Ron Parr wrote:
> I think that Ed got it right above when he mentioned the important
> distinction that Nikon has come out and said, "Hey - This is
> encrypted."

I think the important distinction is that Nikon was maneuvered into having to say "something" by Adobe.

Canon has had an XOR encryption of white balance information in their raw files for years (read dpReview's interview with Dave Coffin on today's dpReview front page). All the raw file decoder folks (Coffin, Bibble, Phase One, even Adobe) quietely, without fuss, decrypted the white balance for their decoders.

Now, Nikon applies the same thing, an XOR encryption of white balance, and suddenly Adobe is all over the internet with it. Why the big hoo-ha? Why not just quietely crack it, the way they did Canon?

If Adobe had done this years ago, with Canon, it might be Canon with the PR nightmare on their hands, making really patehtic press releases, and backpeddling, instead of Nikon.

And Nikon might have learned from Canon's mistake, and not encrypted the data, instead of following Canon's example, and doing it.

Now, I think Nikon's handling of this was also pretty bad. The original "Nikon Capture is all you need, PhotoShop is for removing telephoen poles" statement was incredible, and their new "we did it to protect you" press release is simply amazing in its arrogance.

> If nobody says anything, then it's just some crazy and undocumented
> file format. Once the manufacturer says something about their
> intentions, the act of interpreting/decrypting the file format
> gets a new interpretation.

Agreed.

> I think that the optimal thing for a manufacturer to do (from their
> perspective) is to make it mildly annoying but not impossible
> (legally or technically) to interpret their file formats.
>
> Why? This funny balance gives users more choices but keeps a clear
> line between what the camera manufacturer supports and what the
> third party developers support. Third part software can never
> "officially" reveal limitations of the camera because there's
> always some question about how the information is extracted. The
> official RAW converter lets the manufacturer maintain an official
> "look' for their images and leave some awkward questions without
> official answers.

I would think that obfustication is possible, without an encryption scheme that could be used to invoke the highly unpredictable DCMA.

--
Salvage troll posts! When you see a thread started by a troll, post something useful to it. It will drive the trolls up the wall. ;)

Ciao!

Joe

www.swissarmyfork.com