19 May
2014
19 May
'14
4:30 p.m.
Am 19.05.2014 um 17:53 schrieb Carl Hetherington:
I imagine the major problem might be trust in tieing
certificates to particular cinemas and screens. If Alice said
"Here is the certificate for Screen 1 in `My Great Cinema' in York,
England"
(and she was telling the truth) but then Mallory said "Here is
the certificate for Screen 1 in `My Great Cinema' in York,
England" (and he was lying): who do you believe? If you believe
Mallory, he could use that trust to obtain KDMs for his
equipment that were not due to him.
As Malcolm then would not have access to that equipment, he could not do anything bad with
the KDM. Of course, it could be used to some sort of 'denial-of-service' abuse,
KDM/certificate highjacking, etc.
We had a similar incident when our Sony was installed last year. We had been communicated
serial numbers before we actually received our equipment, so that we could prepare for KDM
delivery as fast as possible. We communicated the serial numbers to a few service
companies and were then notified that these numbers had been 'registered' the same
day by another cinema nearby, receiving the same machine type the same day. It turned out,
that our integrator received the wrong serial numbers from Sony, and forwarded them to us,
so that particular serial number and certificate was to be registered twice. As a matter
of fact it seems that most if not all service companies have databases or software
mechanisms that are able to detect doubles. Since currently for germany there are only a
handful of KDM issuing companies, it is usually not a big problem to sort things out on
the telefone. Usually registration is on a 'first come, first served' basis, so
anyone trying to highjack a serial number or certificate later will face an inquiry or be
notified that this certificate has been registered before.
Anyone buying used gear should therefore prepare a paper to be signed from the seller,
acknowledging the sale and the transfer of the specific serial number/certificate to the
new owner to speed up things.
Currently this only involves server-side media blocks or IMBs, but later will include
projector heads and sound processors (ATMOS) as well.
A few years ago we had only three or four service companies dealing with DCPs and KDMs for
germany. Usually after installation, the cinema integrator served as an authority to
confirm the installation of the specific gear and communicated the serials/certificates to
these. Today it's a bit more complicated.
- Carsten