
W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns - guelo
https://boingboing.net/2017/09/18/antifeatures-for-all.html
======
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Basically, unless you are writing a browser with decent marketshare, you
defacto have no voice in making the standards. Basically, the only voices that
matter are Mozilla (Firefox), Apple (Safari), Google(Chrome), and Microsoft
(Edge/Explorer). Despite what any standard says, web developers are going to
go by the behavior of the browsers do. The only company on the list of browser
makers that really has any desire to try to exclude DRM is Mozilla, and
unfortunately, if they do that, the users will switch to the browser that
makes watching Netflix easiest.

~~~
byuu
The web has been engineered to a complexity level so grossly obscene that it
is all but impossible for independent developers to produce fully independent
web browsers anymore. You would need hundreds of millions of dollars in
capital and strong leadership to produce a browser that would be successful in
today's world.

I could dedicate the rest of my life working 100 hours a week on a browser,
and I would die before I had something that could compete with browsers of
2017, let alone of the browsers far into the future at my demise. The
standards grow in complexity faster than a small team of developers could
possibly keep up with.

The best we have are attempts at forks of major browser engines, which will
never gain any serious traction to have any power over the direction of web
standards.

If people want to do something about it, they need to fork the web itself.
HTTP, TLS, HTML, CSS, JS ... the entire stack needs to be scrapped and
replaced with something sensible with a focus on simplicity. If a single
highly talented developer working full-time can't implement a reasonable
browser within a year, then the standard is too complex. This will of course
never happen.

And so, on the subject of DRM, we've officially lost the war today. And
combined with the impending loss of net neutrality, brace yourselves everyone:
it's only going to get worse from here on out.

~~~
l0b0
You wouldn't need to scrap all of it by a long shot. You could take a small
subset of the stack and make something enormously simpler to implement. Start
with supporting only one version of HTTP, TLS, (X)HTML, CSS and JS and fork
them if necessary. Even drop CSS to start with and finally start relying on
semantic markup and good browser defaults. Use existing open source libraries
where available, such as for TLS and markup/media parsing. Pull out libraries
for everything so the browser is easily composable and forkable. You don't
want JS support _at all?_ Compile without it.

~~~
ehnto
Not many would be interested in an un-designable web. It bares no comparison
to what browsers are capable of delivering for UX currently.

What you are suggesting then, a non-comparable browser experience, already
exists and has for years, yet to no avail. You would get niche technologists
and die hard enthusiasts only and the rest of the world would trudge happily
into the future, DRM and net nutrality distant memories.

What you and I want, what HN and friends want, is not even a debate most
realise is happening let alone that it affects them and will affect them
profoundly in the future.

The masses are deciding what our internet will look like for they comandeered
it years ago.

~~~
l0b0
Yeah, yeah, the world is going to shit and nobody cares. How about doing
something about it instead of telling everybody it can't possibly work? And
why do we need the rest of the world on the bandwagon for it to work? The web
was built _without_ the masses, and still is. The open web still vastly
outweighs the closed parts in amount of content. A bunch of freedom stealing
technologies have died silently over the years despite often resulting in
"cool" UX wholly different from plain HTML, such as Flash, Silverlight, and
Java applets. EME is a fundamentally different wedge inserted between users
and their machines by evil corporations, but not one that is in any way
unbeatable. So screw 'em, and let's fork the web!

~~~
ehnto
Forking the technologies that underpin the platform of the web I think tackles
the wrong problem. The problem I see facing the open web is the consolidation
of users and services into single platforms. Facebook is an easy example. You
can build a Facebook alternative with any technology you like, it would take a
completely different force to change the social paradigm around it.

The great thing about the open web that you rightly mention is still kicking,
is that it's full of places and services that are driven by humans and
passionate communities. Nothing about EME stops those communities existing,
but nothing about those communities is going to stop Netflix being the most
popular platform and using EME/DRM.

If you will excuse my fluffy analogy, the web is a farmers market that has a
shopping mall being built right next door. What I think would help the web, is
educating people that it's better to go to the farmers market so that we can
support entrepreneurial and local community endeavors rather than stuffing
corporate coffers and enabling that consolidation.

------
d--b
What people don't get is that EME sets a strange precedent in the history of
HTML.

Web browsers have always been very hackable. HTTP meant you could always look
at the traffic being exchanged. And because there was little point in
obscuring anything, web browsers allowed you to look into and modify
everything:

\- view/modify document source

\- view/modify DOM

\- debug script

\- and so on

This is how CSS was defined too. It was supposed to be a compromise between
how the user liked things styled, and how the vendor suggested styling the
content.

EME brings something new to the table: locked LOGIC. This not a bad thing per
se but takes html in a completely different direction than what it used to be.

The main concern is not DRM. The main concern is that this is a step in a
direction where web browsers become unscrutable virtual machines running code
that cannot be looked into. It's basically a step turning HTML into
silverlight. This may happen for instance if the gaming industry decides that
they need EME for in-browser games.

And most importantly this is done for all the wrong reasons: EME cannot stop
anyone from copying the rendered content. And it certainly doesn't prevent
anyone from downloading copied content.

So EME is just a stupid thing that technology-dumb media dudes are imposing on
web developers for no reason and that may have far reaching consequences on
the future of html... That's what's worth talking about.

~~~
DarkCrusader2
I do not understand DRM/silverlight properly. Does this means that I won't be
able to see what code is running in my browser for eg. JS collecting data in
the background or use things like adblocker, greasemonkey etc.

~~~
d--b
No. The changes that are happening only affect DRM. So it means that when you
watch a video/audio in the browser, there will be some encryption applied deep
within the browser.

But it is a paradigm shift in the sense that it is the first time that a
change is introduced in HTML that restricts the user from accessing the actual
content that is being displayed.

Effectively, similar changes to the standard could be introduced to prevent
users from tinkering with ads, or to prevent users from opting out of data
collection.

In that sense, it opens the way to your browser being more like your phone.

Again, it's not _bad_ in itself, but it is a paradigm shift.

------
favorited
For the record, the EFF only joined the W3C to fight EME in the first place.
They're not resigning in protest, they're leaving the group because they
didn't win the single battle they joined for the purpose of fighting.

