Re: [office] DRM issues

[Nathaniel S Borenstein <nborenst@us.ibm.com>]

I like this basic approach.  We
need to be able to say, definitively, that ODF can work with a variety
of possible DRM mechanisms, and outline how it might be done.  That
should be enough to prevent DRM from becoming a leading FUD topic for our
opponents, as well as to give some guidance to the people who are actually
going to try to make this work.  -- Nathaniel

Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net> wrote
on 11/07/2005 01:28:31 PM:

> Greetings!
> 
> I think Gary's point about ODF being an open document format is well
> taken but do think some nod in the direction of DRM issues might be
in 
> order.
> 
> Afterall, if I want to write an implementation that otherwise uses
ODF 
> and wish to layer a DRM solution on top of it, surely that is a 
> legitimate use of the work product of this committee.
> 
> Granted, it is possible to encrypt parts of an ODF document along
the 
> lines that is used by Adobe, but that does not address issues such
as 
> copy, print, modify, etc.
> 
> The senario where government agencies will want to regulate access
to 
> certain parts of a document is a very real one in secure environments,
> which appear to be on the rise within the US government. I don't know
of 
> any reason why they could not use ODF, provided they layered an 
> appropriate DRM/security system on top of the format.
> 
> Suggestion: What if the various DRM technologies were reviewed and
a 
> report issued saying that ODF is compatible with DRM technologies
that 
> impose restrictions on addressable portions of a document, plus some
> statement about DRM being application specific?
> 
> I would hesitate to go beyond such a report as the entire DRM question,
> particularly if it includes secure environments would take us far
afield 
> from what I think most of us would consider to be ODF questions. 
> Security/DRM questions are very important but also involve 
> network/application architectures, encryption, security protocols,
and a 
> host of other issues that are really beyond questions of an open 
> document format.
> 
> For example, in our telephone conference today the question of 
> concealing an illustration was raised. Yes, most of us think about
only 
> concealing the illustration but there are use cases for concealing
the 
> fact that an illustration ever appeared in the document. Which would
> require suppressing appearance of the illustration in an illustration
> list, the illustration itself (and the fact it occurred at all), plus
> any references to the illustration. That is certainly doable, but
not 
> something I think we want to spend time specifying in an open document
> format TC.
> 
> Hope everyone is having a great day!
> 
> Patrick
> 
> PS: I would be willing to volunteer to work with others who are 
> interested in creating a ODF/DRM report for the TC to approve and
issue.
> 
> -- 
> Patrick Durusau
> Patrick@Durusau.net
> Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
> Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model
> Member, Text Encoding Initiative Board of Directors, 2003-2005
> 
> Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work! 
> 
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from this mail list, you must leave the OASIS TC that
> generates this mail.  You may a link to this group and all your
TCs in OASIS
> at:
> https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/portal/my_workgroups.php
>