Ed Felten writes about his attempt to find out about the VEIL content protect technology specified in the Sensenbrenner/Conyers bill that would mandate that electronic devices plug the “analog hole.” (The analog hole is the fact that analog playback can be converted into digits. E.g., point a digital camcorder at a movie screen. Or, play a DRM’ed mp3 on your computer and use digital recording software to intercept the analog signal on its way to your speakers. More here , here and here.)

Ed contacted that company that sells VEIL and asked for a copy of the specification. He was told that that was no problem so long as he ponied up $10,000 and agreed not to talk about the spec. And that was only for the decoder side of the tech. The encoder stuff is too secret for anyone to see at any price.

So, Congress may pass a law that mandates a privately-owned technical spec that citizens aren’t allowed to see and expert citizens aren’t allowed to evaluate. Ed wonders whether even Congress has been allowed to see it. (And if they did, do we trust Congress to perform the required technical analysis?)

Says Ed: “We’re talking about television here, not national security.” [Tags: digitalRights analogHole]

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