I clipped this from InformationWeek's
1. Editor's Note: DRM Scorecard: Hackers Batting 1,000, Industry Zero
Forget the moral questions: Whether the millions of kids who load up their iPods from LimeWire are thieves, or whether there's something incongruous about Sheryl Crow, a millionaire many times over, railing against piracy. When you look at the technology, there's no getting around the fact that DRM is an abject failure. I put together a scorecard that shows that every single significant attempt at consumer-music DRM has been cracked. Here it is:
CSS: Cracked
The 10-year-old Content Scrambling System employed on early DVDs is such a technological relic at this point that CrunchGear recently reported this: "According to the Finnish courts, CSS is so weak that it doesn't even count as a protective measure anymore."
FairPlay: Cracked
In a game of iPod cat and mouse, the DRM system used in iTunes' music has been repeatedly cracked and then "fixed" by Apple. Last fall, the cracking program called QTFairUse6 had been updated so it could continue to perform its DRM-stripping duties within hours after Apple released iTunes 7.
AACS: Cracked
There's been no update from the Advanced Access Content System people on the cracking of their AACS DRM, which is used in the new high-definition HD DVD and Blu-ray DVDs, since May 7. That was the date the AACS publicized its response to the news that the crack of its DRM had been widely posted on the Web, saying it had "requested the removal solely of illegal circumvention tools, including encryption keys, from a number of Web sites."
In response to the crack, AACS-compliant vendors are apparently looking at both key revocation and the use of digital watermarks as the answer to their problems. Hey, why don't they just take a page from a World War II movie and issue a daily codebook?
Windows Media DRM: Cracked
The widely circulated crack comes in the form of a program called FairUse4M. The first iteration of this crack worked with Windows Media Player 10 under Windows XP, but for a long time wouldn't work on Vista. Alas, FairUse4M has now been updated to crack WMP11 running on Vista.
Most recently, the cracking of Windows Media DRM has thrown a bit of a monkey wrench into the BBC's plans to release its iPlayer. However, like true Brits, they're soldiering on and releasing it, possibly convinced that it's not much use worrying about what those stupid Americans are up to with their software schemes, anyway.
Sony-BMG Rootkit: Busted
The big DRM scandal of 2005, this one wasn't so much cracked as it was kicked to the curb. The unhappy recap: A bunch of Sony CDs were equipped with either XCP or MediaMax copy-protection software. Unbeknownst to users, XCP installed concealed software ("rootkits") on users' PCs. MediaMax sent user info over the Internet. The whole mess was a big scandal for Sony, resulting in a spate of legal activity, the most recent instance being a suit filed by Sony against the developer of MediaMax.
The one major online music DRM technology about which I couldn't find any definitive cracking information is Rhapsody DNA, used by the RealNetworks subscription music service. Regardless of the status here, since Rhapsody, while nice, isn't rocking the online music world, I think it's safe to say I've made my point.
What do you think? Are the hackers winning? Does industry stand a chance? Read my blog for more on this topic, and make sure to post your feedback, too.
Alexander Wolfe
awolfe@cmp.com
www.informationweek.com
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