~~~
wakamoleguy
Do you have a source for that? The latest article that references the W3C on
their site already shows them as a member, and it appears that they were
heavily involved in Do Not Track work before EME. Did they post something
somewhere when they were joining?

edit: The reply below has the link. Thank you!

~~~
favorited
> So last week, EFF increased its involvement in the W3C from being a regular
> participant and invited expert to a full member, to challenge DRM in the
> group's future work

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/eff-joins-w3c-fight-
dr...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/eff-joins-w3c-fight-drm)

~~~
wakamoleguy
Excellent, thank you!

------
DCKing
Can anybody explain to me what will change because of this decision? DRM has
been very much part of the internet since 1995 when RealPlayer was released.
DRM has been part of content delivery ever since then. It has not ever seem to
have decreased in popularity, quite the opposite. The browsers that 99.9% of
people use have already implemented this standard for years anyway. It's not
obvious to me that this decision changes anything (it seems this is the status
quo already) but maybe there's something I'm missing.

What's going to change from today to tomorrow because of this decision? Or is
the meltdown here just people now realizing that the battle is lost, even
though it was lost already a long time ago?

One thing I do understand is that this contended decision is a serious break
from tradition and apparently a dick move (although I'd need to see some
additional sources on that). But that doesn't seem to be the main topic of the
discussion in these comments anyway.

~~~
zymhan
RealPlayer was not a Web _Standard_ like EME is. This decision codifies DRM in
Web rendering standards.

~~~
wakamoleguy
If DRM has already existed for years, and the majority of browsers have
already accepted EME as a de facto standard by implementing it, wouldn't
codifying that standard be positive?

~~~
camus2
It's like arguing that Flash is a standard because the majority of browsers
supported it. DRM isn't the open web and should have nothing to do with the
W3C. You want to force DRM onto your users? write a native app.

------
sboselli
Shame, shame, shame.

We're losing the internet day by day, if we haven't done so already.

I've seen people and posts here and there calling for attention on these
issues, but imho it's all too subtle. We should start using harsher
terminology for what's actually happening. This is flat out CORRUPTION, and
I'm not seeing anyone express it as such.

It's probably too late already, and unfortunately, this is merely a reflection
on what's happening in the world in the larger geo-political context.
Corruption everywhere.

~~~
ashark
If someone launches a new HTML-based Web with crippled javascript ( _no_
network comm access, for one, including ability to trigger links or forms),
some small, restricted subset of CSS, and much better built-in dynamic table
and form elements, I'm _there_.

This Web's about to be eaten by DRM and WebAssembly anyway. Pretty soon it'll
just be a way to deliver QT apps (or some other framework that runs in
WebAssembly and renders to OpenGL or similar) and video. A web where the
_only_ thing you'll find when you follow a link is more documents (or a
download) and pages can't try to make your computer do a bunch of stuff you
don't want it to would be nice to have again, and it's clear now that the
system itself has to ban the capabilities that enable all the garbage, or
it'll take over.

~~~
anonacct37
> If someone launches a new HTML-based Web with crippled javascript (no
> network comm access, for one, including ability to trigger links or forms),
> some small, restricted subset of CSS, and much better built-in dynamic table
> and form elements, I'm there.

Me too. There will be dozens of us.

~~~
leggomylibro
I already use noscript, but most people won't like having to hit 'temporarily
allow' and reloading the page 1-3 times before most sites will function. Also,
sites that lean heavily on trendy frameworks like fucking React often just
white-screen because of their extreme reliance on JS. I'm hugely against its
adoption for that reason, but I understand that I'm in the minority there.

I dunno, it just seems like common sense at this point. Javascript is a
powerful attack vector, like ads. And many people already use adblockers in
some capacity, for that kind of reason.

It'll definitely suck as HTML5's various peripheral features become strong and
widely-used attack vectors.

~~~
jdmichal
I mean, if a site legitimately needs a large amount of dynamic communication
back to the server... Fine, whitewall me until I enable your JavaScript. I
understand that server-side rendering is basically dead. But it's really
frustrating when it's things that could be easily served statically, like
blogs.

~~~
dom0
> I understand that server-side rendering is basically dead.

Server-side rendering is a mature technology, don't measure it's pervasiveness
in how often you see articles in the news about it...

~~~
jdmichal
Hey, I love ASP.NET as much as the next guy. But there's no mistaking the
large trend from what used to be entirely server-side rendering (LAMP days) to
REST services with JavaScript front-ends.

~~~
theSpaceOctopus
> But there’s no mistaking the large trend...

You didn’t say that, you said “server side rendering is basically dead”.

Believe it or not, lots of people are still building things without JavaScript
front ends.

~~~
jdmichal
So is the only argument here that "basically dead" was a bit carelessly
hyperbolic?

------
bad_user
The EFF is right for resigning. There's no reason for EFF to be part of a
supposed standardization group that is ignoring complaints, especially for a
recommendation for a technology that puts freedoms at risk.

And to put salt on injury, the W3C is claiming that they couldn't reach
consensus on a covenant regarding anti-circumvention regulations, however they
are now making this recommendation without consensus, which seems to me to be
disingenuous.

 _The W3C is clearly and has always been a charade._

And people won't forget that easily, just like we haven't forgotten the days
when they were holding the web back. So if they were worried about becoming
irrelevant by not adopting DRM, well, they just became irrelevant regardless.
Might as well admit that the standards are made by two or three companies
which control the market and stop this circus.

------
bhhaskin
We are allowing large corporations to dictate and push the web toward a closed
system. A future where there has to be an App for that, and if you don't keep
your head down you will be censored and cutoff from the rest of the online
world.

~~~
2trill2spill
Hogwash, there is more open source software now then ever before.

~~~
pdonis
What's important is not what software exists somewhere where somebody could
theoretically download and use it, but what software actually gets used. Most
users don't even know what open source software is, much less where to find
any; they use what comes with either Windows or OS X or their smartphone.

Also, your software can be as open source as you like, but if it can't
interoperate with the rest of the Internet, it's useless. Personally, I don't
watch TV or movies on my computer so I don't particularly care whether my
browser lets me do that or not. But I would care very much if, for example, my
bank's website started requiring a DRM-capable browser. Open source doesn't
address that problem.

~~~
2trill2spill
> What's important is not what software exists somewhere where somebody could
> theoretically download and use it, but what software actually gets used.
> Most users don't even know what open source software is, much less where to
> find any; they use what comes with either Windows or OS X or their
> smartphone.

The people who care about the "Open Web" and DRM know about open source
software and the people who don't care, don't know about Open Source software
precisely because they don't care.

