Set Digital Music Free 235
The latest issue of EFF's newsletter covers the HackSDMI challenge. Probably not surprisingly, they're urging the same thing as Don Marti, who Salon interviewed.Update: 09/19 3:33 PM by michael : The RIAA, EFF, and 2600.com debated SDMI on Pacifica radio today.
Don Marti steps down (Score:3)
Cracking with 'rules' (Score:1)
How difficult would it be for them to say that your crack broke one of their 'rules'?
Re:Why not pull a DeCSS (Score:1)
Everyone gets down on companies for not doing peer review around here, so when some finally do come forward and ask for assistance, they're refused... It's almost childish.
If you really want to set out and show that it wont' be effective, or can't be effective, sit down with them now and demonstrate it to that effect. Who know's maybe they'll listen and realize that they're embarking on a fruitless quest, if that's what the case turns out to be.
Another take on the story (Score:4)
I am rather partial to this editoral [theregister.co.uk] myself.
so close and yet so far (Score:2)
Re:Don Marti steps down (Score:1)
Leonardo Chiariglione, executive director of the Secure Digital Music Initiative, said "thousands" of people have responded to the SDMI's contest
Actually, he meant slashdotted~!
Re:Don Marti steps down (Score:2)
Only if it isn't secure. (Score:4)
The goal is to have no eyeballs look at this until it is ratified. This increases our chance that once they force this down everyone's throats someone can find a hole.
Remember, if the system is really secure there isn't much we as hackers can do. 128 bit encryption is 128 bit encryption, and baring major advances is unbreakable to hackers. Let the music industry get a strangle hold on the people with a new standard and there isn't much we can do to lossen it technologicaly.
Of course there is the other way to look at this: help make this standard as secure as possibal. Then keep reminging people that you used to be able to copy music for your own purposes, and legally you still can. When people get mad congress does listen, and they can force the industry to release the ability for everyone to take advantage of fair use. Grass roots politics is where things get done in the US, so join a political party that mostly thinks like you, and get things done. (It doesn't have to be the republicrats, but a major party gives you a better shot of getting your canidate elected in exchange for some lesser issues going against you)
The test files.... (Score:2)
wonder why this never got posted (Score:1)
Here is an alternative view on this whole affair.
Read this article [theregister.co.uk] on Register
Though it seems like flamebait, some of the points seem valid
One nit on EFF's letter (Score:3)
Irrelevant (Score:3)
Yesterday's Forrester report on the new Nomad reiterates the commonly held view that SDMI is irrelevant:
"SDMI is too late to make a difference. Net users see access to free music as a key benefit of digitally downloading music. While the Jukebox is hardware-ready to support SDMI -- the security rules developed by the music industry's Secure Digital Music Initiative -- owners will ignore secure, paid-for music downloads and opt for the free version."
I don't have any problem paying for music, but I am going to continue to rip my CD's to use the unrestricted MP3 file format, rather than use watermarked SDMI files. Flexibility and convenience is very important to me as a music consumer. And there will always be music players for unrestricted formats.
Corby
Published Method..Right? (Score:1)
-Pete
Why? (Just like a 2 year old) (Score:5)
Why do we need "secure digital music"?
CDs and MP3 files seem to do just a fine job of handling my music needs, there seems to be nothing missing.
Would this initiative secure funding for the artists, or offer new capabilities for the listeners that don't currently exist?
Would this allow me to secure my music by getting access to it if the media it came on was damaged?
How does this guarantee my right to fair use under existing copyright laws?
--Mike--
Re:Why not pull a DeCSS (Score:2)
No matter what the results of this challenge, the industry would never admit that it can't be done. If technical means can not accomplish it, then they will employ strongarm legal tactics. Either way, personal freedoms will bow to corporate interests.
repeat after me: Hacking contests are STUPID (Score:2)
Or a well known hacker group!
Their avarice shows their stupidity. This is twice as nonsense compared to brute-force hacking for testing crypto security.
And if you want to crack RIIA's crypto for fame, wait till it is widely used, then crack it and get fame ;)
NO, that will make things worse. (Score:3)
Guess what? They know that already.
DDoS isn't going to do anything except make our reputation *worse*. What we need to do is boycott the challenge, and be very, very vocal about *WHY* we are boycotting the challenge -- not that we can't do it, but that we won't do their dirty work for them until and unless they decide that it's time to play nice.
Re:Lies. (Score:1)
Don't bother (Score:1)
In other words, security through obscurity. End of story.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
Re:Cracking with 'rules' (Score:1)
Perhaps a secure format has a place (Score:5)
Now, I think most of us fear that if secure initiatives come out:
1) they WON'T be used wisely. We might be forced to pay per every viewing/listening/reading.
