Biometric DRM. When I saw these two words paired together, it took me close to a half hour
to think of a more repellent two-word concept. Nuclear hemorrhoids? Close. Cancerous gonorrhea? Hmm. I'll let it
go for now, but consider the issue far from settled.
What evil genius is behind the marriage of one of the most restrictive and surreptitious technologies with the
gathering of the most deeply personal information – the biological kind – in order to manage and protect content? That
would be inventor Cary Brant.
Brant's latest product is the MuViBOXX, a set top box that uses broadband and P2P technology to create a network
secured by biometric digital rights management. Brant's company, Veritouch, claims support from one major Hollywood
studio and one of the big four labels.
The product comprises a mix of search and BitTorrent-style P2P file sharing, as Brant explained to
The Register:
"The appliance lets you search for any movie that, say, George Clooney has appeared in, and download it. You'll have access to more movies than you get at Blockbuster, and you don't even have to walk to the mailbox, like you do with NetFlix."
Access to the network requires a fingerprint, which is attached to the file the user downloads and becomes the key that allows that file to be played. The fingerprint can also be used to trace unauthorized acquisition of copyrighted material.
MuViBOXX uses a watermark identification like Snocap to distinguish copyright material from uploaded personal movies you might want to share with friends of family.
Increasingly used in banking and public security as part of a wave of post-9/11 security measures, biometrics is thought to be an effective method of authentication as it is unique to an individual.
But, as Digital Music News analyst Richard Menta notes, "The problem is that once a fingerprint is stolen, it can't be changed like a credit card number, and it is compromised forever. One, of course, doesn't have to go to grotesque lengths of stealing the finger itself, just the algorithm that represents the fingerprint electronically on a device or file. Once VeriTouch records a fingerprint, the user is trusting that they will be able to protect it."
