The smart cow problem is the concept that, when a group of individuals is faced with a technically difficult task, only one of their members has to solve it. When the problem has been solved once, an easily repeatable method may be developed, allowing the less technically proficient members of the group to accomplish the task.
The term smart cow problem is thought to be derived from the expression: "It only takes one smart cow to open the latch of the gate, and then all the other cows follow."
This concept has been applied to
digital rights management
Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted work ...
(DRM), where, due to the rapid spread of information on the Internet, it only takes one individual's defeat of a DRM scheme to render the method obsolete.
See also
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Jon Lech Johansen
Jon Lech Johansen (born November 18, 1983 in Harstad, Norway), also known as DVD Jon, is a Norwegian programmer who has worked on reverse engineering data formats. He wrote the DeCSS software, which decodes the Content Scramble System used for ...
(aka "DVD Jon", among the first hackers to crack
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
encryption)
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Script kiddie
A script kiddie, skiddie, kiddie, or skid is an unskilled individual who uses scripts or programs developed by others, primarily for malicious purposes.
Characteristics
In a Carnegie Mellon report prepared for the U.K. Department of Defense in 2 ...
(an unskilled hacker who relies on tools created by others)
References
Digital rights management
Hacker culture
Technology neologisms
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