> if, for example, my bank's website started requiring a DRM-capable browser.
> Open source doesn't address that problem.

That's the banks property (website, servers, etc) you have no say in how they
run it, if they go and do something stupid like require DRM to visit their
site and you don't want DRM you have to switch banks. You made the choice to
not use DRM, so you have to face the consequences of your choice. The bank
made the choice of requiring DRM and they have to live with the consequences
of customers switching banks. Open Source software was never meant to control
others property.

~~~
pdonis
_> if they go and do something stupid like require DRM to visit their site and
you don't want DRM you have to switch banks._

But if every bank--or at least every bank I would possibly consider entrusting
my money to--requires DRM, because DRM is the standard and all the major
browsers use it and the bank doesn't want to go to the trouble of inventing
all their own infrastructure just to avoid using DRM, then what bank do I
switch to?

 _> Open Source software was never meant to control others property._

Exactly. So Open Source software does not address the problem I said it does
not address. So we are in agreement on that point. Good.

But you were saying, in the post I originally responded to, that Open Source
software will somehow prevent the web from becoming effectively a closed
system. That would only be the case if Open Source software _did_ address the
problem that you and I both agree it does not address.

------
guelo
For perspective here is W3C CEO's post about it
[https://www.w3.org/blog/2017/09/reflections-on-the-eme-
debat...](https://www.w3.org/blog/2017/09/reflections-on-the-eme-debate/)

And Tim Berners Lee's original decision
[https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-
media/2017J...](https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-
media/2017Jul/0000.html)

~~~
dannyobrien
Here's the press release, with testimonials from the RIAA, MPAA, CableLabs,
Netflix, Microsoft and Comcast.

[https://www.w3.org/2017/09/pressrelease-eme-
recommendation.h...](https://www.w3.org/2017/09/pressrelease-eme-
recommendation.html.en#testimonials)

~~~
guelo
Ouch. W3C is just a trade association at this point.

~~~
dublinben
It was their only chance for continued relevance. Ever since the formation of
WHATWG in 2004, it has been increasingly clear that the only standards that
matter are the _de facto_ standards set by the browser vendors.

------
pdimitar
It's time to abandon the major web standards and start devising our own
infrastructure. Better stateless protocol, end-to-end encryption on every
connection -- no exceptions! -- decentralized encrypted vaults of cached
assets (where every user donates a few or few hundred gigabytes of disk space
to participiate -- effectively becoming a node in a decentralized CDN).

We've left the corporations run wild for far too long. They've been stupid,
slow and it took them A LONG TIME to catch up. And eventually they did. All
the while all of us did absolutely nothing. At least myself.

^ All of that is an idealistic revolutionist talk, I am aware. Had I had the
free time and reserve capital however, I'd be dead-serious about starting such
an effort.

~~~
imtringued
Unfortunately there are only three ways to implement decentralised webapps.
Either you have trustless consensus by giving users power proportional to
their physical resources where every user only has a small fraction of power.
This is called blockchain with proof of work. It's extremely inefficient and
therefore many usecases are not possible but it doesn't require trusting in
any individual, only in the entire network. It should used for DNS, usernames
or other readable identifiers that require global consensus.

The second is federation like email. Everyone has the option to become a
provider or trust an existing provider. Of course the problem is that you need
to trust your provider and the providers have to trust other providers.
Spammers can just set up their own provider to attack other providers, so
providers need the ability to block providers they disagree with. Providers
don't live forever or they can become untrustworthy, there needs to be a way
to export the data and import it into a new provider. You will need digitally
sign all your data to prove that it came from you. There also needs to be a
mechanism to confirm that user10@oldprovider is the same user as
user5@newprovider and redirect from the old identifier to the new one.

The third is the least likely. A full P2P architecture where every peer is
equal. Every peer will be forced to store the entire database of the
application and run all computation locally. Spam will be an even bigger
problem than with federation because you will have to store the spam for
eternity too. The dataset will eventually become large enough that a single
computer cannot store it.

I'm betting on federation. It's the middle ground between full centralisation
and full decentralisation.

~~~
pdimitar
Agreed with everything. I'd bet on scenario #3 though (namely IPFS and IPNS
for now). You're sadly correct about the spam though. Still, a solution must
exist.

I for one am sick of trusting corps only because they can implement software
that protects _their_ own servers. We can't be held hostages by spam forever.

(I would even wager spam is partially funded by corps so as to scare the users
back to their walled gardens but that's uncertain and not especially likely.)

------
bigfoot
The saddest part of this story is that Netflix/Amazon/younameit will continue
to ignore and block Linux users as the niche market they are -- even if a
future Firefox or Chrome version comes with the new standardized DRM everyone
asked for. Lose/lose situation.

~~~
richard_mcp
Why would they do that? Are you assuming these companies will want to block
Linux users out of some random, malicious spite?

~~~
bigfoot
No. For simple economic reasons, such as too much testing effort vs. too
little revenue.

~~~
ArchReaper
For "simple economic reasons" you believe companies will go out of their way
to block Linux users for some reason? If the browser supports it, that's all
that really matters.

~~~
rocqua
To support EME on linux, they need to create an EME plugin for linux. Leaks in
that plugin would kinda break DRM, so it needs to be designed well.

Writing and maintaing a crypto plugin is quite expensive.

~~~
tedunangst
That plugin is called widevine and it's been shipped with chrome for Linux for
a year or more. It's already done. They don't need to do anything.

------
sigi45
I think i don't get it.

A company called Microsoft builds a software which is able to render html.
This company makes money and talks to another company called google which also
is making money by selling movies and stuff and which builds a software which
is able to render html. And those two companies are talking to a third huge
company, who makes a shit ton of money and also makes a software which is able
to render html.

All those _companies_ decided together, that they still are using some form of
drm and want to standardize it, to make it easier for there consumers.

Now a few people, who are using the software from those companies thought this
code is written for free and without strings attached?

I mean i do understand the risk but still i'm surfing around and use my
software, written by companies, to surf primarily on company sites and not for
surfing on other private pages.

Even linux and other free software is written, primarly by people who get
there money from companies right?

I don't think that DRM would be gone if no EME exists.

~~~
zanny
> to make it easier for there consumers.

No, never. DRM Is never easier for consumers.

What happened was that Apple banned alternative browsers and plugins like
Flash on iOS which meant there was a sizable platform of - importantly - semi-
rich people that did not have a usable DRM solution outside being told to
install an app.

