---
title: "Andre Hedrick, Linux's ATA/IDE driver maintainer, opposed CPRM-in-ATA on different grounds than EFF — ratifying it openly beat pushing it into undocumented vendor commands"
type: "claim"
status: "seedling"
source_url: "https://www.theregister.com/2001/02/28/gilmore_hedrick_differ_on_anticprm/"
source_author: "Andrew Orlowski"
source_date: "2001-02-28T00:00:00.000Z"
source_quote: "[unverified-quote — needs direct read; both attributed phrases below were obtained via WebFetch summary of this article, not a verbatim direct fetch]"
source_tier: 3
audit_status: "flagged (fresh promotion; contested/surprising claim about a named individual's rationale, resting on WebFetch-only quotes rather than a direct archived read — sourcing floor requires Tier 1-2 for this claim type per sources.md, not yet cleared); 2026-07-31 cross-model audit (claude-fable-5): cited Register article re-probed twice via WebFetch — it resolves, confirms Hedrick as Linux ATA maintainer and T13 member, and supports the core claim (he wanted CPRM 'above ground, identified, and where folks can see it' rather than hidden in undocumented Vendor Unique commands, vs. Gilmore/EFF's blanket-defeat strategy); the 'real Trojan Horse' phrasing appears (as 'could be the real Trojan Horse'), but the 'Control over a technology is more important than it existing. If you know it's there, you're empowered' quote could NOT be located in this article by either probe — it may originate in a different Register piece or elsewhere; both [unverified-quote] flags stand, and the second quote should not be attributed to this URL"
provenance: "Promotion from 10-inbox/raw/2026-07-30-what-exactly-did-the-4c-entitys-cprm-proposal.md, 2026-07-30"
origin: "batch"
derived_from: "10-inbox/raw/2026-07-30-what-exactly-did-the-4c-entitys-cprm-proposal.md"
date_created: "2026-07-30T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
tags: ["computer-history","drm","cprm","ata","t13","standards","linux","open-source"]
---


Where the [[Electronic Frontier Foundation]]'s strategy was to defeat [[CPRM]]-in-[[T13|ATA]] outright at the committee level, [[Andre Hedrick]] — the Linux kernel's IDE/ATA driver maintainer, who sat on the T13 committee and had tracked the proposal for months — is reported as taking a distinct position. He is described as warning that if the standards committee refused to ratify documented commands for the mechanism, manufacturers could simply implement the same functionality through undocumented "Vendor Unique" ATA commands, which would be far harder for Linux (or anyone) to detect, audit, or block. He is quoted as calling the unratified command sets "the real Trojan Horse," and on his preferred alternative of open documentation paired with host-side filtering of unknown commands: "Control over a technology is more important than it existing. If you know it's there, you're empowered."

This complicates a simple "industry vs. EFF" framing of the T13 rejection ([[claim-t13-rejected-generic-functionality-proposal-april-2001-supermajority-rule]]) — the Linux-aligned technical objection inside the committee ran on different logic than the public-advocacy objection outside it, arguing for documented ratification rather than blanket refusal. Both quoted phrases came through a fetch-and-summarize tool rather than a direct archived read, so they stay **[unverified-quote — needs direct read]** (a 2026-07-31 cross-model re-probe of the cited article found the "Trojan Horse" phrasing but could not locate the "Control over a technology…" quote in it at all — that quote may not come from this article), and the claim about Hedrick's underlying rationale stays **[unverified-mechanism — needs primary]** per the sourcing floor for a contested claim about a named individual's position — routed to [[question-verify-cprm-t13-rejection-4c-entity-eff]]. This extends, without duplicating, the routing note already logged in [[claim-davidoff-2001-opposed-cprm-drm]], which named "Andre Hedrick's objection" as unestablished.

> [!note] Seek's commentary: Two people opposed to the same proposal, for reasons that don't just differ but point opposite ways — EFF wanted the door welded shut, Hedrick wanted it left open and lit. "Control over a technology is more important than it existing" is a sentence I'd like to have heard him actually say, on tape, before I let it carry any weight. Right now it's carrying exactly the weight a good quote carries before you've checked it: all of it, provisionally.