|
Protection of confidential data has been a problem since the ancient times. Protection of data has always hinged on two important factors - keeping the data a secret and trusting the people who have access to the secret. Since the time of Julius Caesar, secrecy has been achieved through various encryption schemes, which over time have become better and better, to the extent that current computing power will not be able to break a strongly encrypted message in usable time. However the issue of trust has not been resolved, and intentionally or unintentionally, holders of secret information can do what they want to do with the secret information.
DRM attempts to restrict what users can do with digital data, usually encrypted data. Currently the main use of DRM is in protecting Internet downloads, but DRM can be used as a general security mechanism. However, there are many fragmented problems with DRM, including a lack of interoperability, standards etc.
In this project, we go back to the basics, and we aim to create a generalised DRM system that is highly flexible through the use of components (mainly web services). We also aim to look at the enforcement of DRM rules at an OS kernel level as well as the legal and social implications of a DRM deployment.
|
