Millions Watch as Race Tightens
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The Presidential Election?

Naw... The SDMI Hacker's Challenge

SDMI Announces Results

According to the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), no one ever actually broke the SDMI's encryption codes. They only dented two of the five. One of the six original codes was withdrawn by the developer.

In a statement released Wednesday, Leonardo Chiariglione, the executive director of SDMI, said that of the five technologies that were offered for investigation and review in September's contest, only two were successfully attacked. But those two attacks could not be consistently reproduced.

The goal of the codes is to watermark or otherwise protect the copyrighted music from unauthorized distribution, via the Internet, or more traditional methods (recordings). SDMI issued a public challenge in September offering $10,000 to anyone who could successfully disable one of the SDMI technologies. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called for a boycott of the contest. But 447 entries were submitted, and several hackers claimed victory.

Hackers and contributors to Slashdot.com immediately criticized the results and disputed the conclusions. Edward Felten and the team from Princeton University, Rice University and Xerox stood by their findings and issued a statement Wednesday reaffirming them.

"Instead of the scientific question, the SDMI has chosen to focus on who is eligible for the cash prize that they have offered. Since we chose to forgo the cash prize in order to retain our right to publish our results, we understand that the SDMI no longer considers us to be entrants in their contest. Their announcement regarding their contest does not invalidate our scientific results," Felton said Wednesday.

The ability to reproduce the hack was one of the key testing standards in SDMI's view. The SDMI tested the 447 submitted "hacks" against several previously unreleased files. If an attack could be reproduced, then it would be seen as a serious threat. In order to qualify as a success the hacking technology had to work on multiple files and still not affect the audio quality of the music.

Chiariglione says that SDMI is "very, very near" to being released to the public and could be available as early as the end of the year.

Many "hackers" feel good about the decision to fast track the SDMI code into public use. Once fully integrated into the public domain it will be easier to hack and disable. And since the SDMI will have a substantial investment in the technology, especially in hardware that will probably not be upgradable, the ultimate "hack" will be a devastating blow to the entire concept of secure watermarking code.

the WIZARD also feels it will be interesting to watch for public acceptance. If consumers refuse to buy compliant hardware and software, this entire decision will turn on a dime. Follow the money.