Category: Uncategorized
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You Can Own an Integer Too — Get Yours Here
Remember last week’s kerfuffle over whether the movie industry could own random 128-bit numbers? (If not, here’s some background: 1, 2, 3) Now, thanks to our newly developed VirtualLandGrab technology, you can own a 128-bit integer of your very own. Here’s how we do it. First, we generate a fresh pseudorandom integer, just for you.…
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Why the 09ers Are So Upset
The user revolt at Digg and elsewhere, over attempts to take down the now-famous “09 F9 …” number, is now all over the press. (Background: 1, 2) Many non-techies, including some reporters, wonder why users care so much about this. What is it about “09F9…” that makes people willing to defend it by making T-shirts,…
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Digg Users Revolt Over AACS Key
I wrote yesterday about efforts by AACS LA, the entity that controls the AACS copy protection system used in HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs, to stop people from republishing a sixteen-byte cryptographic key that can unlock most existing discs. Much of the action took place at Digg, a site that aggregates Web page recommendations from many…
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AACS Plays Whack-a-Mole with Extracted Key
The people who control AACS, the copy protection technology used on HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs, are apparently trying to shut down websites that publish a certain 128-bit integer. The number is apparently a “processing key” used in AACS. Together with a suitable computer program, the key allows the decryption of video content on most existing…
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Miracle Fruit: Tinkering with our Taste Buds
Miraculin, the extract of a West African fruit, is said to make sour foods taste sweet. It’s not sugary, but it’s said to trick your taste buds into misreporting the flavor of the food you’re eating. One of my students, Bill Zeller, bought some miraculin and a group of us tried it out. Here, in…
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Botnet Briefing
Yesterday I spoke at a Washington briefing on botnets. The event was hosted by the Senate Science and Technology Caucus, and sponsored by ACM and Microsoft. Along with opening remarks by Senators Pryor and Bennett, there were short briefings by me, Phil Reitinger of Microsoft, and Scott O’Neal of the FBI. (Botnets are coordinated computer…
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Internet So Crowded, Nobody Goes There Anymore
Once again we’re seeing stories, like this one from Anick Jesdanun at AP, saying that the Internet is broken and needs to be redesigned. The idea may seem unthinkable, even absurd, but many believe a “clean slate” approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other challenges that have cropped up since…
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Is SafeMedia a Parody?
[UPDATE (Dec. 2011): I wrote the post below a few years ago. SafeMedia’s website and product offerings have changed since then. Please don’t interpret this post as a commentary on SafeMedia’s current products.] Peter Eckersley at EFF wrote recently about a new network-filtering company called SafeMedia that claims it can block all copyrighted material in…
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Cablevision and Anti-Efficiency Policy
I wrote recently about the Cablevision decision, in which a judge appeared to draw a line between two kinds of Digital Video Recorder (DVR) technologies. (DVRs let home viewers record TV shows and play them later.) The judge found unlawful a Remote Storage DVR (RS-DVR) in which recorded shows are captured and stored in the…
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Software HD-DVD/Blu-ray Players Updated
The central authority that runs AACS (the anticopying/DRM system used on commercial HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs) announced [April 6, 2007 item] last week the reissue of some software players that can play the discs, “[i]n response to attacks against certain PC-based applications”. The affected applications include WinDVD and probably others. Recall that analysts had previously…