The VR industry is growing by the day and HTC is moving to protect its Vive from an inevitable issue: content piracy.
The Taiwanese company partnered with France-based Inside Secure to help prevent VR piracy. Inside offers a range of different security solutions for web-based operations, though this deal is specifically to prevent illegally obtaining Vive content.
But what does any of this actually mean? I spoke with Inside Secure’s Vice President of Content Management, Cyrille Ngalle, who revealed some of the implications of the deal. He revealed that the company had designed a custom solution for HTC, based off of some of its more traditional security offerings.
“So we created an encryption system for them to encrypt their content on their server,” Ngalle said. “And then they expose those contents and the keys associated to that to the client that runs on their headsets…the idea is really to protect the execution environment of the content of the device so that it is not easily reap-able.”
Apparently, the system was developed fresh due to the early nature of VR itself. It includes systems like anti-reverse engineering and memory preservation that will keep people from getting their hands on VR content in any other way than a straight up transaction.
This begs the question; where is HTC actually using Inside Secure’s services? Ngalle didn’t know for sure, as he said clients usually keep specific details under wraps. We’ve reached out to HTC for clarification, though it’s most likely been integrated into the company’s own VR storefront, Viveport. Though many of us head to Steam to get our Vive games, HTC is beginning to make a push for its own service, and it’ll need to offer watertight security solutions if it wants to have any chance of establishing a firm foothold.
Perhaps HTC isn’t the only VR company in need of piracy protection; Oculus opened its Rift up to potential issues earlier this year when it added security measures that blocked a hack that allowed Vive owners to run Rift games on their own headsets. The hack’s creators quickly found a workaround which opened up the Oculus Store to piracy, though the company later backtracked on its stance and the hack returned to allow Vive access to Oculus store content.