2) that it will somehow be made illegal and/or very difficult to freely view/distribute stuff you actually have the rights to.
It seems to me that #1 is possible, but that if we start fighting the battle from the other end (#2),
we might be able to make a lot more headway with conservative policy makers AND preserve the freedoms that are truly important. Remember, the GPL doesn't stop Intellectual Property from existing under the law, and make everything free. It (and other free licences) just makes Free Software possible.
We are fighting the battle for #2 in a number of places (DeCSS I think falls in this category), but we're also wasting a lot of time on #1. Given a chance, I think secure initiatives might find a fair place next to free alternatives.
Re:Only if it isn't secure. (Score:5)
If there's one thing I learned from reading Secrets and Lies [slashdot.org], it's that there is ALWAYS a hole in the system somewhere.
The players for this format will always be unsecure, because we'll have physical access to them, and can take them apart and tweak as much as we want. In order to be playable on an infinite number of players, there has to be a global secret, locked up in the hardware (just like the DVD keys), that secret WILL be reveiled, and probably in a shockingly short amount of time.
It's not possible to lock things up the way the RIAA wants to, they should devote their energies to their original mission, assuming it had something to do with promoting music, and let this issue drop!
--Mike--
Re:Another take on the story (Score:1)
CueCat.... (Score:1)
Re:The test files.... (Score:3)
Of course if I happen to have a monkey day and do crack it......I'll be waiting for launch time:-) About the only thing this competition should guarantee is that everything will be broken even quicker than before!
Will someone READ the SDMI challenge? (Score:3)
Also, you don't give them expertise, as nothing forces you to explain how you hacked their stuff if you did.
Whether you like the idea that SDMI are trying to implement or not, a public challenge is always a good thing. And they are actually giving up a rather convenient and powerful way to test their algorithms...
Finally, the best way to prevent SDMI from existing is certainly to undertake their challenge and to break the schemes. Otherwise, they'll implement it, and maybe it will be broken afterward, but bypassing it then may involve more complicated legal issues...
Re:Another take on the story (Score:2)
Nice try, but try again
Comment removed (Score:4)
BREAK AND ASK MORE MONEY (Score:1)
You could break it and ask for 100.000 or more instead of 10.000 of their change.
It is needed desperately, they would have to pay you! Crack, get a lawyer, get em' pay a fair price. ;)
This is NOT a nonprofit organization helping citizens, but a front of huge multi-billion dollar corporations.
click-through SUCKS (Score:3)
http://hacksdmi.org/hackDownload.asp
I'm not sure if the agreement prevents me from telling others how to circumvent it, but I don't really care that much.
Have a nice day.
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Re:Copyright works, because people are greedy (Score:1)
I salute you.
SDMI is not uncrackable (Score:5)
If the "crack SDMI" goes on for 3, 6, 9 months, even a year, without being cracked, it doesn't prove anything. There is no such thing as an uncrackable algorithm. The Germans thought Enigma was uncrackable, they were wrong. The MPAA thought CSS was uncrackable, and they were wrong. Now the RIAA is trying to build anther "uncrackable" code. And they're going to find out in a year, two years, 5 years, whatever, that they're dead wrong as well. The best that the RIAA can hope for is making the encryption such that it can't be cracked brute-force by today's computers. How long have CDs been around? 20 years or so? How far has computing technology gone in that time? Will computers sometime during the life of SDMI be enough to do a brute-force attack against SDMI? I'd wager yes.
They aughta go read "Applied Cryptography" and just give up. SDMI is irrelevant, CD-Audio will take years to catch on. MP3 is here, working, popular, and sufficient for most users.
PS, I just proved that SDMI can (and will) be cracked. Send me my $10k.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Another take on the story (Score:3)
If DVD's & CSS were just software, then no-one would care that it was hacked. Hundreds of games have had their protection broken, and no-one has ever been sued over that. However, in order to put a new version of protection code means replacing all the existing players, either meaning an expensive recall, or pissing off the existing customers, and no-one is prepared to make either move.
Re:Why? (Just like a 2 year old) (Score:2)
"And the horse you rode in on...."
Just ignore 'em all. Much like the financial community, the old way of doing business is quickly running out, and they're not adapting fast enough. These guys have failed to realize that we don't need them any more. I can interact, listen to and pay the artists directly without the middle man. This is all a last gasp effort to keep from losing out.