The user dropoff from demanding you install an app is _huge_.

They were losing money, plain and simple, on people who didn't A. download a
plugin or B. install an app to push DRM on them.

This battle was over years ago. Safari adopted EME, all the corporate powers
that be that wanted to have their cake and eat it too on the buffet of
consumer ignorance to how dicked over they are when companies shovel
proprietary code down their throats. No major browser wanted to even try
fighting this. New browsers that turn up will never gain traction if they
don't "support Netflix".

Those of us who care about ethics go on using Firefox without the DRM bullshit
plugin / Chromium / etc and the rest keep being ignorant as they always have
been.

Really, DRM isn't even helping anyone. It is a lawyer requirement for legal
contracts between media producers and distributors. "We require you fuck over
your customers to give our old rich men investors who have no clue what
technology is a false idea that nobody can copy our floppy". Pirates will
continue to circumvent and distribute better quality versions of everything
than any company is willing to stream you _anyway_ , and people who were using
the streaming services in the first place weren't pirating to begin with.

What this does mean is what should be straightforward user experiences for
online video are going to start becoming a clusterfuck of broken, insecure
proprietary blob DRM drivers every video site "automagically" downloads and
runs on users computers that either don't work cross platform or breaks all
the time. Web video will have peaked in 2016, when ubiquitous mp4 support
meant almost any site can just host videos and have them work, and 2018 and on
will be the era of everyone trying to use shitty DRM plugins that will fail
and break everywhere just like Flash and Silverlight did years ago. But having
the option _available_ is going to inspire companies like newspapers that have
no business trying to DRM lock their newscasts to try to use DRM anyway
because fuck ethics.

~~~
sigi45
Those companies made it easier for the consumers because those companies would
have never accepted non DRM Video (period).

You still can watch h264 on all modern webbrowser.

And still it is there choice how they wanna offer there content.

Don't get me wrong, i don't like DRM but it is still there choice and they are
big enough to do it and the just did because it is and was there standard for
there internet to reach there consumers.

------
cromulen
I'm a bit uneducated when it comes to the cryptography involved, but I'm
wondering why people here are so determined DRM can't ever work?

Is it because someone will somehow get a copy and upload to torrents/streaming
sites which of course won't have DRM. Thus only potentially annoying
legitimate (eg. Netflix) users? Or are there other concerns?

~~~
tptacek
In practical terms, DRM obviously can be made to work.

People ideologically opposed to DRM tend to have two blind spots about the DRM
service model.

First, they assume that DRM users demand that DRM prevent any copies being
made. But that's not true: obviously, any video you show a user in the privacy
of their home can be cam-copied. It has even been the case (though it will be
less and less the case moving forward) that you could obtain a high-fidelity
digital copy. DRM users have always understood that to be the case; what's
important is not that copies be impossible, but that they be difficult for
ordinary users and, ideally, incur a quality hit. If copies are inconvenient
and/or of lower-quality, most of the market will pay for legitimate copies.

Second, and more importantly, DRM opponents assume that the restriction DRM
users are seeking is indefinite. But for the most part, content owners are
much less concerned about long-term restrictions than they are about the new-
release window when their content is most in demand. A DRM scheme only has to
survive for a couple weeks to generate immense value for content owners.

From a security and cryptography perspective, a scheme that can be resilient
against expert adversaries for a few weeks, or even a framework for minting
such schemes on demand, is a commercially reasonable proposition.

~~~
yarrel
People who are not fooled by the ideology of DRM are fully aware that DRM is a
legal strategy, not a technology.

That doesn't change the technological harm of DRM. Putting a DRM-shaped hole
in web standards makes browsers less secure, less stable, and less
maintainable.

iTunes copy protection used to be broken in a few hours, Blu Ray is long since
cracked. DRM is neither secure nor cryptographically sound (
[http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt](http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt) ). The
business models that work online keep on being built without DRM.

But DRM remains an irresistible fantasy for corporations who haven't worked
out the economics of getting Apple, Amazon or Netflix to add locks to their
content.

~~~
tptacek
I don't know a lot of software security people who work on browser security
that agree with this. The prevailing sentiment is the opposite: that
standardize DRM reduces the attack surface of proprietary DRM down to that of
a CDM, rather than full-featured browser plugins. By doing so, EME is
_improving_ security, not damaging it.

~~~
icebraining
We could have neither, though.

~~~
tptacek
By what, banning plugins? Now you're asking the anti-DRM people to do exactly
what they're angry at the pro-DRM people for doing: preventing people from
running a particular kind of program on their computer. It's an incoherent
position.

~~~
Furmark
Not banning, simply not providing api for them.

~~~
tptacek
That doesn't work. Look what happens with AV providers: they hack their own
plugin interface into the browser, and everybody loses more security.

------
phkahler
Now is the time to make it possible for individuals to use DRM when they
publish videos online. How often do media companies show peoples stuff on TV
and such without permission? Of course youtube ToS allow that, but this should
all be changed ASAP. When large amounts of content actually come from
individuals, it's the individuals rights that need to be protected. When will
we see DRM for the masses?

~~~
flyinghamster
It won't be for the masses. For a physical-media model, look at SACD. You
can't burn your own SACD recordings, even if you have a DSD-capable recorder;
the players will only play signed discs, and the signing keys are only
available to pressing plants.

------
ianamartin
I sort of hate the way things are turning out and also am not surprised. When
I was 10 years old in the late 80s, everything was open to you if you wanted
it.

My next door neighbor has a 10 year old son who wants to learn programming. I
gave him an older laptop of mine and offered to do some coaching with him
about learning to program on the condition that he always has to do his
homework first before we do any programming work. And if he hasn't got his
homework done or is having problems with it, I'll help with the homework
first.

I had a pretty cool person in my life that did that for me when I was a kid.
So I want to pay it back.

But when I think about things, man . . . it was wild as a kid. You could do
anything on the internet in the 80s and 90s. It was the wild west.

Now days, I'm in the back yard teaching this next door neighbor's kid, and I'm
like, "Yeah, maybe don't do that. That could get you in trouble."

When I was a kid, it was always, "Do it! Can't hurt that much!"

It's different now, I think. People are less free to explore for its own sake.

I could be wrong, but I think there was a golden moment of freedom on the
internet that is past. And I'm glad I got to live in that.

------
Paul-ish
My fear is that DRM for video content will quickly become DRM for text
content. Say goodbye to adblocking and tracker blocking.

