DRM Hole Sets Patch Speed Record For Microsoft

puppetman writes "Wired columnist Bruce Schneier has an article up called 'Quickest Patch Ever', about a patch that was issued within three days to fix a vulnerability in Windows Digital Rights Management (DRM)." From the article: "Now, this isn't a 'vulnerability' in the normal sense of the word: digital rights management is not a feature that users want. Being able to remove copy protection is a good thing for some users, and completely irrelevant for everyone else. No user is ever going to say: 'Oh no. I can now play the music I bought for my PC on my Mac. I must install a patch so I can't do that anymore.' But to Microsoft, this vulnerability is a big deal. It affects the company's relationship with major record labels. It affects the company's product offerings. It affects the company's bottom line. Fixing this 'vulnerability' is in the company's best interest; never mind the customer."

Comments

Re:can someone explain ths

[hublan]

what relationship? why is it important?

It's called Zune and MSN Music. If the labels don't think that Microsoft can bolt down the music they "sell" to people then the labels don't want Microsoft to be selling their music. Microsoft wants to own this market segment because Apple does, since it forms a part of their new "MS is your everything" strategy.

Plus it might also make the labels pull the plug from other on-line music stores that use Microsoft's DRM technology, opening themselves up to another volley of lawsuits.

A Correction

[in2mind]

"Wired columnist Bruce Schneier has an article up called 'Quickest Patch Ever', about a patch that was issued within three days to fix a vulnerability in Windows Digital Rights Management (DRM)."

When the summary says "Within three days" they mean "three days after it was reported in engadget".

Coz,FairUSE4Wm was released on August 19th in the forum.Microsoft patched it on August 28th.So 9 Days.

Not Accurate

[ThinkFr33ly]

Microsoft did not really "patch" their DRM. This wasn't a code change. Their DRM was designed to be updateable in the event that it was compromised.

There is a big difference in how fast you can roll out what ammounts to a configuration change and how fast you can roll out a code change.

That said, it didn't seem to do much good given that it was cracked again in a matter of days.

Re:Critical, or not?

[guruevi]

Dear Windows Media Licensee,

On August 25th, 2006, Engadget.com reported on a software tool that would allow consumers to decrypt WMDRM protected content. In response, on August 28, 2006, Microsoft released an update to the individualized blackbox component (IBX) designed to ensure that client applications using the Windows Media Format SDK version 9.5 who individualize to this latest version are robust against a new circumvention tool.

This update is not yet available for the Windows Media Format 9 Series FSDK or for users of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Update Rollup 2.

Consumers are not at risk in any way. Content services can require that the updates be present in order to issue licenses by following the instructions below. Please note that the version number of IBX was not incremented as part of these updates to avoid delaying the release of these critical breach mitigations. Consequently, the only way to determine if the update is installed is to query the build number of the IBX. This requires code executing on the client.

To determine the build number of the IBX:

1. Ensure the PC is running the August 2005 update to Windows Media DRM. See the attached white paper for details.
2. Determine the path of the WMDRM folder. The path is stored in the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\DRM\DataPath
3. Identify the file name of the latest IBX. If the machine has been individualized only once, the IBX file name will be indivbox.key. Otherwise, the IBX file name is in the form indivbox_xxx.key, where xxx are digits 0-9. The file name with the greatest value of xxx will be the latest IBX.
4. Call GetFileVersionInfo() to retrieve the build version of the file identified in step 3. See [link].
5. If the IBX file version is 11.0.5497.6285 or greater, then the updated IBX is installed

Please submit questions to [email removed]

Best regards,

Windows Media Licensing Department
Microsoft Windows Digital Media Division

Basically -> the content provider CAN require that patch to be there. I don't know whether it's a separate patch through WMP or through MSUpdate but since I don't use Windows/Microsoft I can't speak for them.