I hope that over the next 5 years, more and more artists start to recognize this trend, and we will start having more choices available to us, but there are a couple of hurdles left to overcome.
We have the music format, we have the inital rudimentary players (but it can get better, you gotta admit). Now we need an easy way to get to the music and pay for it (I know, there are solutions right now, but they are disjoint and confusing to non geeks and artists alike), and we need a easier payment system (giving credit cards to every 11 year old who wants the new Brittney Spears is not the answer).
Re:SDMI is not uncrackable (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:Don Marti steps down (Score:5)
Here's what you say:
Here's what the articl e [zdnet.com] that you link to says:
and, later:
This might suggest some unfortunate waffling on Marti's part. But it's not exactly the strongest evidence for your statement. Do you have any other source?
--J. Bruce Fields
Anyone for civil disobedience? (Score:2)
Assuming you could get the numbers, how about a "CD double-burning rally": as a public act of disobedience, set up a number of CD burners. Make copies (in open format) for anyone who shows up with a blank CD and a copy of any CD they might own. They can then throw the original in a nice bonfire (or not). People who have already made their own burns can just show up to flash their heinously illegal copies (snigger) in the face of Big Business and/or have an original platter roast.
You've got to admit, it's the sort of protest that gets eyeballs in local media.
-TBHiX-
Let's wait .... (Score:2)
How to break the system: (Score:2)
Warning, I've found that you can't daisy chain more than 4 of these CD dongles without losing control of your printer... playlists out the windows!
SDMI are Cheap Bastards (Score:4)
Okay, let's see here: SDMI want me to test the strength of their proposed security measures, measures on which the entire future of the music industry's electronic offerings will be based. An industry that earned over $16 billion in profits last year.
...And they're only offering me $10,000. And they want me to do it "on spec".
How very typical of the music industry. What cheap bastards.
Tell you what, SDMI: Crank the prize offering by at least three orders of magnitude, and we'll talk...
Schwab
Re:Irrelevant (Score:3)
I am going to continue to rip my CD's to use the unrestricted MP3 file format
Please remember MP3 is not an unrestricted format, and there are better (as in quality as well as freedom) alternatives, such as Ogg Vorbis [vorbis.com].
Personally, I'm very anxiously awaiting the Vorbis encoder to finish its beta stages and start being heavily optimized for quality and speed.
Sure, MP3 over SDMI, but OGG over both
--
Re:Perhaps a secure format has a place (Score:2)
This was tried before, for DVDs. It was called DIVX (though I may have capitalization and/or punctuation incorrect). Consumers voted a resounding NO . Same with music. NO .
As for your other comments on what might actually happen if ... secure initiatives come out:
1) they WON'T be used wisely. We might be forced to pay per every viewing/listening/reading.
2) that it will somehow be made illegal and/or very difficult to freely view/distribute stuff you actually have the rights to.
Depends on whose definition of "wise" you mean. In capitalism, producers create things to make money. In the past, this has always meant that a product was sold to a consumer. Today, every content producer wants to move us toward a pay-per-use/pay-per-view system as you rightly suspect.
In my opinion this would be a Bad Thing. But how do we stop it? I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader. (Translation: minimize government.)
Re:One nit on EFF's letter (Score:5)
As Courtney Love points out in detail [salon.com], artists aren't eating under the current system. Artists may well do better giving away MP3s and asking for tips and making money from concert tours than under the current system. As she says:
Re:click-through SUCKS (Score:2)
You need to agree to the Terms and Conditions before continuing.
Page source here:
<html>
<head>
<title>Download/Upload Page</title>
<LINK REL=stylesheet HREF="css.css" TYPE="text/css">
</head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<body>
<p>You need to agree to the Terms and Conditions before continuing.</p>
</body>
</html>
They either fixed it after you posted or you always had to click through the terms.
But who cares, ignore it and have fun.
Visit DC2600 [dc2600.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:One nit on EFF's letter (Score:3)
Bruce
Re:Perhaps a secure format has a place (Score:2)
point is that if you give me a copy of your song in whatever format,
either it is in principle possible for me to play it, in which case I
can copy it, or it is not. Self-destructive media is not the same as
self-destructive information.
The media companies don't want to change the way they work to fit
this fact, so they are trying all kinds of strageties to get around
it. All of them have problems:
fact (vain hope) that no-one breaks ranks.
This screws up fair use.
of privacy.
If the companies can either adjust their economic model, or come up
with a model of restrictions which doesn't have obnoxious
side-effects, then good for them. But until then, they deserve their
bad press.
