Free-Range DRM
What do you get when you combine the notions of a hypervisor running a single-application OS in a virtual machine, the desire for high-strength (yet user-friendly) DRM, and a CD that Just Runs on any commodity machine? Possibly the future of DRM on consumer-grade home entertainment systems, which may or may not be something we recognize as a personal computer but that certainly qualifies as an embedded system.
Current laptops contain the Trusted Platform Module that can verify the boot process and pass control only to trusted (pronounced "approved") programs; that same technology can easily appear in an entertainment center. If the hypervisor on a self-booting CD or DVD were approved to run, it could start up a VM containing an OS and media player that decrypt DRM-protected bits. Because the VM is TPM-protected from power-on, software from those pesky customers won't have an opportunity to intervene and, because it runs all I/O through the hypervisor, there's no user configuration.
The bootable disc need not contain the protected bits because the OS within the VM can set up an Internet connection to siphon the movie (and perhaps even a specialized player) from the appropriate server. The precious bits vanish into the VM and reappear on protected digital and audio links to the video display and speakers. No unapproved software gets an opportunity to touch any unencrypted bits.
But, should you want to do something else with your entertainment center, perhaps even boot a Linux distro, you're free to do so. You can even write, run, and debug your own programs and those of others, GPL and all. The one thing you can't do is run a program that inhales protected bits and exhales movies or music.
Even this won't protect DRM-encrypted bits for the many decades the owners seem to want, at least given the industrial-level cracking applied to current DVDs. But it just might deflect enough criticism to make DRM palatable to enough people to get it into media-playing boxes throughout the world.
I'm sure this isn't an original connect-the-dots exercise, but I haven't seen any work along these lines. If you know more, drop me a note, eh?
Last Tab
You can see a piece (and buy the rest) of a 1971 paper on the EDVAC operating system at www.priorartdatabase.com/IPCOM/000129981. Get more OS history at www.netnam.vn/unescocourse/os/12.htm.
More on the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator project at www.mame.net, with an X port at x.mame.net/faq.html. Blackfins live at www.analog.com/processors/processors/blackfin/ index.html.
Searching for "dream drm" at www.realnetworks.com isn't productive, but Google is your friend.
Find an updated version of the classic "Xen and the Art of Virtualization" paper at page 65 (aka 73) of the 2005 Linux Symposium proceedings at www.linuxsymposium.org/2005/linuxsymposium _procv2.pdf. The official Xen nexus, with whitepapers and suchlike, is at www.xensource.com.
Other virtualization folks use different techniques to achieve much the same goal. VMWare's Virtual Appliances project at www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances shows what can be done with a bottled VM on stock hardware.
Gamix seems to be at www.gamix.org, but the level of detail leaves something to be desired. It evidently has no relation to gamix, the Gnome-ish Audio Mixer.
