Digital Rights Management

Previously, on the hack channel** Remember kiddos about FairUse4WM and QTFairUse? They are DRM hacks for Windows Media and iTunes that I posted about last year. It’s the cat and mouse game here. FairUse writers post their hack on the forums. iTunes and Windows Media post a patch to their soft...

By Matthew Things have been quiet since then, until a new Doom9 forum poster called “Divine Tao” (an anagram of Viodentia) appeared with a post that claimed to have “a new tool for uncovering the individual keys from Microsoft’s DRM blackbox components (”IBX”) up to version 11.0.6000.6324.”

By George Ou A hacker "Divine Tao" has released a newer version of FairUse4WM that appears to have ripped Windows Media DRM wide open.  It is interesting to note that "Divine Tao" is an anagram of the original author of FairUse4WM going by the name of "Viodentia".  This latest release posted on Doom9 for...

By Mark Wilson A new edition of FairUse4WM has been released, allowing for Zune Marketplace WMAs to be stripped of their DRM so you can have fair use rights your purchases—copying to other devices at will. Think of it as a Zune without the Zune...or better yet...iTunes DRM-free without the Mac vs. PC bickering. Fo...

By Mark Wilson A new edition of FairUse4WM has been released, allowing for Zune Marketplace WMAs to be stripped of their DRM so you can have fair use rights your purchases—copying to other devices at will....

Oh, IT’S ON. After months of eager anticipation, it looks like either Viodentia has finally come out of hiding, or s/he’s passed the torch on to another (Doom9 forum user Divine Tao?) — but either way it looks like MS DRM IBX components up to version 11.0.6000

By Thomas Ricker Hey Viodentia, you can come out of hiding now -- we have good news for you and the rest of the DRM-hating world. Microsoft has gone home with its tail between its legs, and very, very quietly dropped their lawsuit against you. (In official terms, they filed a notice of voluntary dismissal of al...

By Ryan Block The critical importance of the subpoena power to Microsoft's case against Viodentia explains the otherwise-mysterious question of why Microsoft has filed a suit for copyright infringement rather than for circumvention of DRM. The subpoena power is a little-noticed feature that the...

By Ryan Block Presently Microsoft has yet to been able to fix this vulnerability -- is it possible for them to repair PlaysForSure without totally starting over? As soon as I release something, Microsoft can certainly patch around it. I can do the same. I don't believe that either of us has a nuclear optio...

By Ryan Block Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable VideoThe last time we heard from Microsoft on the topic of FairUse4WM, the infamous PlaysForSure stripping application, it was a red-alert memo after the release of version 1.2 pledging to patch that version as they had the first. Now, it occurs to us...

By Marshall Kirkpatrick Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a key issue on the emerging web; how will the benefits of free flowing data be balanced by the commercial interests of content creators or the corporations that own their content? The past week has seen constant flow of important developments in DRM, so...

By David Berlind It was only a week ago that hackers proved that Microsoft may be unable to win the game of cat-n-mouse that it's in with hackers who are determined to neutralize the software giant's digital rights management (DRM) technology (a technology with a nasty side effect of keeping people from u...

By Ryan Block MICROSOFT CONFIDENTIAL [This was highlighted in bold red letters, ha! -Ed.] Dear Windows Media DRM Licensee, Kind regards, Windows Media Licensing Department Microsoft Consumer Media Technology Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Schneier also noted that Microsoft faces an "economic balancing act" when it comes to the patch cycle. While end users and corporate administrators benefit from having a regular cycle of updates, Microsoft incurs lower development costs by only having to build and test patches once a mo...

By noemail@noemail.org (Cory Doctorow) Cory Doctorow: Bruce Schneier points out that Microsoft has re-classified "security patch" to include patches to Windows DRM. This is a big problem -- best practice for Windows users is to run those critical patches that MSFT ships out on the first Tuesday of every month ("patch Tuesday"...

By Ryan Carter Filed under: Audio, Utilities, News, Windows, Macintosh, Open SourceOn the heels of FairUse4WM being released, QTFairUse6 was posted on the Hymn site, which is an app that will crack Apple iTunes DRM, in a similar way to FairUse4WM. According to InformationWeek, the QT version require...

By Ryan Block So the first thing we did was, of course, update to the very latest version of iTunes for Windows (6.0.5.20) and buy a song from the iTunes Music Store. As you'd expect, this is what happened with the AAC file tried to play in VLC. No go -- that's copy protection for ya!

So far as the yet very quiet forums are claiming, a new app called FairUse4WM can be used to strip Windows Media DRM 10 and 11 (i.e. PlaysForSure, but not WM DRM 9). Yes, yes, we know, we've heard this song and dance before. But before we proceed, let's just be totally clear on how the system works: p...

By Peter Rojas We know that you're already probably working to fix the, um, hole that's been discovered in Windows DRM 10/11, but we're going to ask you this anyway: please don't stop consumers from using FairUse4WM to remove copy protection from music they've downloaded.