Re:click-through SUCKS (Score:4)
I don't see any cookie required to view the page... so maybe I'll link directly to the downloads:
download a [hacksdmi.org]
download b [hacksdmi.org]
download c [hacksdmi.org]
download d [hacksdmi.org]
download e [hacksdmi.org]
download f [hacksdmi.org]
And, in case those don't work, I will have mirror up soon enough at diddl.firehead.org/censor/hacksdmi.o rg [firehead.org] with no license agreements necessary for download.
Have a nice day.
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Re:SDMI is not uncrackable (Score:2)
Why a boycott is good (Score:2)
Quite the contrary. By poking holes in the SDMI in its early stages, we help make it more ironclad for when it is actually rolled out. By hacking it now, you're not getting egg on their face. You're not making them look dumb. Even if it's really easy and the hacker who breaks it says "Ha ha, silly people, can't make a strong algorithm to save their lives" and all his/her hacker buddies laugh at the SDMI, they have fundamentally made the algorithm stronger, because the consortium will immediately plug the hole that was used to crack it. And one gloating hacker gets some money, and the rest of us get stuck with a stronger algorithm in the hands of oppressive corporations.
Corporations don't need our help. Statistically, the odds of any one hacker being the first to break it are very low. So basically, everyone but that one person who is lucky enough to win is donating his or her time to a bunch of bloated media giants to help them make CDs more expensive and harder to listen to in the future. Some deal.
I'd prefer to see the SDMI consortium triumphantly deploy their new "unbreakable" system, and then have it hacked and go belly up and get recalled a week later. That, and not public outcry, will convince corporate policymakers and possibly some lawmakers that the whole thing is a bunch of bunk. Angry shouting people on slashdot go away... big losses in non-recoverable engineering costs don't.
Please, let's not think that all people suggesting boycots are whiners saying that "it would be too easy" or "$10,000 isn't enough". Anyone who tries to hack the SDMI before it is rolled out is implicitly endorsing it and making a real contribution to its cause. Don't!
Even better! (Score:2)
Wait a month or so...
*poof* Hey look eveybody, here's a crack for SDMI, music is free again! By this time, SDMI has become so pervasively embedded in everything that the music industry is kinda stuck with it, and by golly, it's cracked too!
Re:Analysis of SDMI Technology A (Score:2)
...phil
Re:Will someone READ the SDMI challenge? (Score:3)
I believe you're missing the point. The point is not anonymity, it's not doing their dirty work for them. SDMI is in place to prevent people like you and me from doing what we do. Am I gonna step up and help their efforts?
Also, you don't give them expertise, as nothing forces you to explain how you hacked their stuff if you did.
That doesn't matter. You have to demonstrate that you circumvented their security measures, and that means explaining WHAT you exploited to get past it. That's enough for them to unleash their people on that one portion of the software. Take SSH1 for example. Let's say there was a similar challenge, and you found that kerberos bug that made it vulnerable. Stating that you used a bug in SSH1's kerberos stuff narrows the field down quite a bit. They end up having A LOT less code to check.
Whether you like the idea that SDMI are trying to implement or not, a public challenge is always a good thing. And they are actually giving up a rather convenient and powerful way to test their algorithms...
Not when the public challenge will be supporting something that is inherently evil! Would we have helped the germans debug their enigma machines? Ok, so maybe the SDMI folks aren't nazis, but you get the idea.
Finally, the best way to prevent SDMI from existing is certainly to undertake their challenge and to break the schemes. Otherwise, they'll implement it, and maybe it will be broken afterward, but bypassing it then may involve more complicated legal issues...
I don't think it is possible to make SDMI airtight, but let's assume for a moment that it is. If that's the case and we find every bug in it now and make it flawless, then they will release a theoretically perfect version. It's not like they are gonna throw their hands up and say "oh well, we had some bugs, lets scrap the project." HOWEVER, if we were to wait until SDMI is out there, in LOTS of software and maybe even hardware for that matter and THEN find the bugs in it, the results are much more devastating. It becomes evident that they released a technology with some serious problems. Do you consider CSS and SDMI to be similar? Sure, later on we could be mired in the same sort of legal battles, but in the end DeCSS got out there and it's gonna stay out there.
This is just security by obscurity... (Score:3)
(1) you will not be permitted to disclose any information about the details of the attack to any other party,
They're just going to buy the silence of everyone who does, then they'll be able to say that the hole they discovered is closed (because everyone who could exploit it has and has been payed off). Worse than that though, it'll enable them to sue these people for breach of contract for ever talking about anything related to digital music, encryption, watermarking, or anything else they they take offense to. Kiss your right to participate in Slashdot discussions goodbye, unless of course you're prepared to toe the SDMI-party line.
