The same argument applies to DRM and piracy. DRM only disadvantages people who want to consume content legally. Only one person has to bypass it (be it through cryptographic or software failings or the good old fashioned analog hole ala telesync) then upload the resulting unencumbered media file to a piracy site.
As a result, it's not just cheaper, but also easier and more reliable to steal media than it is to buy it legally.
What would happen if media were offered without DRM? Everything would be on a piracy site? It already is.
Drm is not targeted at the hardcore pirate, it's targeted at a potentially larger percentage of people who would be tempted to get the thing for free if it was easy. Drm may be circumventable, but any complex set of steps for doing so is enough to deter that target audience.
The point is: DRM is circumvented once, by some grizzled pirate captain. Everyone else just gets to plunder their downloads DRM free, nice and easy.
DRM is ineffective because the pirate uploaders are competent enough to break it, and an average end user only downloads - rank and file pirates wouldn't make their own releases even if DRM never existed and making them was easy.
Slight timeline correction: 25 years ago in 2001 Blowfish was no longer contraband - the crypto export rules had been changed by 2000. As of January 2000 Netscape and IE were both shipping 128bit DES internationally.
Still, the t-shirts with Blowfish source printed on them were a cool bit of retro hacker chic.
Also, the first OpenBSD hackathon was 1999; it was in fact semicryptographic (they shipped IPSEC) but they've had hackathons in the US since, and for a time developers were coming out to Calgary because that's where Theo was. The dumb export control shipping dance was real though.
Recently I realised that a solar-powered garden light could easily hide an ESP32 and has its own power source. You could even place them in public without being too suspicious. Might want to disable the light, so the power lasts longer and so it's less likely to annoy someone into removing it.
Someone can do the math on panel and battery size. I'm thinking it'll work as-is, as the ESP with WiFi on will draw similar power to the LED that you disconnected.
But how will you give it even a GB of storage for a tiny model?
Yeah this persuaded me more than I thought it would, but there are still some pretty big differences IMO. A frontier AI model is a lot harder and more costly to produce than an encryption algorithm. Especially if we believe Anthropic that the Chinese can only do it by distilling their models (though tbh I would err on the side of not believing that).
As a result, it's not just cheaper, but also easier and more reliable to steal media than it is to buy it legally.
What would happen if media were offered without DRM? Everything would be on a piracy site? It already is.
DRM is ineffective because the pirate uploaders are competent enough to break it, and an average end user only downloads - rank and file pirates wouldn't make their own releases even if DRM never existed and making them was easy.
Still, the t-shirts with Blowfish source printed on them were a cool bit of retro hacker chic.
Please don’t open-circuit the light for several hours.
Someone can do the math on panel and battery size. I'm thinking it'll work as-is, as the ESP with WiFi on will draw similar power to the LED that you disconnected.
But how will you give it even a GB of storage for a tiny model?