Cable Security Breach: What's All The Fuss?
This morning, Engadget created a tempest in a teapot when reporting on the release of pass codes for the HDCP encryption format, experts say. This format is used to encrypt information moving across connectors such as the HDMI cable that connects DVD players to television sets. It does not protect Blu-ray or HD DVDs directly.
Engadget claimed that "the DRM genie could be permanently out of the bag allowing perfect high definition copies of anything" This sounds foreboding, but it mostly isn't true, experts say.
"We’ve known for nine years that this was possible. Its certainly not a surprise. I think that in the grand scheme of things, it's not that big a deal," said David Wagner, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, who exposed the security flaws of HDCP almost a decade ago. The encryption on those were cracked some time ago, so this new development adds nothing to the world of digital media piracy, Wagner said.