The RIAA and MPAA are all cheats, thieves and liars. Bah, why do they bother, their usual method of bribing all the politicians and judges has carried them this far.
SDMI is not DeCSS (Score:2)
CSS is encryption. You can speak of 'cracking' it in order to access the encrypted data.
SDMI is not encryption. It is a watermark. (SDMI does claim that some of the "Phase 2" technologies are not watermarks, but whatever they are calling it, the functionality would seem to be necessarily similar in concept.)
The SDMI challenge is not to decrypt music, the SDMI challenge is to remove the watermark.
However, having said that, 'crack' is such a good word, I will use it hereafter to mean 'removing the screening technology from the music file.'
SDMI has previously announced that the watermark is inaudible, and can survive transfer from PCM to frequency-band-based compression like MP3 and even to analog.
However, the samples for download are not watermarked with the current Verance "Phase 1" technology, but with contenders for the "Phase 2" technology.
There are samples both with and without the watermark, so comparing the two samples and statistically analyzing the differences would seem like the clear place to start.
It seems to me like there are several things that the hacker community could do to really poke SDMI in the eye with a sharp stick:
1) Crack their Phase 2 screener, tell them $10K isn't nearly enough, and have them fly you in to discuss your terms.
2) Crack their Phase 2 screener, and don't tell them about it until the Phase 2 "trigger" comes out in CDs. Then tell the world how to crack it.
3) Those are both hard. Note that SDMI doesn't provide any tools so that we can determine for ourselves whether we have cracked the screener. Instead, they ask us to upload the files with the screener removed to their site. You have gigs and gigs of audio samples. What are you waiting for? Start uploading!
Chris Owens
San Carlos, CA
No. It'll be a trade secret. (Score:2)
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Re:Don Marti steps down (Score:3)
(1) you will not be permitted to disclose any information about the details of the attack to any other party,
All they plan on doing is buying the silence of people who manage to hack it, such that they can sue them if they ever speak out about it. This way they don't have to fix anything, just claim that the bug could never be exploited again. And because the person who found it has signed a contract with them, they can't tell everyone that SDMI is the same lame format as before but XORed with 68 instead of 67, or something stupid. (To use a CueCat example.)
And SDMI is inherently evil. This isn't one company selling music in a restricted way and hoping that the lower prices this allows will encourage people to use the restricted media, this is a conglomerate wanting to restrict people's ability to ever use any other format, and using their power to ensure that only they (or licensed companies) ever sell music or music devices, and not for reduced prices, we've never seen a monopoly with rock-bottom prices... no doubt music will get more expensive to cover the processor time to encrypt it, or something stupid.
These are the same people who bribed politicians to pass laws like the DMCA that make it illegal to get around their (previously illegal) price fixing technology. (The region locking.) Not to mention the fact that playback (not even piracy, which I could understand) on unlicensed players is, in their view, completely illegal. Which is no big deal except that they've proven they can buy judges.
Re:Don Marti steps down (Score:2)
So I have not doubt that many will get into a hacking contest, trying to win $10k [usa-talk.com], where the downside is just vague concerns of abstract concepts [emory.edu] being threatened [trib.com] in the future [fox.com].
-----
D. Fischer
Re:Another take on the story (Score:2)
Want the files, but not the agreement? (Score:2)
Please note, I myself did NOT use the clickthrough to get to this page, or to find its address.
-Adam
Sometimes its good to stop and think, unless you're thinking, "Why am I crossing a freeway?"
Re:Don Marti steps down (Score:2)
No, we oppose their technology because it gives an enormous amount of power to Hollywood, power that they didn't have before. It gives them unprecendented ability to control access to (not just copying of) their "content."
For the record, I have never illegally copied an mp3, and I haven't even used Napster. But I'm very worried by the idea of shutting down interesting technology (e.g., distributed file-sharing), and building alternative protocols with copying controls built in, when there's no evidence that this really solves a problem (who has actually lost money because of Napster?), and when there is evidence that the new protocols give an enormous amount of new power to the "content providers".
Imagine for a moment a world where content providers control a lot of important protocols (SDMI could be one), and where they control the major bandwidth coming into our homes (Time-Warner?). Can't you imagine some potential for abuse? A local band attempting to do its own distribution would be a competitor to the people who controlled the distribution system.
---J. Bruce FieldsRe:Will someone READ the SDMI challenge? (Score:2)
Then when they decide on a protection and start releasing music in SDMI, you'll have a jump of writing DeSDMI... Wait just long enough for all the hardware companies to tool up and make SDMI everything, then prove that the format is worthless.
