiveness of DRM doesn't really enter into the equation for me. It's not safe to assume DRM will ALWAYS remain ineffective.

From a CS perspective, It is impossible to implement foolproof DRM on open consumer hardware since the outer layer of DRM code is always inherently exposed; this is true even of the operating system. DRM is ineffective because corporations have not been successful at enforcing their control over the full stack - including hardware. However the powers that be are making headway in pushing the entire industry towards closed platforms where the hardware itself will be capable of banning end user modification.

On such platforms, the DRM will no longer be inherently vulnerable to software hacks, only hardware ones. Ultimately the DRM will still get broken even if it requires hardware hacks, but since users no longer have the capability of running unapproved software on their own machines they won't be able to circumvent the DRM without a hardware hack (consider xbox mods).

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