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I'm looking for a solution that make it possible to make a flash drive which protects the data from being copied so that the data is data could be "played" only The main aim for the flash drive is to be used for playing video files on TV sets that uses flash drives as data input or if stream is an option this might be nice.
Mohamed
Posted 2012-03-25T23:53:30.260
Reputation: 59
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It is not possible to completely protect media on a standard PC. The data needs to be read and temporarily live on the PC in unencrypted form in some fashion for the PC to display the video. So there will always be some way on a standard PC to snatch that data.
You never know, PCs of the future may be controlled by a "security hypervisor" with manufactuer and plaform specific sealed keys and will then be able to support almost-truly secure media delivery. It isn't today by any means.
However, if you uniquely watermark your media, with a unique watermark per user, then if illicit copies surface you know who to blame.
Towards the specifics of your question, I don't know of any TVs that support what you are trying to do. If there are, you might look on the manufactuer's website for a tool to create such media, when/if this exists, it's probably going to be expensive.
You may find this an interesting read. The original Xbox by Microsoft was pretty much based on the PC architecture. This was done to save on development costs. Microsoft took measures to secure games and media on the platform but failed. Microsoft has had much better (but not total) success in security with the non-PC-based Xbox 360.
LawrenceC
Posted 2012-03-25T23:53:30.260
Reputation: 63 487
1How about some live version of linux-based OS that handles the read/write of the encrypted data?That way the OS controls the programs that might record the media. – Mohamed – 2012-03-26T00:43:30.027
1You'd be storing the key to decrypt the data on the same medium that the OS lives on - which, if it's a media that a PC can boot from, is entirely copyable and the key is extractible. – LawrenceC – 2012-03-26T01:05:11.093
@Mohamed - The flash drive is only a data storage not a computer that can process things and to boot it will need to be plugged in something with a bios, a compatible cpu, available ram and many other things that won't be available on a TV... yet at least. – laurent – 2012-03-26T02:00:18.483
@ulraswblade I agree it wouldn't be safe . But sure it would complicate things a bit more . nothing is 100% safe :) – Mohamed – 2012-03-26T06:51:33.110
@laurent I'm fully aware of that. What I'm suggesting is a software that runs on a computer when booting and the computer is used as input for the TV. – Mohamed – 2012-03-26T06:54:25.823
@Mohamed - So we fall in the case of booting a computer with the flash drive and it will be copyable like ultrasawblade said before so I think you are out of luck on this. – laurent – 2012-03-26T14:44:14.203
@laurent As we are speaking theoretically here . As most of crypto algorithms work . we'll be needing a key. So the flash drive we'll contain the OS and encrypted data and the user well have the key. am I right? – Mohamed – 2012-04-03T17:33:15.943
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No, sorry. If you can put it on the flash drive initially then it can be copied.
If it could be done don't you think that the RIAA and other extremists would have done it to stop fair use or ahem piracy?
The usual way to protect your copyrighted stuff is to legally register the material for copyright protection.
It is possible that you could use hardware encryption/decryption but that would make it slow and difficult for most people to afford to view.
Disney was playing with a self destructing media. You open the package, and the disk will only play up to 3 days before disintegrating. But that would not stop copying.
People have the right to make backup copies. This is built into the system under fair use. Let's say you bought a movie on DVD and it got scratched and wouldn't play again. Should you be forced to buy another one when you could just burn the backup to a new disk and continue?
Let's say that DVD was Snow White (Disney). And they do not release it but every 20 years or so. So you must wait 20 more years to replace your scratched disk? That would be unreasonable.
What you are trying to do is exactly what I described that should not be done - prevent copying.
IMHO I think that copyrights go too far. They should expire 3 days after inception or registration, whichever is shorter. Patents too.
Progress is being stifled at an alarming rate.
Just think how much further technically and medically we would be if greed was eliminated from the world? Greed meaning unreasonable and lengthy legal protections.
We probably would have cures for a great many things...
zolar1
Posted 2012-03-25T23:53:30.260
Reputation: 35
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There is no solution to play copy protected content on a smartTV. A company I requested looked into this for months and the main problem are so many flavors of OS for the smartTV market, even with in LG family they had something like five flavors of an OS for the TVs we found for sale. Probably because even LG outsources their tech to other factories. You can still copy protect video on USB to play in Mac and PC computers. The files are stored in a reserve area of memory of the flash drive and only the viewer program knows how to access it. So the file is never in memory on the host computer to scrape it. Worked like a charm for the project we had. Think it was from nexcopy - so maybe if you can live in computer world only, it could work for you.
27ragbag
Posted 2012-03-25T23:53:30.260
Reputation: 11
This is off-topic because it does not pertain to computer hardware or software (it involves a flash drive interfacing with a TV). Voting to close. – bwDraco – 2012-03-25T23:56:12.107
The solution can be an encryption solution and this is software – Mohamed – 2012-03-25T23:58:50.330
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Related: Can I encrypt data in a way that it can be read normally but can't be copied or edited?
– Renan – 2012-03-26T00:09:44.0331What you want is impossible. It can be superficially approximated with various methods, all of them require you to modify the display devices that will be used. Please elaborate on what you mean by "stream". – Eroen – 2012-03-26T00:23:32.297
I don't think this is off topic. This is a software question that asks for a solution to make a flash drive read-only, and I would say that a flash drive makes it a hardware question as well. – cutrightjm – 2012-03-26T00:27:59.847
4If it cannot be copied, it cannot be played. If you don't see why this is obviously true, just imagine a video camera aimed at the playback screen. (Of course, there are many more elegant ways to accomplish the same thing.) – David Schwartz – 2012-03-26T00:42:39.450
Agrees with David, if I can see it, it is there. More often questions like these might be better asked as "how can I make it a bit harder to copy, and still playable" – Psycogeek – 2012-03-26T04:15:13.790
@Psycogeek I know that nothing is completely safe. The task is making it harder for hackers and nearly impossible for average users. – Mohamed – 2012-03-26T06:56:35.867
I have one of those TVs, and dvd thing that takes sticks, they are going to want see a simple file not even a stream, to be compatable. Cant very well change the "firmware" in everyones stuff so it works as planned. Take a in-between As soon as some cryptodecoder adapter was put on the stick making it "work" on all the devices , it would then be accessable to the computer too. Something the manufactures of the tvs could control or create, encoded flash with hardware decode? Mabey they can pull it off without breaking my own camera playing and computer :-) – Psycogeek – 2012-03-26T07:29:08.253