Re:Another take on the story (Score:2)
Unfortunately, it's not better in all respects. Music sales are counted for most (all?) retail music stores. These counts are a major indicator of a band's popularity, which then impacts how much radio play they get, what marketing and sales promos, and media coverage they get. It's a big feedback system. If more sales are counted, they get more airtime and visibility, so sales go up, et. cyk. until the public burns out (e.g. Spice Girls).
In the short term, your method gives an artist more cash, but in the long run could hurt them.
-----
D. Fischer
Re:Instead of hacking SDMI... (Score:4)
-Dave Turner.
Worth Considering (Score:2)
I wonder that we aren't seeing more discussion/speculation as to the outright legality of the SDMI.
Whether or not it is technically feasible is beside the point. Is it legal? A couple of points to consider:
1. Copyrights, by law, last for 17 years at which time "ownership" is "transferred" to the "Public Domain". Therefore, is it legal to wrap the copyrighted work in a format which, by virtue of encryption, renders impossible that transfer of ownership interest?
2. The concept of manufacturers and a few copyright holders working together to develop a format + playback + record mechanism, in which the copyright holders serve as "gatekeepers", granting or denying access to the technology in their own self-interest, could only be considered a pernicious form of anti-competitive restraint of trade. New artists, equipment manufacturers, etc. will be forced to pay financial tribute to the keepers of the encryption keys, and can easily be excluded from the market, simply by denying access to the recording or playback equipment. I can readily envision such collusion as standing in violation of any number of anti-trust statutes, from Sherman on down.
Lastly, I wouldn't overlook the marketability of such a system. Will consumers really "pay-per-play"? Will they spend their bucks buying systems that a five year old could see was meant from the outset to soak the maximum amount of money from their pockets? What's in it for them? Why would Joe Bob go out and plunk down $200 on a new player in the first place (especially one which renders his existing music collection worthless from the outset)?
I expect the public to respond to the "new" format and equipment with a hearty "no thanks".
here's a (bad) plan ... (Score:2)
Are the SDMI watermarking algorithms actually copyrighted yet?
If not, somebody crack them, copyright them before the SDMI organization, and sue SDMI for trying to embed the technology in consumer electronics and software without licensing it from you.
Please explain lititure under stalin (Score:2)
In the USSR while Stalin ruled lititure of any sort was illegal unless it was in praise of communism, Stalin, or other approved subjects. Yet after stalin died several authors were discoverd to have written quality works for "For the desk drawer". That is they wrote books that they never expected to see the light of day because the urge to create was so strong.
Chiariglione is cheap (Score:3)
SDMI and those big music companies are about to deploy billions of dollars in software, hardware, and content, and $10k is all they can cough up? If they add another three zeros to that, together with binding arbitration, we could start talking.
I think this shows us what we probably knew all along: Chiariglione is cheap. Chiariglione doesn't respect other people's work or intellectual property, he only cares about his own.
And to anybody thinking about participating in this challenge: don't sell yourself cheap.
Re:I remember something like this at McRatburger (Score:2)
--
Of course it's breakable. (Score:2)
The HackSDMI challenge is meaningless because it doesn't provide people even with the minimal set of tools they would have once the system is deployed: thousands of recordings and software to actually test for the presence of the watermark. If SDMI were to be really secure, they would also have to disclose the watermarking method as part of the challenge.
At best, the current "challenge" can be considered a sanity test: does some MP3 encoder or MP3 setting, or Ogg Vorbis, or some other simple method break their scheme?
In any case, if they want anybody who knows about this stuff to work for them, they should pay the going rate for consultants. A serious attack on SDMI by consultants would probably cost them in the millions, and they would have to pay whether the attack succeeds or not.
Re:the author of this editorial... (Score:2)
You and I know that's a fallacy. The general public doesn't. And, if anyone comes along and tries to break it later, RIAA can just call them "evil pirates" and rattle the DMCA saber at 'em to shut 'em up...
Sorry, RIAA, I won't be your stooge, no matter how much money you wave under my nose, and no matter who wants to call me "chicken" as a result. See Figure 1. [xerox.com]
Eric
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Is Anyone Else Disturbed? (Score:4)
I would be about as excited to know that everytime I play a CD in my computer, or an MP3 file, that information is being sent to the RIAA (or anyone for that matter.) What exactly would be the point in surrounding an audio format in with a barrier to prevent copying? Besides what was mentioned before.. nothing is perfect. PGP isn't perfect (although it has not been cracked in some time, it WILL eventually get cracked..) And the same goes for this new audio format.. CSS got cracked, so will SDMI.
