Seems to me that maidSAFE would be exceptionally good at enforcing Digital Rights Management… The files would only be usable if you had the keys, and one or more of those needed keys could need to be signed by the owner of certain content.
Am I off base on this?
I think it has a lot more to do with that, if someone wants to duplicate the original file; and the original file is watermarked,
then if someone was to take the original and remove the watermark and swap their own; then this would be a totally different file with a different address space;
Therefore, it is easy to distinguish originals from copies; assuming the originator releases theirs first, with some timestamp at a register; or on the file itself. For this blockchains come into play since those are immutable files with a timestamp; yet I imagine this is good for film, audio artists, visual artists, and game subscriptions;
I think that perhaps a better way to put this might be that Maidsafe is a killer app for Managing any legitimate Digital Rights to which content creators and contributors are actually entitled.
I see it as the end of DRM. If this network is going to be useful it needs to put all of the power in the end users hands. If it doesn’t it seems a fork will emerge that does.
What the DRM crowd likes to derisively call charity will be all they have to go on as it would seem to reduce everything to public domain. But its much more than charity, its the efficiency of having just enough to prime the pump and no middle men.
If DRM can cap anything then you don’t have a secure network for heavy lifting that social change will require It means SAFE would just be another tool for useless gateways and toll roads and other tools of decentralization… Are we to think that SAFE network would be even less secure than say Emule where stuff still has some propensity to people’s local drives ultimately?
It seems like we have something like an uncertainty principle on security. You will either have a distributed system biased toward creating a decentralized society or you have a centralized system. You won’t have both in a stable desirable system. Note the destruction of the current internet and its fracturing behind things like China’s Great Firewall. Commerce can’t be king anymore, so much of this is about free people from the imposition that money creates. Also not that centralized systems don’t seem tenable anymore, they aren’t stable given our present level of tech.
And if enforcement of this were possible in anyway then there would be no security in the network.
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Seems to me that the maidsafe technology allows me as a software developer to write software that you can only execute with my permission, and it gives me a massive toolbox of technologies to do that.
That toolbox seems to be baked right in – So It seems odd to me that people are thinking the total opposite.
Hardly. If we can get a piece of already questionable proprietary code and break it we can duplicate it in private and distribute it to our hearts content in total anonymity. We can do the same for anything that is raw info much more easily. If the network does anything to stop this then its a fraud and will be forked to allow it.
But its not surprising you don’t want to see this, that blind spot comes from not being able to reconcile privacy with transparency and transparency being the only possible guarantee of useful privacy. And how you have trouble distinguishing organizational secrecy from personal privacy. I suspect the issue is your definition of society having to do with keeping the incumbents in power, and prioritizing that over getting rid of centralization and oppressive hierarchy. Also derives possibly from your seeing no contradiction in a society for the sake of business.
The idea is perfectly outrageous- that the network would be used by the privileged to spy on SAFE users and enforce their property rights? Have you considered ringing David Cameron and congratulating him?
I heard an interesting point the other day: The point of government is to protect the commons. I am sure you would think the point of government is to distribute it into the private hands of the wealthy for all eternity with silly accompanying arguments about what a wasteful tragedy the commons is.
Warren, this doesn’t have to do with the politics.
I am just asking about the technology. As far as I know it will be agnostic as to "organizational’ use or ‘personal’ use. It will be pretty agnostic of ‘society and business’ as well. You always want to talk philosophy and politics and revolution – I would like an answer more allong the lines of 1 and 0’s being shifted.
It seems to me that if all of the storage is in the maid-safe cloud, Certain portions of my code can only be delivered with the permission of my digital signature.
Ok but I could say its the killer app for converting all DRM material to public domain.
You could get away with that maneuver exactly 0 times reliable, so its probably not something to pin business aspirations on.
If its any sort of audio or video data it can be captured and redistributed instantly.
If its proprietary code it can be cracked and redistributed.
You might be able to make a black boxed DAO, but you might want to operate it for free because it will likely compete with free open variants with their code made public at every step of the way and verified before it got sealed up in a black box or that operate transparently. It will compete with systems that are like SAFE itself.
Question still seems quite offensive, like asking if its the killer app for pedophilia. The transparency aspects make that not the case, likely the opposite. You see its end users that will use the mechanism to report abuse.
Nope. People ought to be free to make proprietary software or open source software.
DRM is not at all on the scale of pedophilia. Such a claim is ridiculous.
If I invent something you have no right to steal it from me. You should be free to invent your own, but my solution is my solution. Open source software has it’s place, but so does proprietary… If I write software for my company my competitors ought not be able to profit off of my work.
SAFE as the savior of DRM which impoverishes creative people and is used as a platform to attack our civil liberties is as ridiculous. Its up there with “Christians against Christ.” 
What you get for your finding will be dictated by what people are willing to pay for it if at all. Likely 2 or 3 other people had the same idea as you and its just approximate that some gain be assigned to you with any exclusivity. But that time is over. It doesn’t matter that trillions and trillions of ill gotten corporate wealth claims are at stake, technology and global society is moving on to better compensation mechanisms that aren’t dictated by gatekeepers especially the current ones.
