Netflix on Android

http://blog.netflix.com/2010/11/netflix-on-android.html

by tortilla • 16 years ago

51 40 16 years ago

blog.netflix.com

waterlesscloud3• 16 years ago

I assume this is the same reasoning for not having Netflix streaming available on Linux.

YooLi5• 16 years ago

Netflix chose MSFT's Silverlight for handling PC streaming. Lack of silverlight on Linux is the problem.

waterlesscloud3• 16 years ago

Step 2 would be to ask why Silverlight is so important to them.

azim• 16 years ago

Silverlight 2 is supported on Linux by Moonlight as of late 2009. However, the implementation is lacking support for Microsoft's PlayReady DRM.

naner• 16 years ago

Netflix is available on Roku, GoogleTV, and the Boxee Box which all run Linux kernels. Lack of DRM is the problem. I believe the interface is authored on top of Qt and DRM is handled by special hardware in these devices.

RK2• 16 years ago

Of course Roku runs Linux.

nkurz5• 16 years ago

Could someone who understands the technical issues explain the details better? While perfect security is of course impossible, I would think that a 'secure' flash player could basically be grabbed off-the-shelf. And I haven't really thought about it, but I don't understand why a native app would be that hard. I presume the goal is just to make it difficult to record the movies to disk?

mattparcher• 16 years ago

I agree. Clarification would be especially appreciated for:

The hurdle has been the lack of a generic and complete platform security and content protection mechanism available for Android. The same security issues that have led to piracy concerns on the Android platform have made it difficult for us to secure a common Digital Rights Management (DRM) system on these devices.

nutjob123• 16 years ago

Are they only willing to use copy protection designed by the makers of the operating system they are using? I'm just speculating but this seems to be the case for ps3, xbox, wii, mac, pc, ipad.

mortenjorck• 16 years ago

I never thought about it like that, but now that you mention it, it does seem a likely pattern.

It's especially plausible because it frees Netflix from responsibility for content protection systems across platforms -- if one of the targets is compromised, the studios have to deal with the hardware vendor, not Netflix.

YooLi5• 16 years ago

They are more than willing, it is what they require. That is what he is saying is the problem. Android has none 'built in', so in order to bring the app to a handset, the manufacturer of the handset has to provide it.

bigmac5• 16 years ago

There are certain specs that anyone implementing a video streaming/content delivery service must comply with. The studios mandate that certain specs be followed, and an engineer has to sign off that they've implemented the DRM spec correctly. For an example, look at DTCP-IP (http://www.dtcp.com/)

The specs mandate usage of certain types of encryption algorithms, key lengths, key expirations, etc. All the data that is sent over the wire is encrypted, so that no one using a packet sniffer can trivially obtain the unencrypted video. Thus, from the point of view of the attacker, the problem becomes extracting the encryption keys from the software and using that to decrypt the sniffed traffic.

Every device/software module ends up having a some root key that must be seriously obfuscated, because that key provides the security for the entire system. It must be embedded in the software or hardware. If its in hardware the problem is easier, because it cannot be disassembled and discovered as readily. In software, the problem is more challenging. Some form of White-Box Cryptography has to be used.

So, a secure flash player or a native app is only the first step in the solution. The whole key management system has to be built or provided by a 3rd party library. Google doesn't have such a library built in to Android. After you have the library, all kinds of nasty tricks have to be used on the library itself. Generally, the goal is to prevent debugging and code modification. The tactics used are very similar to what malware authors use to protect their malware from reverse engineering.

nkurz5• 16 years ago

Are the requirements for Hulu different than those for Netflix? Or is the Hulu solution flash plus a hardened native library of the sort you describe. I guess my confusion is why Netflix couldn't do the same.

My instinct is that key exchange is tricky but a solved problem, that the encryption itself is trivial once you have the keys, that true security is impossible without hardware support (TPM), that analog holes will always exist, and that the current hard part is preventing someone from swiping your digital video stream on its way to the screen. Does this seem accurate?

chewbranca• 16 years ago

I'm not exactly sure what the underlying issue is on android devices, but at least for linux desktops, the problem is netflix uses silverlight which does have support for DRM, whereas the linux version moonlight does not. It could be a similar issue for flash on android devices, although that is just speculation on my part. All I know for sure is that I'm anxiously waiting netflix on both linux and android. I currently use a windows VM to watch netflix from my computer. On a similar note, one of the most appealing things to me about the ipad is that it does have netflix support. I would love to see it supported on android tablets.

tomjen3• 16 years ago

Thats just stupid - people can download all their content of p2p networks, but not get it legally?

Smart move, people, smart move.

cscotta• 16 years ago

I've read through this post a few times and am having some difficulty understanding both the original problem and the solution that Greg is suggesting.

From what I can gather, it seems that Netflix's product development team is frustrated to find that there is no integrated support for DRM'd media streams provided by the OS. From here, he jumps to the conclusion that the best approach is working with individual handset manufacturers to patch in support for this at the OS or kernel level. This is difficult to understand.

It's an operating system. You build things on top of it. One does not go to every PC manufacturer to add a "feature" to one.

Spectres of "fragmentation" aside, let's remember that these phones are real computers running a real Linux-based OS that run real software, written in real programming languages like C, Java, and Scala. They also have support for encrypted transports like SSL and high-quality video codecs like H.264. Heck, Adobe's even done it - secure content streaming on Android is possible, and works fine (speaking strictly of the transport and decoding layer - leave it to the bloggeurs to hash over what happens when you paint content on a screen).

These facts suggest that implementing secure DRM'd video streams and a player for them is not only possible, but much easier than working directly with two of the most backward-facing industries in technology now (film studios and mobile phone providers) to add this functionality.

sukuriant• 16 years ago

I direct you to the nutjob123 conversation tree on this very topic, starting here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1901128

bigmac5• 16 years ago

The problem comes down to key-hiding. You can encrypt it all you want but if the attacker can extract the key from the software the game is over.

Working with the mobile phone providers, you can embed the root key in hardware. This makes it more difficult to extract. Straight software solutions exist, but are typically provided 3rd parties or by the OS vendors themselves. The software solutions are obviously more convenient, for the reasons you've alluded to.

Netflix gets to make lots of money exactly because they do the hard work of working with the backward-facing industries.

wmf• 16 years ago

But why is Android any worse than, say, Windows XP in this respect?

RK2• 16 years ago

I just want an official queue manager app from Netflix for Android.

irons• 16 years ago

I'm not sure you do -- queue management in the official iOS app is lousy, and streaming-only to boot (except on the iPad, where it just presents a slow webview of the Netflix site).

iPhlix has its problems, but is a much better overall package, and an indie development effort.

FiddlerClamp• 16 years ago

I'm surprised by this. Overdrive (http://www.overdrive.com/software/omc/) seems to be able to handle 'loaning' MP3s out to Android phones, so there must be some internal DRM involved that they're satisfied with.

teilo• 16 years ago

And this is why DRM is a a threat to open source. Consider what this means: Want Netflix? You need DRM. Want DRM? Say goodbye to your open-source kernel.

Netflix on Android

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