If I own a company and I invest millions of dollars in an encryption scheme, which I know will not last more than a year, maybe two, but will require a change from hardware manfacturer's to make a new encryption - I'm going to go out of business. Something tells me that 12 months is a pretty generous estimate considering the amount of hype this story has recieved.
Realistically, the RIAA should look at some different models to make money off of music. Naptser is insanely popular, even among novice users (my Dad is on Napster and he has trouble starting IE and searching Yahoo.) I would pay $5/month to use Naptser and Napter's 4 million + users would make that equivalent to approximately 500,000+ CD's.. ($15 apeice for the CD's). Napster pays the artists or the record labels a royalty and everyone is happy.
Or base it on downloads.. every song costs
However, if their intentions are to keep ALL of the pirated music off the net, well that will never happen. There will always be the squadrons for rouges for whatever reason will blatantly infringe on copyrights, just because they can. As there will always be people that download that material because it's free.
To think that someone gets paid to set there and say, "Hey let's make a new encryption scheme" is ludicris to me. I could be making a ton of money thinking up actual good ideas.. I wonder how that guy got that job... hmmm
"The same thing we do everynight Pinky, try and take over the world." - Brain
This can be bypassed easily with a cable from RS (Score:2)
The fact of the matter is music copyprotection methods are mute, the music has to be converted to an analoug signal at some point in the chain, at which point it can be captured and repackaged into
I think the RIAA/SDMI should be trying to promote the very artists they are claiming to "protect" instead of trying to find ways to ensure the cash keeps flowing in.
With promotion they will get revenue return through CD sales, tour sales, merchendise, whatever... but alienating the people from the music, or what they choose to do with the music is going to cause the cash flow to dry up quicker than anything.
People are fed up with the amount of control corporations have now, and I'm sure it won't stand much longer without a revolt or revolution...
Re:Copyright works, because people are greedy (Score:2)
Re:Black & white films? (Score:3)
Re:SDMI is not uncrackable (Score:2)
New instructions: (Score:3)
Go to the ClickThrough Agreement, then use the link above. Looks like they might be using cookies, or some other method which forces you to view the license page before viewing the download page.
You still don't have to click on the 'I Agree' button.
-Adam
This space for rent.
Re:SDMI is not uncrackable (Score:2)
DVDs came out in 1997. It wasn't fully cracked until 1999. 1999-1997=2 years. I don't know anything about the Russian DVDs you're talking about, so I'm not even going to get into that debate. My point is that giving 30 days to prove that something can't be broken is one of the dumbest ideas I've heard of.
The "contest" is poorly set up anyway. (Score:3)
So, from a cryptographic point of view, this is pretty worthless. It's along the lines of the newbies who post to sci.crypt saying "I've developed a new algorythm. Here is some ciphertext, crack it!". Of course, to do any valid analysis you need to know how the algorithm works.
My guess is that either the people setting up the "contest" are pretty clueless, or they have no faith in their algorithm, or both. Or this is just a publicity stunt to reassure the record labels. My money is on the latter.
Any hacker who attacks SDMI after it's released will certainly have access to a software implementation, or the algorithm, or both. So, to leave both of those out of the "contest" just makes it a sham.
Just In Time Hack (JITH) (Score:2)
Re:Worth Considering (Score:2)
God, can't we at least keep our facts straight?
Re: (Score:2)
Hackers Hack HackSDMI.Org! (Score:2)
Note (at the risk of sounding like a broken, um, MP3): SDMI is toast. MP3 has already won. Unless they stop shipping CDs, and completely destroy the revenue they're trying to protect, the SDMI people are wasting their time.
sulli
Microsoft Digital Rights Management: silence. (Score:3)
And there's always the trick of having a soundcard driver that saves the audio stream to the harddrive.
No. SDMI requires that there be no way to get a digital cleartext out of an encrypted file. For example, all Microsoft Digital Rights Management sound card drivers disable all digital outputs (card outputs, write to file, or a fake waveIn) when an SDMI clip is being played. If a sound card driver driver is not digitally signed by Microsoft and rated MS-DRM compliant, it has no access to the Secure Audio Path [microsoft.com] and will play silence instead of music.
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Stopping all the closed-source players... won't. (Score:2)
SDMI-enabled players are distributed out to surpass their existing versions. The MP3 decoders are time-stamped to expire (aka shutdown) on a set date, after which only SDMI will be supported. Nice, eh?