~~~
flukus
This is what canvas+webASM is designed to do. Legit content and tracking
scripts will be delivered to your browser as a single binary blob.

~~~
anilgulecha
That will only be slightly more difficult than blocking today, technically.

What would be worse is that there's a plausible text-DRM coming up next, which
would make altering contents of webpage illegal, hence making ad-blocking
unlawful.

------
hellbanner
"This specification does not define a content protection or Digital Rights
Management system. Rather, it defines a common API that may be used to
discover, select and interact with such systems as well as with simpler
content encryption systems. Implementation of Digital Rights Management is not
required for compliance with this specification: only the Clear Key system is
required to be implemented as a common baseline."

Does not define DRM .. I am seeing a conflict with the title

~~~
pslam
"This device is not part of A Bomb. Rather, it implements a common wiring and
chemical mixture function that may be used to ignite, and rapidly interact
with the surrounding environment. Implementation of A Bomb is not required for
use of this device: only the Joke Bang Sign is required to be implemented as a
common baseline."

------
alexnewman
I wish I could talk about how bad widevine is but I can't because NDA. Y'all
fucked

------
kibwen
Remember the corporate sponsors of the original EME proposal in 2012: Google,
Microsoft, and Netflix [https://www.w3.org/TR/encrypted-
media/](https://www.w3.org/TR/encrypted-media/)

~~~
mickronome
It's weird to see Netflix there, as their service might be one of the premier
reasons lots of people can't be bothered to copy movies as much as used to be
the case.

The only reasons I can see is that studios/rights owners are either requiring
DRM for newest titles, or that they offer rebates on DRM'd material. They
rights owners also probably prefer other people to run their errand, as some
of them aren't too popular, and others have simply made themselves to a
laughing stock in at least some parts of the internet.

~~~
floatboth
Weird? Netflix is one of the only users of EME. Movie rights owners require
DRM, Netflix distributes their content, Netflix wants a more standardized way
than Silverlight.

------
eridius
> _58.4% of the group voted to go on with publication, and the W3C did so
> today, an unprecedented move in a body that has always operated on consensus
> and compromise._

What exactly is the EFF saying should have happened? More than 50% voted to go
ahead with it. The majority voted for it. I don't see how the W3C going with
the majority vote is a dick move. Consensus and compromise is obviously very
important, but when one side is strictly anti-DRM, it's pretty hard to
compromise. This just seems like the EFF being bitter that they lost and
trying to disparage the W3C.

~~~
Crespyl
Part of the EFFs frustration is that the anti-DRM side _were_ willing to
compromise, by passing the standard with the addition of agreements to, for
example, not sue security researchers who might try to fuzz a CDM or figure
out how it worked.

It was the pro-DRM side that were unwilling to make even such a minimal good-
faith compromise.

~~~
eridius
How many people of the anti-DRM side were willing to pass it anyway? Because
judging by all of the HN commentary I've seen in the past there are plenty of
people who are hard-line no DRM under any circumstances.

------
justonepost
Yay digital serfdom! Long live the feudal lords!
[http://www.newsweek.com/silicon-valley-private-property-
and-...](http://www.newsweek.com/silicon-valley-private-property-and-new-
feudalism-why-internet-things-marks-660102)

------
Endy
Looks like I'm sticking with the EFF only from now on.

------
AnthonyMouse
Case in point why everyone should do this:

[https://supporters.eff.org/donate](https://supporters.eff.org/donate)

------
projectileboy
It's utterly heartbreaking to live in an age where you watch the best things
come to life, and then die.

~~~
pvdebbe
Yep, take me back to 1989's internet, please.

------
Fej
On one hand, this is terrible for freedom in our software; on the other, this
isn't the "death of the open Web" that some are proclaiming.

The media groups want DRM and they will get it. This doesn't mean that we are
going to lose all freedom on the Web. It's a step in that direction,
certainly, but we're sure as heck not there yet.

~~~
5ilv3r
It is already very difficult to distribute your own content without subjecting
it to some other entity's distribution system, and soon it will be impossible.
Chrome and friends will refuse to load unsigned content, and then the death of
the free web will be complete.

~~~
ascagnel_
> Chrome and friends will refuse to load unsigned content, and then the death
> of the free web will be complete.

I'm going to need some citations that this is even remotely in the plan (and
requiring HTTPS isn't the same as refusing to load unsigned content, since
that's on the transport level).

~~~
mimsee
I don't think he ever said HTTPS. By "unsigned content" he meant that video
files for example can't be played unless a Hollywood rightowner has granted
playback access for the file.

However in the future this DRM will be an freedom-of-speech issue. The
goverment could use it as means to silence people. North-Korea is currently
ahead of us. Any videos you take could be automatically signed and later on
pulled by the gov. by revoking the signature. Now extending this to basic
text, images, VR?, and whatever new mediaformats there will be in the future.

I highly recommend watching video where a tablet from North-Korea gets
inspected. It explains how NK keeps control of its citizens.

[https://youtu.be/fAtWwadP6CY](https://youtu.be/fAtWwadP6CY)

~~~
ascagnel_
I only mentioned HTTPS in the sense that browsers now actively push users away
from unsecured transport connections.

And please provide some example of any browser vendor making moves to
block/delist unsigned videos/photos for _any_ reason.

------
5_minutes
Who is this director exactly that forced this on one-sidedly?

I guess he got something out of this. What a disgrace.

~~~
favorited
Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created the first web browser.

~~~
room271
(And the web itself.)

------
dottrap
Did Apple actually support this proposal? Seems like their own self-interest
would want them to reject this. The lack of a standardized web DRM would push
developers to native apps which benefits Apple. And web DRM doesn't benefit
the iTunes eco-system.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Safari has supported for DRM for quite a while. It was the first browser to
support Netflix without a plugin.

~~~
gsnedders
Notably Safari on iOS was the largest browser to not support Netflix prior to
this.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Though since there is an app for iOS, I doubt many people cared.

------
camgunz
The web gentrified. Geeks don't live there anymore, they only go there for
their jobs. Time to build something newer and cooler.

------
wnevets
The web has made it this far without DRM being part of the standard, why
exactly do we need it now? The death of flash?

