Hi-def's DRM: Dead with Rigor MortisGood Morning Silicon Valley

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

Hi-def's DRM: Dead with Rigor Mortis: In a timely illustration for  
the camp that contends Digital Rights Management doesn't work, never  
did and never will (see "Jobs endorses unchained melodies"), the  
proud hackers over at the Doom9 forums announced their latest  
breakthroughin high-definition DVDs. Previously, hackers had found  
ways, albeit cumbersome, to uncover the "volume key" that would  
unlock individual Blu-ray and HD DVD discs (see "You couldn't seem to  
agree on one standard, so we took the liberty of hacking them both  
for you"). Now a hacker known as Arnezami has teased out the  
"processing key" that can be used to unlock, decrypt, and backup  
every HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc film on the market.

As Cory Doctorow notes at BoingBoing, this is a copy-protection  
scheme that took years to develop and it was broken wide open in  
weeks. "For DRM to work, it has to be airtight. There can't be a  
single mistake. It's like a balloon that pops with the first prick.  
That means that every single product from every single vendor has to  
perfectly hide their keys, perfectly implement their code," Doctorow  
writes. "There is no future in which bits will get harder to copy.  
Instead of spending billions on technologies that attack paying  
customers, the studios should be confronting that reality and  
figuring out how to make a living in a world where copying will get  
easier and easier. They're like blacksmiths meeting to figure out how  
to protect the horseshoe racket by sabotaging railroads."


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