The problem Apple has is that many iPod owners have decided NOT to upgrade their iTunes and so have the original breakable version still running. The original QTFairUse was written by the infamous DVD Jon, and is still being developed today. It looks like Apple is going to have to do a fancy re-write to get around this problem. A program has been released, the 6th version called QTFairUse6, which looks at AAC frames while they are still in memory after they’ve been decrypted, but before the AAC decoding step has happened, and it dumps the data out into a file. What this does is allows a fresh software download to change the way the decryption key is calculated.Īpple has had to do this at least twice with new versions of iTunes, but this week is blighted by a new approach, that attacks the actual iTunes software structure. Microsoft put out a ‘don’t panic’ statement, saying it will take measures to close the breach using built-in renewability. As we have been told before by DRM specialists, there needs to be more than one way to protect content or one good hack and every piece of content will be in the clear. We knew this was true of Apple Fairplay, and now we also know the same approach will work on Windows Media Player. These often take in various component numbers that are all available either physically or to any software probe. The entire problem with a software only system with no secure hardware key, is that well versed hackers can guess how the algorithm for the decryption works. The program in question is called Fair Use for Windows Media (FairUse4WM) and can remove the DRM protection from Microsoft Windows Media 10 and 11 files.
Sure Fairplay has been broken, at least once by RealNetworks and by DVD Jon, and by others, and it has been cracked once again this week, but to have Windows Media DRM cracked at the same time, with a tool available as a free download from Betanews, suggests that this is not merely an Apple problem, and at the same time it throws a huge spanner in the works for Microsoft’s DRM credibility.
For the past three years all of the DRM heavyweights, including Microsoft, have referred to Apple’s Fairplay as a ‘lightweight’ DRM, but it has kept together the most widespread online music store on the planet throughout that time.
0 kommentar(er)