------
lewisinc
What benefit is there in the EFF resigning? I'm not educated on the issue as
well as those on the committee, but it feels like not having the EFF on the
committee at all is going to do more harm than good.

~~~
whipoodle
Not everyone thinks in utilitarian terms. And, maybe the EFF thinks the W3C is
now an organization focused on legitimizing whatever big tech companies say.
If so, they'd probably not want to be considered a part of that process.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Oh, but maybe they do think in utilitarian terms (and it's not bad, either).
Them staying would legitimize W3C's decision. As it is, many (myself included)
look at EFF for early warnings, and them leaving W3C is an important signal
(hell, that's why we have this thread in the first place), and made me
personally seriously lose trust in W3C.

------
MrMid
Doesn't Firefox block DRM content by default? If they continue to do so, and
if Chrome does so, then this shouldn't have much effect. If most peoples
browsers block it, apps shouldn't use it.

~~~
gue5t
Chrome has been shipping DRM called "Widevine" for years.

~~~
josteink
In fact Chrome was the _first_ browser to support HTML DRM. Google _enabled_
this when nobody else did.

Google is absolutely not your friend.

------
dejawu
> In their public statements about the standard, the W3C executive repeatedly
> said that they didn't think the DRM advocates would be willing to
> compromise, and in the absence of such willingness, the exec have given them
> everything they demanded.

This sentence in particular fills me with rage. These are people and groups
who have refused to innovate in the face of the web and have used their clout
and momentum to ensure that they never have to again.

So much for the democratization of media the web was supposed to bring. Money
still speaks louder than anything else.

------
unlmtd1
Good! Let them do that, and let us keep working on things like ipfs,
blockchain naming systems, matrix and host identity protocols. The more they
try to corrupt the web, the more energy goes into fixing the broken
architectures. Then one day, nobody will use the broken DRM net. Politics is a
programmer's most wasteful use of his time. _Code_ them out of business.

~~~
olegkikin
Unfortunately network effect is HUGE when it comes to the internet. Just
because you can code a superior internet, doesn't mean people will move to it
en masse.

~~~
spiralganglion
All networks have a lifespan. Some of those lifespans are longer than ours.
But there will come a day when another user-facing network supersedes the
internet.

Many "superior internets" will have lived and died before then, so your
statement holds. But progress depends on someone who doesn't resign themselves
to failure.

------
twiddo
I'm afraid of this becoming the status quo. Everything is going to be a binary
blob that you either download and run or you don't. It's really shortsighted
to say "if Hollywood doesn't get DRM, you won't get Netflix". The market is
there, it just wouldn't have been as easy for Hollywood to do so.

Now we have made it easy (and even standardized it!).

------
Crontab
Tim Berners-Lee must be rolling in his grave.

~~~
Ajedi32
Tim Berners-Lee isn't dead. And if you read the article, you'll see that he
was actually the one who originally overrode the EFF's objections to
publishing a DRM standard in the first place.

~~~
jancsika
I read that as the poster being sarcastic-- the logic being that if the W3C
made this decision, it must mean that the spirit in which Tim Berners-Lee
created the web died some time ago.

So Tim Berners-Lee "must be rolling in his grave," quite aside from the fact
that he is still physically alive and doing fine.

~~~
nebabyte
Perhaps people are simply projecting what they think "the spirit in which Tim
Berners-Lee created the web" is on the man?

Even if he put words to them early on, it's easy for someone to claim lofty
ideals when creating something and later realize that's not true to what they
believe in.

This whole fanboy-heroism is probably a big part of why people don't act for
themselves and are left to cry when their 'glorious leaders' "betray" their
interests.

~~~
accordionclown
ok, fine. but then he has to give the knighthood back.

    
    
      > "the web must remain a universal medium, open to all  
      > and not biasing the information it conveys..."
    

and the macarthur fellowship too, along with its cash.

and somehow retract that big flashy olympic ceremony.

------
AndyKelley
I predict that companies will start using EME to deploy all their app code to
keep their front-end more closed source.

~~~
CharlesW
I thought EME only worked with audio and video. Is what you're suggesting
possible?

~~~
AndyKelley
Audio and video is most of what a given app does.

------
ngcazz
The attack on consumer rights continues...

------
eh78ssxv2f
Can somebody explain what exactly is happening here? What were the pros/cons
of the move? e.g., it is possible that browsers are in a tight spot: If they
fail to provide certain functionality, then content providers just move to
native apps. Was that the tradeoff here?

~~~
frivoal
W3C decided to publish a final version of the EME specification. W3C is the
place where member companies come to write and negotiate the specification for
how many web technologies should work. EME is an API for talking to a
audio/video DRM module. EME (and the corresponding DRM modules) have been
shipping in all browsers for years.

A large minority of W3C members, led by EFF, were trying to tie the
publication of this specification with a legal contract (called a covenant)
between members preventing them to sue people (under laws like the DMCA) if
they did nothing more than break the DRM. This would leave copyright
infringers liable to law suits, but not security researchers, developers of
accessibility add-ons, and so on.

This proposal gather a large minority, but a minority nonetheless.

The W3C process doesn't let the majority win automatically. Normally, it goes
by consensus, and keeps negotiations going until all find something they can
agree on. If that fails to happen, and someone objects to the decision being
proposed, the director of the W3C (who is incidentally the person who invented
the web), gets to call the shot.

If a majority of members thinks he called the shot wrong, he can be overturned
in appeal.

This decision to publish the final version of the EME specification without a
covenant was appealed, and the appeal failed.

------
quickthrower2
This is the next century

Where the universal's free

You can find it anywhere

Yes, the future has been sold

(Blur 1995)

------
ultim8k
Instead of creating the right tools for making web apps a lot more native,
feature rich and consistent, they just make the favours of a couple media
companies like Spotify, Netflix and Google. I hope the W3C dissolves after
that._

------
VarFarYonder
James Mickens gave an interesting talk on what we could do to build a better
browser:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uflg7LDmzI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uflg7LDmzI)

I'm hoping that WebAssembly might be a route towards allowing something like
this to happen. If an alternative to HTML/CSS/JS could be developed in
WebAssembly, then we could have a situation where HTML has competition, rather
than being the only way to build a website. And browsers can become simpler as
the rendering duties are moved out of the browser and to the website itself.

------
sysdyne
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h94ZKGVg-B8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h94ZKGVg-B8)
W3C doesn't care about freedom. It's good to know the real face of W3C.

------
jmull
Well, the W3C only matters to the extent they have credibility.