If that's true (probably not), you'll just see Winamp replaced with "WinMMS" (a port of XMMS [xmms.org]) with hardly a hiccup.
Oh, BTW, if you can dig up a link to the article, mail it to me. You know how to fix up my address; bots don't.<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
It'll record silence. (Score:3)
all it did was recive sound from windows applications like it was a sound card and write 44.1 kHz pcm sound
It won't work for long. Microsoft Digital Rights Management [microsoft.com] will silence all SDMI audio going to unsigned drivers. MS will only sign a driver if it shuts off all digital waveOut capability (this includes without limitation disk writers, digital out ports on the card, and waveOut to waveIn aka SB Live What-U-Hear) when playing secure audio; only signed drivers get access to the Secure Audio Path [microsoft.com].
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Predictably, everyone seems to have misunderstood (Score:2)
_I_ understand that SDMI (and any other such format) is likely to be abused by the corps. I understand that individual rights are being erased by profit hungry/control freak execs. I can see there's danger here.
But only part of the point of my post was that the technology could be used legitimately. The other part of the point was this: the battle we need to fight ISN'T that of making sure that SDMI never happens. The battle we need to fight is making sure that alternatives are available, legally and technologically. We spend WAY too much time defending Napster and other such things that are legally and ethically questionable, on the grounds that our opponents are ethically (and often legally) questionable. I think in the case of SDMI, all we have to do is make sure that alternative ways of getting music (which respect the artists) exists, and it'll win out.
In short: I'm not afraid of a future in which SDMI exists. I AM afraid of a future in which it's the only choice. We might lose that battle, however, because we're perceived as freeloaders that don't respect those who create music. We need to work more actively on implementing systems that can compete with what SDMI claims it can accomplish, but without the greed and draconian restrictions.
Re:Why? (Just like a 2 year old) (Score:2)
SDMI Trojan Driver Plans (Score:2)
More importantly, consider this. You know that cool new Nomad Jukebox from Creative Labs? The one that has a 6GB drive in it? It supports the SDMI-format. Great, right?
No.
Last summer I found a media composite from Sony Records. For those of you who don't know, a composite basically gathers articles from several sources into a single volume, the results of which are delivered to executives. There was an interesting article from Billboard, I think it was.
It seems that the SDMI group met last year and decided on certain resolutions regarding the implementation of the SDMI scheme. Of interest is a plan on how to enfore SDMI acceptance on to those of us who decide to stick with our existing players (e.g. WinAmp, MS-MP, XMSS, etc). The plan is this: SDMI-enabled players are distributed out to surpass their existing versions. The MP3 decoders are time-stamped to expire (aka shutdown) on a set date, after which only SDMI will be supported. Nice, eh? They actually agreed to this.
I am salivating all over myself for the Nomad Jukebox, but I am not about to drop $400-500 without knowing if, in fact, the player does not support this type of initiative *and* that Creative will not subsequently release a bios patch that would render mp3 unplayable.
I will dig up the article (if I can find it - my office is like a 10'x10' version of Beirut in Springtime) and post it here.
- Ryosen
This was originally posted by me as anonymous. I didn't have my password yet.
Re:Microsoft Digital Rights Management: silence. (Score:2)
It seems like a mute point for a while since I don't see record companies forgetting about Redbook audio as long as people are still buying CDs.
Re:It'll record silence. (Score:2)
Re:Beating the system. (Score:2)
...phil
local bands (Score:2)
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
Re:here's a (bad) plan ... (Score:2)
Copyright exists from the moment something is written in tangible form, including computer files. So, the answer to your question is 'yes'.
That said, I don't think that copyright covers the technology. It would be better protected by trade secrets or patents. Patents would have to be published, however, disclosing the technology. Has anybody sniffed around the patent databases [ibm.com] yet looking for these watermarking systems? As for trade secrets, well, Digital Convergence [digitalconvergence.com] can probably tell you how well that's working.
...phil
Enforcing DMCA (Score:2)
Besides, I'd like to see them *enforce* it.
Two words: Jon Johansen [google.com].
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Re:The "contest" is poorly set up anyway. (Score:2)
Now, I'm not much into cracking and cryptos, but wouldn't the first thing to do for a real cracker to get the *same* song with two *different* watermarks?
XOR:ing those two should give some intresting info
I mean the warm fuzzy things SDMI claims (Score:2)
A system in which artists are compensated by fans appreciative of their work at reasonable prices.
Subtract draconian restrictions and:
You have a system in which there is fair use, perhaps a little fair abuse, but that copyright respect is encouraged.
You don't want these things?