[mythtv-users] netflix + myth 0.23

Raymond Wagner raymond at wagnerrp.com
Thu Apr 8 15:07:24 UTC 2010


On 4/8/2010 09:44, Brian Wood wrote:
> On the plus side, the success of the dedicated hardware units (like the Roku
> player) should prove to the program suppliers that Linux can "protect" their
> content as well as any other OS, and that Linux is not just a pirate tool.
>    

No.  Linux systems cannot 'protect' content.  It is impossible, due to 
being 'open source'.  All someone has to do is recompile the source 
without the bits that prevent end user access to the content.  Even if 
one used binaries with the crypto keys built, preventing a simple 
recompile, the source is available to make it easy to find the keys.  
Even if one used a closed source application, there is no protected 
video output, so one could just capture the output to the X server, and 
have the uncompressed video.  It just won't work.

The reason that little embedded systems can get by is because they often 
do all decoding and playback in a custom hardware chain.  The Linux OS 
exists for bootloading and menu display.  The video and OS never touch.


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list