NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] "VidMe" Announces Private Video Sharing -- But Fails Big Time
"VidMe" Announces Private Video Sharing -- But Fails Big Time
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000722.html
Greetings. I've said it often -- once data is on the Internet, never
assume that it can ever really be completely controlled or removed.
The latest example of this axiom in action is a new video service
announced ( http://bit.ly/aWCOHv [New York Times] ) with much fanfare
yesterday called "VidMe" ( http://vidme.com ).
Promoted as a sort of "privacy-enhanced" version of YouTube, the VidMe
spiel is that they provide a video hosting service where you can
control exactly who has access to your videos at any given time,
revoke video playback access whenever you want, prevent downloading
and forwarding of videos without your permission, and so on.
VidMe is attempting to tap into concerns regarding videos (potentially
embarrassing, or otherwise where public viewing is not desired) that
fall into the wrong hands or go unexpectedly and undesirably viral.
YouTube already provides three types of privacy control tiers (other
than the default of public access) -- private videos, group shared
videos, and the new (and very useful) "unlisted" video feature. VidMe
takes this a step farther with per-user granularity in access
controls, and reportedly implements some additional mechanisms to try
make it harder for persons to access or save copies of videos without
the owners' permissions.
Since VidMe is basically selling a promise of privacy, one would hope
that it could actually provide the advertised abilities for owners to
prevent unauthorized viewing or distribution of videos. This is
especially important since VidMe apparently plans to eventually charge
users to upload videos to the service, beyond a few free videos per
account.
But VidMe has some significant problems, not the least of which being
that they cannot deliver the level of video privacy and control that
they seem to be promising -- not due to any technical limitations in
their service per se, but rather because that kind of privacy control
is essentially unattainable in the current public Internet
environment.
The VidMe flash player seemed very slow to buffer and play with all
browsers that I tested. It hung, crashed, and burned whenever I tried
to play test VidMe videos under Google Chrome.
OK, that stuff almost certainly can be fixed. But a much bigger
problem for the VidMe "control your videos' distribution" business
model is that every single technique I tried to locally capture
displayed VidMe videos was fully successful without any difficulty
whatsoever.
Every video stream grabber utility that I executed was able to capture
and locally store both video and audio from VidMe playback streams.
There are some video sites that at least make this sort of stream
capture more difficult -- VidMe isn't one of them.
And just for chuckles (since the results seemed preordained) I also
easily captured VidMe playbacks using the freeware, "CamStudio Open
Source" package, which quickly and neatly enables high frame rate,
high-quality screen and audio grabs directly from display buffers --
no need to capture the actual data streams themselves
( http://bit.ly/aKHNTk [CamStudio] ).
In every case, in every test, I ended up with fine looking video
copies, complete with audio tracks, that I could -- if I had wished --
post anywhere or forward to anyone without restrictions.
My real gripe here is with how VidMe is promoting their service, and
the extent to which unsuspecting users who might not understand the
technical realities of Internet video could be painfully surprised if
they took VidMe's pitch at face value.
Common sense alone should remind us that if nothing else, anyone could
aim an inexpensive digital camcorder at a computer display and capture
a low-quality copy for distribution. And if VidMe wishes to assert
that most people don't have the stream or display capture software
that I used for testing, or wouldn't bother to use them, that's OK --
but at least dial back the promotional language that could easily
mislead many persons into believing VidMe provided a level of video
privacy and control that is simply impossible in the existing Internet
ecosystem.
VidMe's fine-grained site playback access controls do have value in
and of themselves, though I frankly have my doubts that their ultimate
pay-to-upload plan is viable from a business standpoint.
But make no mistake about it -- videos played via VidMe, just like
from every other video site on the Net, can be captured and
redistributed without permission -- one way or another.
Love it or hate it -- that's just the way it is.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein