Sure it might have a slightly smaller attack surface because it does not have all the other flash "features" that are not really used any more, but do not fool yourself, it is still executing arbitrary code that is beyond your control, and any attempt to control what this code does could be considered a violation of DMCA.

It however in no way promotes the open web, I do not know where you get that from. This is the exact opposite of promoting the open web

As to who loses out, it is not just people that find DRM objectionable. Will Adobe DRM work on ARM for the various SBC system like the Raspberry pi? Doubtful.. Will there be a CMD for midori? Ice Weasel? or any of the other less popular browsers? Doubtful. With the Adobe CDM work well, and bug free with out killing system resources under Linux x86? Doubtful (it will probably work, just not well)

So we are back to a world where only "approved" platforms are allowed to use the web fully, this is direct opposition to W3C's stated mission.

If Adobe's CDM can run while completely sandboxed from network and file access, then what if it was implemented in asm.js? Then "CDM.js" could be portable across all browser platforms and architectures. I'm not sure how well Firefox's JIT would optimize obfuscated asm.js code generated from obfuscated C++ code. :)

Disclosure: I used to work on Adobe's Flash Player team and I now work at Mozilla, so I have many conflicting personal and professional biases. :)

I'll admit this isn't my area of expertise, but how would this be possible?

In the case of Adobe's CDM and Mozilla, this is one of the points that was explicitly negotiated: the CDM will be running in a sandbox.

That's the silly example used in all of the pro-EME propaganda, but the standard also allows content providers to demand an encrypted path all the way to the video card, IIRC, thus bypassing the browser's ability to save content, and exposing a potentially insecure video driver to the CDM blob.

So either it doesn't work by design, or it's a rootkit's wetdream since all hardware is designed to be able to lock me out.

The goal of making Joe-Average choose between the official channels or some malware laden underground site is a perfectly pragmatic one on the parts of the licensors. They don't need to block the ilicit copying completely to see a benefit...

Especially when the costs of their 'protection' are predominately externalized onto the users (in the form of restricted freedoms, closed software, spyware, etc).

> The goal of making Joe-Average choose between the official channels or some malware laden underground site is a perfectly pragmatic one on the parts of the licensors.

Uh... what? The problem with DRM from a practical standpoint is that the effective technical means serve as an impediment to Mr Joe Average using his computer for perfectly allowed purposes - including at times playing the game. (Look at any major game launch recently for thousands of upset players because the DRM servers are overloaded.)

Secondly, you presented a strawman, since there are lots of non-malware-laden copies available online.

I'm not really against DRM per se, if there were some magic solution. Nor am I arguing that partially effective security measures are meaningless. I'm arguing that having encryption protected computing channels which deny the user override (or inspection) access are dangerous (duh! they go on malware laden websites, as you point out), and that any DRM which doesn't use such hardware level (or even low-level software) is no more effective than just setting a metadata flag saying it's copyrighted.

I get why companies want DRM, but that doesn't mean that I think giving in to their wishes is a good idea, when it both creates worse computer security problems and fails to solve the problem at a technical level.

A lot of people pirate things precisely because DRM is such a hassle.