But if you just want your driver to load under Windows Vista x64, you can take care of business in a matter of seconds, by using your own certificate to digitally sign it, a process called Kernel Mode Code Signing (KMCS).
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Anyone can get a software publishing certificate from the independent certification companies listed here, none of which is owned or controlled by Microsoft. I found a suitable certificate for $229.
Not that I still do, but back in Uni, I created my own drivers for various equipment, not the least of which was a serial port controller for a solar hot water system. In Vista, would I have to pay for a certificate to load a driver I created? (i.e. I just want to load my unsigned, unofficial, completely hacked up XYZ controller)
For all of his arguments about degraded output and hardware (non HDCP over DVI), or poor early implementations of HDMI (i.e. customers don't know their HDCP is not compliant), you are right, as you have found out, few of the content companies are using the controls they have built in. As you have said, there is the ICT flag, and other controls the content companies COULD use. Your testing showed that the HD disk played through PowerDVD was not using the optional Vista functions (but they could, will they?)
One of Peter's biggest flaws was simply that he assumed the content companies WOULD use them, they won't yet, I have said, about all this new HD DRM, etc, the content companies will fall all over themselves to play nice until critical mass. They don't want to disenfranchise the new market, but once mature, they will probably (my prediction), activate once the amount affected are in the minority.
We will see the relative merit of the analysis down the road, when (if?) the content companies activate. They may not, as much as they wish DRM is effective, they may be forced to give up the pipe dream to sell content, or they may miscalculate the backlash.
From the Blu-Ray FAQ, one of the more contentious of my issues is the potential to mandate internet connectivity for monitoring.
No, you will not need an Internet connection for basic playback of Blu-ray movies.
Maybe you can get an answer. Blu-Ray, for this and other reasons, is a non option because they will not answer this question.
What is basic playback, and will it always include full 1080p without an internet connection? I will require it in black and white, written down for all to see, that forever, a Blu-Ray device will NOT require an internet connection for 1080p without other penalties (like 14 minute FBI warning, or I have to watch 48 previews unless the player can connect to the "opt-out" preview server, etc). IMO, they won't answer this because internet revocation and update is critical to BD plus.
The Blu-Ray part is a tangent, but is relevant to how they could change the rules in the future.
I will be interested in how you counter one chapter that is, starkly true, namely Increased hardware costs.
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html#hardware
HDCP, certification, driver development, it all costs money, and we know who pays for it in the end.
TripleII
Last month, I wrote about the FUD surrounding Windows Vista and DRM. The FUDmaster is Peter Gutmann, a New Zealand researcher who wrote a paper last December that made a series of outrageous and inflammatory claims about Windows Vista. Since then, Gutmann has expanded the paper to more than four times its original size. The current version available on Gutmann’s website clocks in at more than 26,000 words, making it longer than some recent works of fiction.
And length isn’t the only thing Gutmann’s paper has in common with the average pulp novel. Gutmann’s work is riddled with factual errors, mistaken assumptions and unproven assertions, distortions, contradictions, misquotes, and outright untruths. In short, it’s a work of fiction all on its own.
Gutmann is a clever writer, and he’s able to string together nouns, verbs, technical terms, and acronyms in ways that sound persuasive. In this three-part series (look for Part 2 and Part 3 later this week), I’m going to dig deep into Gutmann’s work and show you just where he got it wrong.
I’ve been working on this story for months. Part of the problem is that Gutmann’s paper is a rambling, sloppy, disorganized mess, and nine months of additions have made it even more difficult to pick out the serious arguments from the scare stories and snark. Gutmann’s favorite technique is to string together anecdotes he’s plucked from magazines and websites, juxtapose those stories with sentences from presentations by Microsoft engineers and developers, and then speculate on the implications, often with wildly incorrect results. And worst of all, Gutmann appears to believe everything he reads—as long as he can fit it into his anti-Microsoft world view.
The other part of the problem is Gutmann’s lack of hands-on experience with modern consumer electronics gear and with Windows Vista itself, which shows in nearly every sentence he writes. I’ve done extensive hands-on testing and have personally seen Vista do things that Gutmann says are impossible. Rather than write 26,000 words of my own, I’m going to pick out more than a dozen substantive errors in Gutmann’s piece and explain why they’re wrong.
With that introduction out of the way, let’s get started.
Next –>
