Disqus
During the Smartphone Show, one of the companies that held presentation was Discretix. The company was founded in February 2000, presently has more than 70 employees in Europe, Israel and the U.S. and is the leading embeded security solutions provider, based on open, compliant standards. Discretix is also a partner of recently acquired UIQ Technology.
As I wasn’t able to attend the Smartphone Show, guys from Discretix (Motty Alon and Jacob Greenblatt) made their presentation for me via the Internet. The presentation addresses the key issues surrounding DRM implementation on Symbian V9.x platform. In the following sentences, I’ll try to summarize the presentation. Let’s start…
Current state of the DRM industry is a real jungle. There are many DRM schemes available – some regional (i-mode, CPRM), some from the well-known companies (Microsoft’s WM-DRM) and organizations (OMA DRM); new ones are also emerging (Apple’s FairPlay, Coral’s Marlin). To make things even worse, some of the available DRM solutions are very processor and battery demanding, and are not 100% secure (we saw both Microsoft’s and Apple’s DRM hacked).
The conclusion is that a multi-scheme robust DRM client architecture, relying on both hardware security and security middleware is needed. All parties should be interested in such solution:
- Mobile operators want additional revenue from their users,
- Content providers don’t want pirate copies of their products,
- DRM scheme providing companies want to keep developing their solutions, and
- Compliance bodies want to retain piece and order.
However, the end user is also a part of the threat model and the device must be protected against malware installed by the legal owner of the device. Furthermore, installed security measurements must be cost effective and should not affect battery life and system performance.
To address the mentioned issues, Discretix developed both hardware and software-based solutions to deal with the complex data flows faster, thus enabling proper DRM implementation for the end user.
Still, some challenges remain:
- Symbian Content Access Framework (CAF) is OMA centric – some features from the other DRM’s schemes are missing
- White-list management is missing
- MTP support is missing
The presentation is available in PDF format, and you can get it from here.
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
