Re: [-empyre-] content encryption

[Felix Sattler <felix@querformarte.de>]

Dear all,

adam wrote:
> What's the problem?
> Problem 1 : Content Encryption
> Most audio and video content on the web is encoded by proprietary 
> codecs.
>
> This means that almost all content encoded for artistic, cultural or
> independent media purposes is encrypted. Encrypted in the sense that 
> the
> content has been converted to a closed file format which can only be
> 'decrypted' by media players that have the requisite licensed 
> algorithms
> (codecs). Hence the owners of these algorithms (Thompson and 
> Fraunhofer,
> Microsoft, Real Networks etc) own the key to the content. It is not a
> public key, it.s a closed proprietary key. You, the content producer,
> cannot unlock your encrypted file (content) unless you do so with the
> appropriate media player software. These player softwares are usually
> created by the software house that owns the codec, or by a
> third party who licence the key (codec) to unlock (decode) and play 
> your
> file.

Software such as Soundhack or similar, even the commercial ones as 
Wavelab permit open up any file as
raw data and will play it back as audio. You can do the same with 
images in image manipulation software.
The results are often beyond the scope of mere white noise, especially 
the images develop interesting and divers patterns.
I wonder if you could do this with streaming content encoded with a 
proprietary codec?
One possible outcome could be that the codec reveals its own aesthetic 
of encryption - means no matter what you encode the outcome will be 
more or less the same. but probably there will be an (perhaps only 
vague and underlying) presence of the original content in there - 
retaining its originality even if it bears no resemblance to the source.

Do you know if that is something that has been addressed in somebody's 
work already?

Felix