Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• Streamburst offers innovative DRM for video

  I've already discussed the German music store using watermarks to discourage piracy , and now it seems another service is applying the same principle to video . Instead of handcuffing viewers who want to view films they purchase on multiple devices and otherwise use content legitimately in ways DRM blocks - Streamburst takes two steps to prevent movie piracy. The first is that every film begins with a 5 second display of the name of the person who purchased that copy, as it appears on their credit card. The second step is that Streamburst eliminates an undetectable but unique series of bits from each copy of a file downloaded. That idea is that the psychological barrier of being named will stop many people from illegally distributing the files and those whom it doesn’t stop can be identified by the unique series of bits stripped from whatever copies make it into illegal file sharing networks. These techniques are just as effective at preventing the bad guys as "real" DRM (that is, they... Posted Feb 28 2007, 01:46 PM by Tim with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Intellectual Property, Security, Innovation, Video, Social Behavior, DRM

• Safety through Chaos

  There is a theory that strict laws encourage anti-social behavior . Ultimately, these strict laws do the opposite of what they were intended to do, because they allow us to rationalize away responsibility. Along those lines, a Dutch town has eliminated nearly all traffic lights ( via Jeff ) and seen a decrease in the number of fatal accidents. "It works well because it is dangerous, which is exactly what we want. But it shifts the emphasis away from the Government taking the risk, to the driver being responsible for his or her own risk. As Brian commented , this is all about relying on personal accountability instead of explicit control measures. When someone else considers the risk and creates the rules, we get lazy about the risk analysis and management process. It doesn't help that these are familiar risks, and we tend to underestimate these types of risks . Posted Jan 10 2007, 03:17 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Security, Social Behavior

• Do strict laws encourage anti-social behavior?

  Mowab writes : [T]he idea, generally, is that you encourage community and cooperation by removing the safeguards that would keep you safe if you’re antisocial or don’t try to cooperate. What’s interesting is the corollary argument that social safeguards actually encourage antisocial behavior; they assume such behavior is going to occur, they plan for it, they legitimize it, and therefore ensure it will exist. Does this mean that the more we regulate or try to make our world safer, the more we’ll actually be making our world more chaotic, and less safe? A very interesting premise that I generally agree with. Strict rules, in many ways, serve as a way to rationalize away responsibility. The people don't feel a need to protect each other because there are laws that will protect us. It's similar to the idea that people are more likely to help out if no one else is around. If you're the only one capable of rescuing someone, you are probably going to feel a greater personal... Posted Dec 30 2004, 11:08 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Intellectual Property, Rants, Security, Law, Social Behavior