Intel has said this weekend that it will sue anyone who uses the HDCP “Master Key” that was recently leaked to the Web.
The crypto key can be used to break the HDCP tech that limits users from recording digital TV streams and Blu-ray discs.
The technology giant, which developed HDCP, says: “There are laws to protect both the intellectual property involved as well as the content that is created and owned by the content providers. Should a circumvention device be created using this information, we and others would avail ourselves, as appropriate, of those remedies.”
Earlier in the week, Intel confirmed that the “master key” was authentic, and could be used to break the content protection scheme.
The HDCP master key, which is 28200 letters and numbers, can be used to create “device keys,” thus making all current and future devices “HDCP-free” given the right hardware.
It is unclear how the “master key” was deciphered, but Paul Kocher, the chief scientist at Cryptography Research, gives a possible reason. Kocher says “somebody in the business of making HDCP-compatible devices, who had access to at least 50 individual device keys, would have been able to reconstruct the master key by analyzing “mathematical similarities” in the individual device keys.”
Result for: chief scientist
THX chief scientist Laurie Fincham has been quoted as saying that despite its victory over HD DVD, Blu-ray will not become the next standard in the home entertainment market.
“Personally, I think it’s too late for Blu-ray. I think consumers will only become interested in replacing DVD when HD movies becomes available on flash memory. Do we really need another spinning format?” Fincham is quoted in the Home Cinema Choice Magazine.
“In the future I want to be able to carry four to five movies around with me in a wallet, or walk into a store and have someone copy me a movie to a USB device. Stores will like that idea, because it’s all about having zero inventory. I don’t want to take up shelf space with dozens of HD movies.”
“By the time Blu-ray really finds a mass market, we will have 128GB cards. I would guess that getting studios to supply movies on media cards, or offer downloads, will be a lot easier than getting them to sign up to support a disc format,” he concluded.
