Secret AACS numbers, the photoshopped edition

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Cory Doctorow:

Wired News has a gallery of the lovely photoshops of the notorious AACS "secret key," a 16-digit number that is illegal to possess and disseminate. AACS is the anti-copying system built into HD-DVDs (and you're out of your mind if you buy one of these boxes -- their future is apparently so fragile that it can be unmade with a 16-digit number!) and controlled by the AACS Licensing Authority. The AACS LA shot itself in the head this week by sending legal threats to sites that contained the number, sparking a user revolt on Digg and many other outraged blogs, pages and posts. Right now, 368,000 pages contain the number, up from 36,000 yesterday. Good luck getting the food coloring out of the swimming pool!

Link

Update: BG points out that the w00t! guys turned the number into a jingle and sang it in their podcast.


Update 2: A tattoo was, I suppose, inevitable. (Thanks, Shannon!)

Update 3: Creede sez, "The AACS key can be sung to any Long Meter hymn tune. The example I came up with was "Praise God from Whom all blessings flow."

Update 4: Jordan sez, "If you put the illegal numbers in a query on the MPAA's search page it prints them on their page. Let's all link to this and then issue them a DMCA takedown notice! Give them a taste of their own medicine.

http://www.mpaa.org/search_resultIndexServer.asp? query=09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0

(Via Boing Boing.)

EFF explains the law on AACS keys

in

Cory Doctorow:
EFF's Fred von Lohmann has posted an excellent, incredibly depressing story about the AACS key that's been at the center of so much controversy lately. Basically, the DMCA is such a terrible law that it's almost certainly a losing proposition to publish or link to the key (though Fred says nothing about linking to sites that link to the key).

This is the law of the land, and it stinks. If there was ever an example of why the DMCA needs to die, this is it. The idea that a sixteen-digit number is illegal to possess, to discuss in class, or to post on a news site is offensive to a country where free speech is the first order of the Constitution. The MPAA and RIAA are conspiring to unmake America, to turn this into a country where free expression, due process, and the rule of law take a back-seat to a perpetual set of governmental handouts intended to guarantee the long-term profitability of a small handful of corrupt companies.

Link

(Via Boing Boing.)

AACS Discovers The Streisand Effect: The More You Try To Suppress Something, The More Attention It Gets

in

If you follow tech related sites, by now you've heard the story that the folks who control AACS, the copy protection used in next generation DVDs, have decided to send DMCA takedown notices to various sites that have posted the 128-bit integer that is needed, along with some software, to decrypt the video content on these new DVDs. This is odd for a few reasons. The key came out many months ago and has been available on the web for quite some time. There are, of course, the basic questions concerning whether or not this key alone really does violate the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA -- but that's a separate issue. What's more intriguing here is trying to understand the thought process behind the decision to send out these takedown notices. As anyone who's been online for more than about two days knows, the more you try to suppress something online, the more attention you're going to call to it. Years back, we jokingly referred to this as the Streisand Effect -- after an incident where Barbara Streisand tried to remove some photos from the web, making them a lot more popular. The name has stuck, and it still amazes us that anyone doesn't recognize what will happen when they try to make such a move. While the group has forced some sites to pull pages here and there, every page they pull is just increasing the anger from a growing group of folks who are making sure the number shows up in many, many more places -- including directly in a URL. Digg, which was one of the sites accused of taking down pages about this, has been under a massive effort from folks to make sure that every story on the front page somehow points to the key in question (and it's interesting to see the anger of users turned against Digg for taking down some of these stories, even though they're pretty much required to thanks to the DMCA). As happened with DeCSS, it's only a matter of time until someone writes a song incorporating the key as well. Effectively, all that's been done here is to draw much, much more attention to the fact that the encryption on next generation DVDs is incredibly weak -- so that a lot more people now know about it. Most of us honestly couldn't have cared any less about the integer or the inner workings (or non-workings) of the encryption system -- and yet now we know a lot more. That can't be the intended consequence of these notices, but that's what's happened. Nice work, Hollywood.

(Via Techdirt.)

Digg users revolt over AACS key

in

Cory Doctorow:

Last night, Digg.com underwent a user rebellion. Digg removed many posts -- and terminated the accounts of some of its users -- for posting a 16-digit hexadecimal number that is used to lock up HD-DVD movies. The number -- a "processing key" -- was discovered by Doom9 message-board poster muslix64, who was frustrated by his inability to play his lawfully purchased HD-DVD movies because of failure in the anti-copying system.

