SDMI Denies Hackers Trumped Security - Update

The Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI)
forum is denying that hackers successfully hacked into copyright-protected software, as part of a $10,000 challenge the company issued to anyone who thought themselves capable of compromising its technology.

A report in Web 'zine Salon last week quoted SDMI insiders as saying
that all six technologies were successfully mastered after the
organization issued a public challenge to code-breakers last month.
However, the SDMI is saying this week that it is not yet sure whether
challenge participants, who were competing for $10,000 prizes
offered for each technology, have actually defeated the six methods.

At a meeting of organization members in Los Angeles, Calif., on
Friday, the SDMI announced that 447 submissions had been received
in the month-long hacker challenge.

The healthy response is particularly interesting considering that
many in the open-source software community - including Linux Journal
technical editor Don Marti - had called for a boycott of the SDMI
challenge.

An SDMI spokesperson told Newsbytes that the 447 submissions did
indeed cover all six technologies, but that it would take some time
to determine whether there is an effective hack for each approach.
Some of the security schemes use technology known as digital
watermarking; others use encryption.

A variety of press sources this week, including Reuters, reported
that hackers claim to have accessed the technology. But SDMI still
maintains simply that it is carrying out tests to see if any of the
technologies have been compromised.

"At this point in time no proposed technology has been eliminated
based on the public challenge," the SDMI said in an official
statement. "And, until evaluation is completed, no conclusion can
be drawn regarding the success or failure of any attempted
challenge.

"Tests of the submissions include an evaluation of whether the
proposed technologies were affected in such a way as to avoid the
intended effect, whether the results can be replicated, and whether
in attacking the technology the music quality was degraded below a
pre-set threshold," the SDMI said. "For example, a submission that
destroyed a test track while destroying a given proposed technology
could not be considered successful."

But the Linux Journal's Marti rejected the SDMI challenge in an
editorial written Sept. 13, saying the contest amounted to asking
hackers to donate "free consulting services to an organization that
is using technical means to destroy the customary balance of
interests of copyright holders and music listeners."

"I will not participate in (SDMI's) plans to seize total control
over recorded music from the customer," he wrote. "I will not help
test programs or devices that violate privacy or interfere with the
right of fair use."

The SDMI has some 175 industry members, including software
companies such as Microsoft and Real Networks, hardware
manufacturers such as S3/Diamond Multimedia and Sony Electronics,
as well as music-industry bodies such as the Recording Industry
Association of America and the American Society of Composers,
Authors and Publishers.

Staff Writer Ian Stokell contributed to this article.