"[C]omputer design is being dictated not by electronic design rules, physical layout requirements, and thermal issues, but by the wishes of the content industry." By deliberately breaking audio and video functionality, opening up new avenues for debilitating malware, and reversing performance gains in desktop PCs and third-party components, Peter Gutmann argues "the Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history."
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Dec 23, 2006 - 132 comments

Platform Security It’s time for a helpful primer on platform security. Also, our good friends at MoFi want to remind you: don’t buy anyone’s C.R.A.P. Always sound advice, except for you coprophiliacs out there. You guys are on your own.
posted by Unregistered User on Jul 31, 2006 - 10 comments

You too can be a felon! Last year, the SDMI Foundation made a public challenge to see if anyone could crack 6 proposed protection mechanisms for digitally-encoded music. All six turned out to be feeble and all six fell. Since then, the SDMI Foundation has been relying on lawyers to cover up for the incompetence of their engineers. They're trying to suppress this article, so everyone reading this has a duty to make and store a copy of it. (Everyone should also own at least one copy of DeCSS. I have the 442-character C version printed on the back of my personal card.)
posted by Steven Den Beste on Apr 21, 2001 - 15 comments

The SDMI Hack challenge seems to have gone down in flames. And apparently it wasn't even very difficult to break into it. This article goes into it in some detail. [more]
posted by Steven Den Beste on Oct 17, 2000 - 5 comments