Encryption Chip Will End Piracy

[GameBanshee News]

A bit vague on the details, GameIndustry.biz has word from Atari's Nolan Bushnell on an encryption chip that will effectively end (video game) piracy.

"There is a stealth encryption chip called a TPM that is going on the motherboards of most of the computers that are coming out now," he pointed out

"What that says is that in the games business we will be able to encrypt with an absolutely verifiable private key in the encryption world - which is uncrackable by people on the internet and by giving away passwords - which will allow for a huge market to develop in some of the areas where piracy has been a real problem."

Bushnell thinks that piracy of movies and music, however, is probably unstoppable because "if you can watch it and you can hear it, you can copy it."

"Games are a different thing, because games are so integrated with the code. The TPM will, in fact, absolutely stop piracy of gameplay.

Spotted on Blue's News.

[Siberys]

Ok, there are several problems with this, among which is the serious invasion of privacy not in software but now in hardware, but two key ones I'd like to point out.

It's a chip. They describe it in every sense of the fact that it is a chip. So even if they weld the damn thing to the motherboard, it is not legally mandated to HAVE this chip, but more importantly, it CANNOT be legally mandated as it does not rely on the internet rules, it relies first and foremost on marketing rules which are mostly under the jurisdiction of the US constitution. Europe and other continents/countries, maybe this is ok, but where Piracy is at it's prime in the USA, no. Not a chance that it'll ever be legally mandated.

Second, they're putting it in the motherboard. The motherboard is a conduit to the other hardware pieces to a computer, NOT THE COMPUTER! The hard drive? Runs off the motherboard and power supply. The processor? The motherboard and power supply. Video card, Ram, Sound card, fan? runs off the motherboard and power supply. The motherboard itself barely has any capability of encryption to any extent, let alone perfective extent. "Uncrackable" they say, yeah, right. That'll last about, oh say, 10 minutes of it's existence.


This will fail more miserably than Starforce did.

[Brother None]

Originally Posted by Siberys

This will fail more miserably than Starforce did.

Yes, but at least they'll manage to drive a couple of million people away from PC gaming again.

[Dumblor]

Originally Posted by Siberys

Ok, there are several problems with this, among which is the serious invasion of privacy not in software but now in hardware, but two key ones I'd like to point out.

It's a chip. They describe it in every sense of the fact that it is a chip. So even if they weld the damn thing to the motherboard, it is not legally mandated to HAVE this chip, but more importantly, it CANNOT be legally mandated as it does not rely on the internet rules, it relies first and foremost on marketing rules which are mostly under the jurisdiction of the US constitution. Europe and other continents/countries, maybe this is ok, but where Piracy is at it's prime in the USA, no. Not a chance that it'll ever be legally mandated.

Second, they're putting it in the motherboard. The motherboard is a conduit to the other hardware pieces to a computer, NOT THE COMPUTER! The hard drive? Runs off the motherboard and power supply. The processor? The motherboard and power supply. Video card, Ram, Sound card, fan? runs off the motherboard and power supply. The motherboard itself barely has any capability of encryption to any extent, let alone perfective extent. "Uncrackable" they say, yeah, right. That'll last about, oh say, 10 minutes of it's existence.


This will fail more miserably than Starforce did.

I agree that it will be easily removed. The console's chip can also be easily removed (but say bye-bye to online gaming). And they say that it will stop piracy completely.... But thanks for trying , piracy ruins PC gaming , and I personaly don't want to play some port from console for the rest of my life .

[Siberys]

Piracy doesn't ruin PC gaming. Developers who think piracy ruins PC gaming and start developing online -only- games ruin PC gaming.

[DesR85]

I read this a while ago and I honestly think it's pointless. Besides, would any sane hardware manufacturer want to implement some feature on their hardware that will aggravate consumers? I don't think so.