Not that one thing will break that. But there will be future efforts where a
positive outcome hinges on the credibility of the W3C's process. Those may not
go as well.

------
Osmium
I am so mixed about this. In principle, this is a terrible idea, and I share
many of the concerns in this thread -- I am not a fan of DRM. But as a
consumer/end-user, I'd much prefer a standard DRM over Flash/Silverlight any
day of the week.

The real question is how we get rid of DRM in the long term. Piracy isn't
going away. Hopefully content owners will one day realize the economic cost of
implementing DRM isn't worth its return, and only serves to alienate paying
customers. I imagine it might take some years for them to realize this
however.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Companies creating copyrighted works will always try to impose DRM.

The best that can be done is make circumventing it legal and easy.

------
l3m0ndr0p
Maybe now's the time to abandon the W3C - Maybe we can encourage the EFF to
create a "Free Web Consortium." Sort of like "let's encrypt." I think this
would better server a free and open web for the 21st Century and beyond. It
appears, based on this information from the EFF & their exit from W3c, the W3C
has become corrupted at some level.

------
makecheck
Battery life and data minimization should take precedence over extras. It is
time to standardize on precisely the bare minimum necessary to render content,
and that _certainly_ excludes DRM and auto-play video ads and other endless
cruft.

Simply put, I don't _want_ my battery burning through unnecessary
restrictions-addition software (both downloading and running).

------
Myrmornis
Would someone mind helping me understand the debate? I don't watch TV or even
movies very often (when I do I use Amazon prime). I never watch movies more
than once. I do listen to music multiple times. But AFAIK all the MP3s for
sale on major sites are DRM-free nowadays. What are the main specific
scenarios involving DRM that people are talking about here?

~~~
bytesandbots
Have you tried watching Amazon Prime on Opera browser? Most premium content
will not play on any browser other than Chrome, Edge and Firefox. If they
play, it will be only SD version. This is not because Opera has not
implemented some web standards. It is because the major three browsers have
all implemented a proprietary system of content protection.

There is another side of this story. Let's say you have to publish content on
your website. You do not have any way to publish it as securely as "Amazon
Prime" without signing an agreement with Google and Microsoft.

Thirdly, there comes DRM protection rules thanks to team MPAA. In most
countries, you can not try to reverse-engineer the proprietary decryption
module that comes with browsers without breaking laws.

Because of the above restriction, security professionals cannot break into the
proprietary module to detect security vulnerabilities.

Edit: I was wrong about Opera. Opera is in on the DRM bandwagaon for a long
time. [https://blogs.opera.com/desktop/2015/07/opera-
developer-32-0...](https://blogs.opera.com/desktop/2015/07/opera-
developer-32-0-1910-0-netflix-edition/)

------
shmerl
W3C is morally dead. Quite a sad development.

~~~
favorited
W3C is not an organization focused on morals. It is an organization which
exists to advocate for and codify open web standards (note, not an _open web,_
but open _standards_ ).

~~~
shmerl
They sold out those standards to DRM proponents, so that ends the trust of
them working for the common good.

~~~
favorited
Again, they're not charged with "the common good." Their goal is, "if there is
going to be DRM content served via HTTP + web browsers, we should provide a
standard API for it so browsers can implement it natively without plugins."

Their place is to be pragmatic and technical, not political.

~~~
shmerl
This isn't political, it's ethical.

------
donatj
So _this_ is how the open web dies.

Can we fork the W3C into a non-corporate puppet now?

~~~
Analemma_
DRM was coming to browsers with or without the W3C’s blessing. In fact, it was
already there via plugins and wasn’t going away. This has changed nothing
except where the implementation is documented.

The hysteria over this is just ridiculous.

~~~
Accacin
DRM doesn't and will never work. It only serves to annoy people that pay for
the movie/game/whatever legitimately. It's against everything the W3C stands
for.

You dont' have to support something just because it's happening. You fight it,
you don't give into it.

~~~
jhallenworld
>will never work

As in it can't be secure? Well it's tied in with trusted computing, see this
Widevine document:

[https://storage.googleapis.com/wvdocs/Widevine_DRM_Architect...](https://storage.googleapis.com/wvdocs/Widevine_DRM_Architecture_Overview.pdf)

If all of the decryption takes place in a "trusted zone" on "your" device,
then it's pretty secure.

~~~
ajross
"Pretty secure" needs to be qualified though. Yes: there are DRM
implementations without known holes. There is, however, no _DRM protected
content_ I'm aware of anywhere that doesn't exist in a high quality
unprotected form somewhere indexed by TPB or wherever.

I mean: yes, average users can't crack their Netflix app. Everyone can still
grab _Stranger Things_ via torrent as soon as it drops. So does that count as
"working?"

------
discordance
Why is this DRM standard a bad thing?

~~~
fghtr
[https://www.defectivebydesign.org/](https://www.defectivebydesign.org/)

------
andrewflnr
What actual power does the W3C have to harm (or protect, for that matter)
security researchers?

------
sev
DRM can't work in theory, but it is working in practice.

If someone writes a piece of software that allows downloading of DRM-ed
content (without losing quality, and playable anytime) from the big names
(Netflix, Amazon, etc), then this battle would be won.

~~~
jxcole
Not by a long shot. Where would you put this solution once you found it?
Github? Npm? Of course corporations will sue these organizations out of
existence for hosting a DRM work around, so they won't be able to host it. So
at the end unless you can find some cool Russian hosting (a la sci-hub) you
are straight out of luck.

The real problem is not creating a solution, but finding somewhere to put it
that people can actually get to.

~~~
literallycancer
Host it on the blockchain :)

~~~
yellowapple
Aaaand now billions of dollars are DMCA'd out of existence ;)

------
thriftwy
This means I now have an excuse to avoid paying for content eve further.

You didn't want to play nice, so never will I, I will continue to torrent
stuff from majors while continuing to participate in crowdfunding and
supporting indies.

You wanted that, not me!

------
thuuuomas
Netflix is money, but the real DRM atrocities will surface in the ed-tech long
tail.

~~~
floatboth
That would suck, but EME has existed for several years (and Silverlight/Flash
DRM before that) and I don't think the educational course providers ever
embraced DRM??

------
sigzero
"Since when did the W3C abandon reason for madness?" \-- Gandalf

------
Chardok
Can anyone explain what are the possible implications of this?

