Wednesday, August 15, 2001

Video crypto standard cracked? Noted cryptographer Niels Ferguson says he's broken Intel's vaunted High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) Digital Video Encryption System, but fear of U.S. law is keeping him silent on the details. HDCP connects digital cameras, high-definition televisions, cable boxes, and video disks players. [Source: Article by Ann Harrison, 13 Aug 2001, PGN-ed; http://www.securityfocus.com/news/236] [Intel has not threatened him, but he can still be sued by the U.S. Govt under DMCA, or by the motion-picture industry. His comments are at http://www.macfergus.com/niels/dmca/index.html Knowledge that it is (or might be) breakable is likely to result in other folks doing it, and perhaps posting it anonymously in some non-US Web site. The globalization of the Internet is clearly going to be an increasingly difficult problem for industries trying to defend information supposedly protected under flawed standards. PGN] [Monty Solomon via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 60] 0:00 # G!