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Bunnie Huang: Innovation Should Be Legal

posted by Fnord666 on Monday May 14 2018, @01:13PM   
from the tilting-at-windmills dept.

canopic jug writes:

Famed hardware hacker Bunnie Huang announces his newest project and goes into detail about how trouble from the DMCA was the impetus. He comments that unchecked power to license freedom of expression should not be trusted to corporate interests. The project, NeTV2, is being crowdfunded.

I'd like to share a project I'm working on that could have an impact on your future freedoms in the digital age. It's an open video development board I call NeTV2.

It's related to a lawsuit I've filed with the help of the EFF against the US government to reform Section 1201 of the DMCA. Currently, Section 1201 imbues media cartels with nearly unchecked power to prevent us from innovating and expressing ourselves, thus restricting our right to free speech.

At Boing Boing : Innovation should be legal; that's why I'm launching NeTV2

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Original Submission

• Come on, man. It's right there in the description!Come on, man. It's right there in the description! (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14 2018, @02:28PM (4 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14 2018, @02:28PM (#679573)

  NeTV2 will ship to backers in “NeTV Classic Mode.” In this mode, the FPGA is configured with a bitstream that allows the NeTV2 to add encrypted pixels to an encrypted video stream, without ever decrypting the video stream. It does this by observing the initial cryptographic handshake between the the video source and video sink. So, for example, using NeTV Classic Mode, you could add an opaque text overlay to a live video stream, but you could not add a translucent text overlay, as that would require decrypting the original video stream to compute the alpha blending.

  More technically speaking, NeTV Classic Mode is enabled by special hardware circuits that enhance the NeTV2’s ability to behave as an in-line video filter by dynamically intercepting and modifying display capability negotiations. This gives the NeTV2 the ability to dynamically fix “broken” display descriptors, attempt to force a known display resolution, and encrypt video for improved compatibility with a wide range of target systems.

  It hijacks one part of the protocol to give the user some control over it.

  For example, you could add annotations to a Government's propaganda feed, pointing out the lies, without having to break the encryption.

  Parent

  Starting Score:	0		points
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• Re:Come on, man. It's right there in the descriptiRe:Come on, man. It's right there in the descripti (Score: 2) by Wootery on Monday May 14 2018, @02:38PM (3 children)

  by Wootery (2341) on Monday May 14 2018, @02:38PM (#679576)

  Ah, there it is.

  The BoingBoing article uses the word 'overlay' exactly once - the rest of the page is an opinion piece on copyright law.

  I like Bunny, and just like everyone here I agree the DMCA goes too far, but it seems like this 'product' is just a cute vehicle for talking about copyright reform.

  Parent

  • Copyright reform(Score: 4, Interesting) by canopic jug on Monday May 14 2018, @02:59PM

    by canopic jug (3949) on Monday May 14 2018, @02:59PM (#679587) Journal

    [...] but it seems like this 'product' is just a cute vehicle for talking about copyright reform.

    I thought that was the whole point. The Boing Boing page is mostly commentary about the DMCA, the problems it produces, and how this device can be used strategically to take a swipe at the DMCA. The Crowd Supply page goes into more of the technical specifications and the details of the expected product. The restrictions have not been growing steadily although they have grown consistently. If we wait too much longer, there will be no way out from some of the nastier provisions because there has been no push back. Now, with this device, there is push back in those one or two areas.

    --
    Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.

    Parent

  • Re:Come on, man. It's right there in the descriptiRe:Come on, man. It's right there in the descripti (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14 2018, @03:04PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14 2018, @03:04PM (#679590)

    The device includes everything needed for any kind of real time video manipulation and encryption stripping, it just isn't programed to do this. It looks like excelent value way of getting a very powerfull FPGA though if you have any video manipulation projects planned. For example I have seen an FPGA used to combined multiple HDMI streams into one for playing networked games split screen. You could also do things like map a projector onto a non flat screen using this (globes etc.).

    Parent

    • Re:Come on, man. It's right there in the descripti(Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday May 15 2018, @09:12AM

      by Wootery (2341) on Tuesday May 15 2018, @09:12AM (#679990)

      So in reality it's going to be bought and used as an HDCP-strip device, it just won't be marketed that way.

      Parent