[FYI] Cracked or not? The SDMI saga continues.

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/10/19/sdmi_saga/index.html

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Cracked or not? The SDMI saga continues. 

Did hackers successfully break watermarks designed to protect digital 
music?  

By Janelle Brown  

Oct. 19, 2000 | On Oct. 3, Salon published a story outlining serious 
divisions within the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) as to 
whether the "watermarking" system that SDMI was testing as a way to 
protect digitally distributed music would actually work. Then, on 
Oct. 12, Salon reported that hackers who had been invited by SDMI to 
test the security system had successfully broken all the watermarks.  

Salon based its reporting on three sources who spoke only on the 
condition that they not be identified. It also quoted an SDMI 
spokesperson denying that the watermarks had been successfully 
"cracked." But on Oct. 13, SDMI director Leonardo Chiariglione 
declared in an Inside.com story that Salon's story was "completely 
wrong, unfounded, anonymous slander."  

We returned to one of our original sources, seeking a response to 
Chiariglione's rebuttal. Our source replied, giving us even greater 
detail about what is happening behind SDMI's closed doors. We have 
decided to publish our insider's response, verbatim, along with 
additional responses from both Chiariglione and Matt Oppenheim, 
senior V.P. of business and legal affairs for the Recording Industry 
Association of America (RIAA).  

[...]  

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