[clue-talk] DRM ain't all bad

[Jed S. Baer]

Hi Folks.

I noticed at the last CLUE meeting that CLUEbies seem to have a pretty
typical revulsion for DRM. Just like most folks, I disagree with the use
of DRM to interfere with fair use, backups, etc., i.e. legitimate uses
and copying of audio and video. It doesn't take a lot of effort to
imagine other improper uses of DRM, for example restricting access to
public documents (or documents you think should be public, but the govt.
disagrees).

But I noticed a news story today which brought to mind a legitimate use
of DRM technology.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080221/D8UUN0100.html -- Google to
Store Patients’ Health Records

If you follow this stuff at all, you probably realize that you don't have
a lot of medical privacy any longer. I can imagine a medical records
system utilizing DRM technology to restrict access on a need-to-know
basis, and prevent health records from being copied inappropriately.

Of course, I don't deceive myself that such a system would be simple to
implement. And of course, it would suffer from the same issues that
current cryptologic and security systems do, such as getting people to
use sufficiently strong passphrases, and biometric spoofing.

jed