I am imagining a bunch of annoying add-ons to access news articles and what
not, but is there a potential to carry over to smaller or niche spaces?

~~~
floatboth
Read the spec.

It's directly tied to video, it's not possible to use for news articles. And,
uh, it's been available for several years. It's only used by Netflix and the
like.

------
olivermarks
where does this leave Brave and Opera, two browsers I use regularly?

~~~
Crespyl
I understand them both to be based on Chromium at this point. Chrome already
has support, so if the Brave/Opera browsers want it it's pretty much just a
flip of the switch (Opera may already have it, I think).

Basically if your browser lists any kind of Content Decryption Module (usually
something called Widevine) among its plugins, you have EME support.

~~~
olivermarks
thanks

------
mabynogy
Someone should fork w3c.

------
whoisthemachine
I understand the point the EFF is making, but I'm not sure if leaving the body
that influences web standards is the right way to get your voice heard on web
standards.

------
Manozco
What will we answer in twenty years when our children will ask: "Daddy, where
were you when they made the web a such shitty place? "

~~~
shaan7
I've feared the same and the only sane solution I've come up with is not to
have any.

------
oconnor663
Whenever compromise fails, both sides blame the other for refusing to give any
ground. Obviously browser vendors have a lot more power than the EFF does, and
don't necessarily need to compromise as much to get what they want. But I'm
curious, for their part, did the EFF actually offer any compromises in defense
of consensus?

Edit: You guys are totally right, I missed it in the original article. Shame
on me.

~~~
dannyobrien
We offered to open a discussion about a covenant, modelled on the W3C's own
patent covenant, that would mean that W3C members would agree to _only_
prosecute those who had broken the DRM within a W3C standard, if they had
another cause of action. That's to say, those companies could prosecute you if
you broke the DRM and used it infringe copyright, but not if you only broke
the DRM for lawful purposes -- such as security research, for accessibility,
to protect privacy, and so on.

There was a sizeable component within the W3C (I am still unsure as to what
degree I can reveal how much, given that the W3C holds members to a
confidentiality agreement.) who felt this was an important step to take before
making EME a standard. In the end, the W3C executive team overrode those
objections, and decided to go ahead without any such covenant.

You can now for the first time be prosecuted for revealing a flaw in a W3C
standard, overriding a browser "feature" on behalf of its user, or making a
HTML video accessible without first asking permission of the DRM vendor who
obfuscated it.

~~~
zerocrates
The covenant would have been a nice step forward and it's unfortunate to see
that it didn't happen, but I think you overstate the consequences here.

> You can now for the first time be prosecuted for revealing a flaw in a W3C
> standard, overriding a browser "feature" on behalf of its user, or making a
> HTML video accessible without first asking permission of the DRM vendor who
> obfuscated it.

Presumably you're referring to the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions? Your
second two examples are just as illegal now as they were yesterday: EME was
already a browser "feature," already being used for HTML video. The only thing
that's changed is the "W3C standard" part.

The vendors presumably would have been fine to take EME, already a de facto
standard and just leave it as-is, or "standardize" it in another body. Forcing
that would have been nice for W3C's purity and image in some circles, and
maybe even a good move, but it doesn't seem that it would have made any
practical difference.

------
jasonmaydie
Why is the EFF part of the W3C though? It's a standards organization not a
political one.

~~~
Sylos
Standards are largely politics...

------
idbehold
Ideally all content publishers start to really depend on this "feature" and
then one or two of the major browser vendors a few years down the line
suddenly stop enforcing any restriction the DRM had. Now the publishers have
to spend a bunch of money to move back to the plugin style DRM.

------
HashThis
Our democracy has a problem. Crony capitalists will sell out to corporations.
They will reject the democratic process in order to sell out to corporations
to have power to monetize those citizens. They don't care about protecting
citizens.

DRM in standards == force == freedom removed

------
JepZ
The DMCA is one of the greatest threats to modern democracy, as it is used to
remove specific content from the primary global communications medium
(Internet), which makes it a very handy tool for censoring.

And the W3C just standardized a tool to support the DCMA...

------
hbk
I wish we could fork W3C.

------
otakucode
Time to start cracking.

------
acidtrucks
Maybe this is terrible. Maybe this is the beginning of something totally new.
There is nothing about WWW that prevents us from using totally different
technologies, other than being really pretty good.

------
aneutron
I have a question, What can we do now ?

------
spdustin
Is my math off, or is 58.4% a majority?

~~~
Rebelgecko
58.4% is more than half, but the title says it can't really be considered a
consensus. Lots of commitees try to avoid passing things by simple majority
and instead refine and/or compromise ideas until they get more buy-in.

------
avodonosov
Why is it bad?

------
swayvil
The wealthy win again!

~~~
ringaroundthetx
Grassroots populist opinions of the people only prevail when the wealthy and
corporate interests already coincidentally happened to be lobbying for it. And
by coincidence, I mean overlap, so it isn't just a matter of convincing the
wealthy interest groups either because they don't care.

This study was regarding laws passed and regulations changed, but it would
apply to non-state consensus garnering organizations.

[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-
poli...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-
politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-
and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B)

> Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups
> representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S.
> government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups
> have little or no independent influence.

Same study, in article form with graphs, responding to critics of the study

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2016/05/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2016/05/23/critics-challenge-our-portrait-of-americas-political-
inequality-heres-5-ways-they-are-wrong/)

------
rurban
There's only one solution. The director needs to resign immediately

------
revelation
What's the point, if this is another one of those "industry groups" they could
at least have the decency to make it a great corporate junket with a meeting
in Las Vegas or something.

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MozillaUser
[https://medium.com/@joe_brewer/the-mental-disease-of-late-
st...](https://medium.com/@joe_brewer/the-mental-disease-of-late-stage-
capitalism-4a7bb2a1411c)

enough said

------
nickysielicki
So let me get this straight...

My graphics processor supports this encryption. My monitor supports this
encryption. My kernel supports this encryption. And we're going to draw the
line at EME-- the glue that sits between my web browser and all of this
infrastructure? _That 's_ the line that we just can't afford to cross?

It's not the fault of the consumer for purchasing hardware that supports this
stuff? It's not the fault of the OS developers for supporting it? It's
squarely on the W3C and browser vendors for making it accessible?

Seems to me like the EFF is going full Stallman for no actual purpose, and to
the detriment of their reputation and role in future W3C discussions.

