Thursday August 31, 2006

A hack to Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) versions 10 and 11 (the latter being a new beta version) has appeared on various sites. The so-called Fairuse4wm program finds the encryption key to WM DRM files and uses it to circumvent the DRM from legitimately obtained audio and video files. The application will strip Windows Media 10 and 11 files of their DRM.

In the online music world, the overwhelming market share winner is Apple's iTunes Music Store, whose protection has been bypassed several times already. Microsoft's Windows Media has been a perpetual also-ran, but it has too received attention from the hackers. In 2001, the version that came with Windows Media Player 7 was defeated by a hacker going by the pseudonym "Beale Screamer." Microsoft then updated their protection, and for years have been touting its invulnerability to hackers.

Again this shows that Digital Rights Management can never be really 100% secure. And that proprietary solutions from single vendors might not help as well... I am very sure that DRM is all about keeping the honest people honest - if someone has enough energy to hack music, software or whatever he will be hack it... It's only about making it VERY difficult, isn't it?

And again, I think it's finally time for a community approach for DRM. Sun's project DReaM is an initiative to develop open Digital Rights Management (DRM) solution for multiple domains (media, documents, enterprise, personal, etc.). DReaM specifications are developed through Open Media Commons (http:///www.openmediacommons.org). This open source project develops an end-to-end Reference Implementation for the DReaM Specifications.

Read more about Hacking Digital Rights Management at arstechnica.com.