I work for a software testing company. One of my projects is to build video boxes that play copyrighted, licensed movies in a loop 24/7. I am trying to talk them into using Linux instead of Windows XP. What kinds of things can be done to protect all that content from anyone trying to take it.

I need to convince these guys that Linux can do it better so give me a hand!

as long as there is no way make copies with it,or have a way to tap into the signal easily, i don't see how it would be a problem.

Well, there is a USB port and an Ethernet port on these boxes as well as a phone port. They want to use Windows Media Player 9 because it has DRM. They write a script which logs on to the server and gets a new license. This license expires after a month and has to be renewed for the content to keep playing. If I just copy the content to the HD, anyone with a little knowhow could access the drive and download all the content and sell it. If I write a shell script to run the content, the root password would have to be used to access it and that password would be in the script. I should mention that these boxes are pllugged in and turned on by hotel owners who often don't know any more about computers than to push the power button. I cannot have them log on as root and run the content then log back out. So I don't think permissions are going to help.

put the script in a monthly cron job to dial in for the update? another script to check if the authorization has been dl'ed to control the video player . put whatever you need to start automagically in runlevel 5. could be made a totally automatic one on/off switch system.

I thought of cron. I know they want the content's license to expire so whoever has the box has to pay before the license can be renewed. I wish I knew how MS DRM worked. It would make it easier to know what to look for. One of my collegues said that the WMV files may be recieving encryption of some sort so that without a key they cannot be played and that key can expire. Not sure.

Nevermind. They want to stick with Windows. Oh well.

yeah, it would be harder if someone else controls the data. if it was your feed, you could control how it's sent and accessed.