It seems the lessons of the past need to be re-learned by the consortiums who endeavour to force DRM and other technological monopolistic methods on the public.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/05/aacs_updateThe DVD-encryption key that sparked a user rebellion on Digg in early May is now largely moot. Despite having been posted to hundreds of thousands of websites and garnering attention worldwide, the key is now useless, because the industry group that oversees HD DVD and Blu-ray copy protection has changed its encryption scheme to use a different one.
The new key, in turn, has itself already been leaked, even before it was scheduled to go into effect this week.
AACS is supposed to be superior to CSS in that it uses device- and title-specific keys. Since the AACS Licensing Administrator can revoke device keys on compromised players and issue fresh title keys for new HD DVDs that will not work with compromised players, it would seem to be able to stay one step ahead of the hacker community. A new set of keys was due to be released May 22.
Unfortunately for the AACS Licensing Administrator, the new keys have already been broken and it will be 90 days before the consortium can release another update. As Wired and other sources noted last week, SlySoft, a software publisher that makes tools for getting around copy protection on movies, updated its AnyDVD HD program to exploit an as-yet-unpublished key. According to security expert Ed Felton, SlySoft had likely already found the exploit in a prior version, but kept the attack a secret until all the other keys were blacklisted.
AACS Licensing Administrator refuses to reveal or speculate as to what its next steps might be. A statement released earlier this year is vague as to specifics
Slysoft are of course the company behind AnyDVD and rely on being able to bypass protection methods for their revenue, I suspect this will make them an increased priority target for the authorites who will no doubt make more efforts to find a legal loophole to close them down.
