Boycott of Music Industry's Hacker Challenge Urged

phu170n writes "Don Marti, technical editor for the Linux Journal, has called for a boycott of the hacker challenge recently announced by the music industry's SDMI collective. Looks like principle can be worth something (more than $10,000, at least) these days."

Comments

Re:Prize money isn't guaranteed

[Wellspring]

I didn't catch that-- good point.

Frankly, if our software engineering skills are worth only $10k to them, they obviously don't need this too much.

I can just picture a bunch of arrogant marketting types sitting together:

"Yeah, let's use these hackers to make our product better! We'll dare the kids to break our product, and then they'll work for us."

"But wait, why would they do that. They hate us."

"Yeah, but so what? Remember, these guys may be real computer whizzes, but they're naive. Most of them are just kids-- they're doing this because they can't play football and don't have dates. They don't have the savvy, the talent, the raw creative spirit to be in marketting. After all, if they did, they'd being doing this, right?" Everyone nods thoughtfully, except for Todd, the exfootball star, who is suddenly lost in his glory days.

"So we invite them to crack our system! And then, when they find the hole in it, we'll hire some techies to fix it, and we're done! We can even offer a prize! We'll jack up CD costs."

"Sounds great!! And just think, we're doing this right here, in Hollywood!"

And just think, people like these gave $5 million to the vice president last night...

Goal of SDMI != End copying

[Dilbert_]

A lot of people seem to forget that the idea behind this SDMI scheme is not to stop Joe Sixpack from writing the audio to a file, or use a loopback recording scheme with his soundcard, but to be able to point the finger at him later.

Go ahead! Buy a Britney song online and download it in SDMI format. Sure, toss it in your Napster share directory! Hack away at it too, and re-record it all you want...

But when the RIAA then scans Napster files, it will be very easy to find out whose copy it is that is floating around there (providing the watermark is still discernible). You did pay for your original download with your credit card, didn't you? Who's 31337 now, when they charge a gazillion bucks in damages to you?

In a way, this is just like DeCCS: the watermark will not prevent copying, but is supposedly meant to stop piracy, while in reality pirates will circumvent it. All it will do will be limiting users choice (eg. no Linux player).

Why bother "boycotting"?

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

Microsoft put Win2k on the net and we all gleefully pounded on it (for the short periods it was up). Then they released. Is it any good? No.

Same with SDMI--they don't want to improve the product, they want to prove it uncrackable. If no breaks it, that will be evidence (to a person versed in using fallacies in place of logic) that SDMI will Make Money Fast For Artists. This gives them credibility and power.

Here's my recommendation: Hack it, but good. Hack it so good it can't be fixed. For instance, connect your soundcard "out" to your "in" and record--there's no getting around that. Alternatively you could hack it so good they have to go back to the drawing board for a year or two--giving MP3 (and Ogg Vorbis!) time to spread even further. If you haven't broken the rules (why are there rules in a hacking contest?) collect the $10k. If you have broken the rules, just post the results to lower their credibility.
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intrinsically flawed contest

[mr.ska]

As much as I hope nobody even so much as tries this, I just know there will be some 733t cr4ck3rz out there that won't be able to resist the money and the ego of the whole thing. Sad.

What's worse, they're shooting themselves in the foot. The "contest" (hereafter referred to as "The Sham") runs from Sept. 15 until Oct. 7th. Why that window? Do you REALLY think that if someone is dedicated to cracking whateverthehell it is they're proposing, they'll give up after 3 weeks? Hell no - they'll pick away at it month by month until it's split wide open. Three weeks isn't going to do them a damn bit of good, IMNSHO.

There is an effective response

[0xdeadbeef]

Find a demonstratable flaw in their system, but refuse to reveal how it works until the RIAA donates $10 million to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The publicity it would generate for the issues at stake would be worth far more than the actual money.

Prize money isn't guaranteed

[Tet]

Apart from anything else, I'm very wary of the wording in the open letter:

If you can remove the watermark or defeat the other technology on our proposed copyright protection system, you may earn up to $10,000.

So it looks like they trick people into checking their security for them, and then don't have to give them the cash anyway. Personally, I'd like to see someone remove the watermark and not tell them how it was done. Sure, they'd be forfeiting the possible prize money, but they'd also be delaying the introduction of SDMI. Like Don Marti, I don't copy music from others. And yes, protecting my fair use copying is worth more than $10K to me anyway.

Re:Prize money isn't guaranteed

[CaseyB]

Guaranteed or not, it's peanuts if you do get it.

How much time of a professional crypto expert's time would that buy in the real world? A week if they're feeling charitable.

The people behind the SDMI collective spend $10K on lunch. The prize money is more an insult to the value of cryptographic analysis than anything.

Does it really matter?

[Spudley]

The issue with this software, as I understand it, is similar to the issue with DVD - ie, you can have the files, but you have to play them with the "approved" software.

Now from where I'm sitting, that means that breaking the encryption really isn't of much relevance; the issue is of making player-software available cross platform. This could be done by cracking the encryption, but lets face it: it's a whole lot easier just to reverse-engineer the player-software that is released, which is exactly what was done for DVDs.

Okay, so the powers that be don't especially like that tactic either, but in truth it's better for them too.

Re:give it away now

[AndyS]

Well, simple watermarking is a fantastic idea. It means that people aren't going to be doing a napster and share music with everyone and his dog, but they're going to be able to lend music to their friends etc. And, assuming it doesn't change the music itself, it shouldn't affect fair use rights. The only problem I have with this (seemingly) rosy picture is that I'ld be amazed if their watermarks were very a) hard to find and b) robust. If they're not robust, then diddling a bit with the sound could destroy them. If they are easy to detect then they can be stripped out.

Why Boycott

[Veteran]

The best reason not to attempt to crack the protection scheme is that it tells these people WHO YOU ARE.

That is the real reason for the 'hacking contest'. Much in the way that the real reason for registration of firearms is to make the later collection of those weapons from the law abiding easier - so is the real purpose of this contest to allow the music industry to collect information on who is interested in trying to crack their copy protection scheme. Anything you do in this 'contest' may be used against you in a court of law at a later time and date.

I Propose a new Challenge

[nihilogos]

Go to the HackSDMI Website. Click on the link to www.hacksdmi.org, and continue recursively. The person who can get the most cascaded frames before their browser crashes wins.

Before one learns to fly, one must first learn to walk. Before one learns to develop a secure framework for digital music, one must first learn to use the target attribute.

Re:The more I think about it, the curiouser I get

[Veteran]

DMCA.

Under the DMCA any player which does NOT use the watermark is a device which is 'bypassing digital copy protection means' and is thus ILLEGAL.

Not only will all new players be forced, by law, to use the copy protection scheme; but you can be imprisoned for 5 years by using your old CDROM or sound card once the new copy protection scheme is on the market. Like DeCSS any device which can be used to copy protected music IS ILLEGAL under the DMCA.

For example a PC which has a current CDROM burner would be illegal. We can assume that Microsoft will put the music copy protection scheme into a future version of Windows - thus making illegal all current operating systems which do not have that code in them.

The DMCA is not about copy protection; it is about controlling what YOU can do with digital technology.