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Intel Threatens DMCA Using HDCP Crack
mikesd81 writes "Intel is apparently threatening to use the DMCA against anyone using the HDCP crack under the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause. 'There are laws to protect both the intellectual property involved as well as the content that is created and owned by the content providers,' said Tom Waldrop, a spokesman for the company, which developed HDCP. 'Should a circumvention device be created using this information, we and others would avail ourselves, as appropriate, of those remedies.'"
The EU version of the DMCA specifically only provides protection for effective encryption measures. So for example the first time the CSS wast taken to the European Court the ruling was that it was not an effective encryption measure and the case was thrown out. The fact that due to flaws in the scheme an ordinary PC can crack the CSS encryption in less than a second makes it ineffective and thus not eligible for protection.
If HDCP simply required gathering 40 public keys from 40 different bits of hardware to work out the master key then it is highly likely that it would be ruled and ineffective encryption measure and thrown out.
Similarly your two bit scheme would also fall foul of the requirement to be effective.
The OpenGraphics project are building a graphics card with a big-ass FPGA on it. Seems like the right tool in the right place...
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All that has to be done is for a company to make a module with a flashable keyspace. Then the end-user can add the master key to the device themselves, and nobody gets in trouble (unless they start sharing the content).
Upload it to their completely legal hardware HDMI converter that doesn't decrypt HDCP and has a very easy to write firmware upgrade system.