The AACS Licensing Authority, which controls the anti-copying technology underlying HD-DVD, sent out hundreds of legal threats to sites that had posted the key, including Digg. It appears that Digg took a pro-active stance and began to seek out new examples of the key and delete them immediately, instead of waiting for notice from the AACS-LA. It's likely that their lawyers advised them to take this course of action, since the penalties for posting "circumvention devices" can be stiff.

Digg's users revolted at this stricture, and saw to it that every single item on the front page of Digg contained the forbidden number. Users accused Digg of taking money from the HD-DVD manufacturers (Digg ran an ad campaign from the company in the late summer of 2006), and complained about the site's deletion of user accounts.

At 9PM last night, Kevin Rose, Digg's founder, posted about this on the Digg blog, and said that he would no longer take material down, even though it could very well cost him the site. It's a brave stance, and it seems to have quieted the Digg users' protests.

I think another way of doing this would be to take down each user post on receipt of a takedown notice, then post PDFs of each takedown notice that he received in their place, which PDFs will contain the magic number. That way, the information stays alive and Digg doesn't get sued. I'm not a lawyer, but this has been the strategy I've pursued with my class blog, which received a takedown for the same number.

In the meantime, AACS-LA's attempts to suppress the number have been an abject failure. Google lists 36,000 pages that contain the number, most of them posted in the past few days in response to the story of AACS LA's letters. So much for keeping it a secret.

So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

Link

(Thanks, Andrew!)



(Via Boing Boing.)

Digg Revolt Currently In Progress

in

There is currently a Digg uprising in progress by the whole Digg community. It all started because on April 30th, 2007, the hex master code to unlock the encryption on all HD DVDs was found at the Doom9 forum and leaked on the web. The thread in question has been linked to by various blogs all over the net. Since the AACS groups cannot or will have a hard time suing Doom9 since its based in Sweden, they are electing to send DMCA takedown notices to various sites that link to the Doom9 thread, or post the key. Google has received a takedown to remove ALL links within its search engine(DMCA safe harbor provision should render this void) and Corey Doctrow, of BoingBoing and EFF fame, has received one for his class's website.

Digg.com was one of the sites that received a takedown notice which resulted from a story being posted to digg containing the key. The story in question received 16,000 diggs in less than 20 hours, the fastest growing digg story ever, and would have probably been the most dugg ever if the Digg admins hadn't taken the story down. This set off a firestorm of posts that is currently getting hotter and larger across the net with people spreading this hex number across their blogs, Jaiku posts, Twitter posts, Facebook groups....well you get the point. Social networking is essentially the anti-christ of censorship. On another note, HOW THE FUCK can the AACS group claim copyright or intellectual property rights on 10 number hex code? I mean, wtf???!?!?!?!!!!1111one

UPDATE: New stories are appearing on digg every minute and are, within 20min to an 1 hour, receiving thousands of diggs by the angry community. People are posting NOTHING but stories containing this hex code in an act of civil disobedience.

Google and other blogs receive takedown notice by AACS group

in

Following the wide spread publicity of the AACS hack, especially with working out the HD DVD processing key, the AACS LA has started sending out Cease and Desist letters to various blog sites as well as the search giant Google for publishing the key to simply linking to the Doom9 threads about the crack. These sites have been threatened with legal action if they do not comply. Unlike going after websites publishing DeCSS software or software that uses DeCSS, the processing key is only useful for sophisticated programmers capable of writing software to rip and decrypt the discs, much like how a blue-print drawing of a door key is not sufficient to unlock a door without an engineer first making a physical key based on it.

Unfortunately for the AACS, it looks like it is going to be quite tricky for Google to take on this measure, considering the 1,000's of websites this processing key has been published on and more showing up all the time. Going by the letter, Google had a week from the letter's date of April 17th to comply and despite that period now being long overdue, Google still indexes 1,000's of website site links containing the key as well as the links indicated for removal in the letter.

One thing that makes the HD DVD decryption key more attractive than the DeCSS key for DVD is the ability to create software to play HD DVDs with high definition on systems lacking HDCP support, something even commerical DVD playback software will not allow. At present, while most consumers have a monitor well capable of showing at least 720p at its native resolution, the lack of HDCP support forces the user to either use an analogue connection or be forced to watch the picture in a greatly reduced resolution.

Thanks to Aktiv8 for letting us know about this news, who added the following:

Apparently there is a key which will enable bypassing of the HD-DVD DRM to allow users to play their titles on their Linux boxes.

The key in question is (edited out) and is an HD-DVD decryption key that was leaked on April 30, 2007. The source of the leak is unclear.

No doubt it is of interest to cryptographic researchers, as it can be used to play a protected HD-DVD movie in Linux, bypassing the normal DRM.

The key will also allow for programs analagous to DeCSS for DVDs.

Just google the Key to get a lot of hits!