And we should be very clear, compensation for innovation relative to the value of innovation itself is a minor issue. If we can get for free through open source what would have to pay for through propriety, its should always be done through open source. The idea that someone’s property claims would get in the way of innovation when we need a lot of it right now is unacceptable. Be it because of suppressed tech or corporate foot dragging to milk profit, the current system is getting scraped. The changes that are opening up mean corporates won’t even have a popular media forum to bmw about it on.
Warren, ones and zeros please.
You are ranting… The platform is agnostic.
@jreighley What exactly are you referring to in terms of software that you can only “execute.” At least initially all the network will do is store and retrieve data. In order for that data to be executed it has to be present on my computer and in a form that my computer can read and interact with. Right?
Down the road as we get to things like distributed computing, where you are providing values for an app where the calculation is being done on other computers, then I can see this being an issue. But at least initially, what are you seeing?
If software is written to use the Maidsafe network and stores it’s data on the MaidSafe network, it certainly can require a file that is hosted on the MaidSafe network in order to function…
The MaidSAFE website says
"With this now when we log out of this app on this machine, we leave no local trace of any hanging files from our drive. No longer do we have to remember to clean-up after doing some work on a public computer
Once we sign out, it’s as if we were never there to begin-with."
As such. If you are not logged in with an account that has purchased a seat licence for my software, There can be no trace of certain files that you need to run my software without paying me.
Yes but the first time that you purchased them, when you downloaded them, the files had to be on the computer in a fashion that the computer could access.
The fact that the client erases itself when it leaves, doesn’t mean that the files are not on your computer when you are accessing them. Now if you need access to a network of other people that’s one thing, but whatever app you are using is either running on your computer or on a server. You could I suppose set up a server-style architecture on the SAFE system, we’ve talked about it for gaming, but that would be using the SAFE system to secure the communications with the app, which might be little more than a GUI. But thats no worse than the current system.
But that seems to be the model he has in mind or streaming which makes some media susceptible to capture. Either ways he seems to envision a DRM pusher like Sony being able to use largely end user controlled hardware and software to play all the market will bear price games. What would the target be? Streaming games run from a distributed computer. Even that could suffer source code leaks and not be subject to any practice enforcement. Its definitely a DRM killer app, quite the opposite.
This thread headline is suspect, its apt to certainly misconstrue the point of the effort. Its like bad PR in itself. You get a couple core members to carelessly confirm or not forcefully enough dis-confirm SAFE as DRM bait and this thread will end up in some bitcoin rag why SAFE sucks and is patent trolling etc.
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Yes, The headline was probably just flamebait for Warren… But the point stands…
But I do think that the idea of being able to protect intellectual property rights is an important feature. And it is just that a FEATURE… That is mentioned (Briefly) in the documentation, and it would be good to see it explained a little more verbosely
I am tired of people (Usually Warren) selling MaidSAFE as the next killer criminal platform. As a software guy myself, I deserve to get paid, and I not be forced to subsidize my paying customers competitors by allowing them to steal my hard work for free.
There is a place for Open Source software, but there is also a place for proprietary software, It seems to me that MaidSAFE’s platform would be an outstanding place for both.
I couldn’t disagree more, and I suggest stripping that out of the documentation and admitting a serious error or omission if need be.
Intellectual property is broken, it is in the way of innovation and access. SAFE cannot be viewed as adding to the problem in any way.
If @jreighley sees that SAFE can protect his proprietary wares and their development assuming otherwise sound data handling practices for the storage and retrieval of code with trusted partners, that’s one thing but making centralizing gateway schemes more enforceable is quite another. I don’t see it helping centralization in anyway. It should never be seen as designed to do so or having people in the wings working to make that happen. I see the tech as anti DRM vice neutral in its impact, but never pro DRM in intent or impact.
SAFE does seems intended to really help with distribution and compensation for people who actually create and contribute.
My understanding is that nobody needs any permission to use MaidSAFE…
From a 1’s and 0’s perspective, it has no idea if I am sharing rogue CIA agents names and addresses or if I am sharing Hierarchically deterministic expiring software licensing keys… The whitepapers seem to indicate I can share any file with whom I choose and only whom I choose, and I can revoke access at any time I choose…
I am not Sony… Some of my customer’s competitors are big mean corporations like that though. Should I really be forced to hand over my work to them for free? Everything is a double edged sword. Technology is philosophically and politically agnostic…
Oh yeah just like Adobe PDF? Doesn’t seem kind of Cool-Aid to you about carved in stone no copy parameter?
You treat your customers right and they will support you. System is ultimately based on trust. Having it built on trust as opposed to crime or bribery is the point. At least with SAFE you will continue to have a chance.
Sometimes customers are just outright thieves. I can treat them right and they still can rip me off.
The difference is the MaidSAFE system is that if a file doesn’t exist it really doesn’t exist, it is just fragments of gibberish, in geographically diverse locations that don’t make sense to anybody anyhow, and irretrivable by anyone that doesn’t know that they exist in the nature of their entirety…
With PDF’s you have all the data and you can crack them.
I am thinking that if I where to do something like this licence key is good until a particular blockchain height (or other consensus based decentralize oracle - and after that you have to ask maidsafe for another one-- You could make some pretty difficult to crack systems. If you are storing all your data on maidsafe anyway (And why wouldn’t you) There would be no reason for the data to ever be terribly local… Most companies don’t allow data to be stored locally anyway - because of risk of machine theft and customer information being stolen.