[plug] M$ again - Digital rights in Office

[Craig Ringer]

> Or rather: if there is encryption, you must decrypt the document by
> using the correct password. If you know the encryption password, or the
> document has a password but is not encrypted, or the document has no
> password, then the rights restrictions are superficial. In essence: if
> you can display a document then you can print it, too, regardless of
> whether the authors wants you to. So, if you want to block copying,
> printing, editing and resaving, or your want to apply an expiration
> date, then you need to involve secret information such as passwords.

Even then, you rely on the application respecting those requests. The 
document may be encrypted, but once decrypted you can do anything with 
it unless the application is designed to prevent you. As such, Microsoft 
/could not/ allow implementation of their DRM system and new document 
format by other applications, as they couldn't guarantee that the app 
would respect the 'rights' coded into the document once decrypted.

I suspect that this may be a strong case of MS shooting themselves in 
the foot. There's a fairly good chance that this will be cracked 
somehow, showing it to be of little value for information security. If 
not, then there's another concern - who, exactly, controls that data? 
You need a Win2k3 server with Windows Rights Management on it to even 
access it - so what happens in terms of archival, etc. I don't see 
governments going for this - they're currently unhappy enough about the 
lock-in problems they're facing. Of course, it will be optional to use 
the DRM capabilities, but still ... it's a sign of MS finding yet 
another way to make sure their office software doesn't go the way their 
OS is slowly going - replaceable.

It'll be interesting to see what happens, and whether this draws people 
to MS or drives them away.

Craig Ringer