The Register and Slashdot both have this story... Lets see what happens with the DMCA, all hell is gonna break loose. It's an interesting piece of research which will most likely be stomped soon by MS using DMCA or similar.
An anonymous coder named 'Beale Screamer' claims to have broken the Version-2 Microsoft digital rights management (DRM) scheme, and has produced the source code and a DOS utility to un-protect .WMA audio files.
The author provides a zip file, which contains a lengthy description of the MS DRM weaknesses, a philosophical tract explaining why he thinks it necessary to crack, the source code, and the command-line utility.
- There is no attempt at describing the older version 1 of DRM. While version 1 is widely used (probably more widely than version 2!), and the scheme is somewhat simpler, the purpose of this is to describe the latest technology and not necessarily allow all existing systems to be broken.
Not all of the information here is needed in order to write the software that removes the encryption, but some of the more interesting points surrounding the MS-DRM scheme and software are given even if not necessary.
Also note that no code is included in this document, either real code or pseudo-code. All that's in this document is a straight mathematical discussion, which should be fully protected under the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I have no doubt that the corporate entities that this document offends will attempt to suppress it, but I don't think any argument they make could hold up to Constitutional scrutiny.
News sources: Slashdot and The Register
View: Microsoft's Digital Rights Management Scheme - Technical Details @ Cryptome.org
Download: FreeMe.zip @ Cryptome / 657.zip @ The Register (Doh, link now fixed!)
We are providing this information AS-IS, as "proof of concept", you have been warned! :D
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