New AACS "fix" hacked in a day

Found on Ars Technica on Thursday, 31 May 2007
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The ongoing war between content producers and hackers over the AACS copy protection used in HD DVD and Blu-ray discs produced yet another skirmish last week, and as has been the case as of late, the hackers came out on top.

The hacker "BtCB" posted the new decryption key for AACS on the Freedom to Tinker web site, just one day after the AACS Licensing Authority (AACS LA) issued the key. In true tongue-in-cheek hacker fashion, the site posted the 128-bit key as a method of decrypting a small haiku that they placed on the same page, noting that it just might accidentally (wink, wink) be the same key that will decrypt new high-definition discs as well.

The AACS LA is not happy about these Processing Keys being released. When previous keys were leaked, the organization vowed that it would remove the keys from the Internet with cease-and-desist orders. Predictably, this only encouraged people to post them more. The whole series of affairs evokes memories of when DVD decryption was all the rage, and the DeCSS code wound up being printed on t-shirts to express the futility of trying to sue anyone who used or even knew about it. The decryption code for AACS cannot fit easily on a t-shirt, but the 128-bit Processing Keys can, and it's clear that no matter how many times the AACS LA revokes old keys, the new ones are going to be found and released.

As always, the industry will not learn. Instead it will force new DRM onto users, which offer even less interoperability, and it will run from politican to politican, crying about how much those evil hackers hurt them. Just like every time before, those who get fed up with the new "protection" will find a way around it, making it possible to access the media on all systems. But for no second those in charge will rethink their business model.