Norwegian hacker cracks iTunes code: I’ll say it again, DRM will never work.
Last Friday, a new security-cracking program called QTFairUse was posted — along with the message “So sue me” — on a Web site for which Johansen is listed as the registrant, or owner.The new program circumvents iTunes’ anti-copying program, MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding, by legally opening and playing a protected music file in QuickTime, but then, essentially, draining the unprotected music data into a new and parallel file.
I don’t care what DRM you put on a file, it will always get broken. Always.
Intuit to TurboTax users: We're sorry" This is refreshing. DRM on that app caused a lot of people a lot of aggravation. "Financial software and services company Intuit has apologized for its recent experiments with antipiracy technology and is vowing not to repeat the experience. In an open letter to customers,…
Shift key breaks CD copy locks: I'll say it again: DRM will never work. "A Princeton University student has published instructions for disabling the new anticopying measures being tested on CDs by BMG--and they're as simple as holding down a computer's Shift key. [...] Under normal circumstances, the antipiracy software is…
O'Reilly Network: MS DRM is pure smoke: These guys used Microsoft tools to strip Microsoft DRM from an audio file. < blockquote"Folks on AVSforums say they have successfully used tools from the Microsoft software development kit to rip and re-encode audio protected by Microsoft DRM in the WindowsMedia 9 format."
Harry Potter and the Internet Pirates: This is an interesting look at the pirating of the new Harry Potter book. For all the care taken to protect this version, the publisher failed to understanding one thing: readers can simply transcribe the text. And that's what they did. …
While I don't argue that eventually DRM will fail, they don't quite get the story right. DRM itself wasn't cracked, Johansen exploited a weakness in the Windows Quicktime player that allowed him to save a raw unencoded AAC file from a legally purchased copy. Apple can (and probably will) fix that exploit in the quicktime palyer and a raw AAC file isn't of much use unless you jump through some more hoops.