[Wylug-discuss] advice on ebook reader or similar...

[John Hodrien]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011, Paul Brook wrote:

> You mean using get_iplayer ?

I'm assuming he means actual BBC Iplayer Desktop for linux.

> My understanding is that has approximately nothing to do with the BBC, and
> mainly works (and/or hasn't been subject to endless legal hassle) because
> iplayer doesn't use any actual DRM.  IIRC the live streams require some sort
> of authentication but that's relatively trivial to spoof[1] so still works if
> you use the right variant of flvstreamer.

DRM is applied in rather odd ways because it's far far easier than doing it
properly, and is generally just as effective.  On Freesat the HD channels are
marked 'encrypt'.  All this means is that it's transmitted in the clear, then
encrypted with a device specific key before being written to disk...  I'd
guess there's something similar going on with iplayer.

jh