From: mike 

The challenge was issued and taken up.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070517-latest-aacs-revision-defeated-a-w
eek-before-release.html

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Despite the best efforts of the Advanced Access Content System (AACS)
Licensing Administration (AACS LA), content pirates remain one step ahead.
A new volume key used by high-def films scheduled for release next week has
already been cracked. The previous AACS volume key was invalidated by AACS
LA after it was exposed and broadly disseminated earlier this month. The
latest beta release of SlySoft's AnyDVD HD program can apparently be used
to rip HD DVD discs that use AACS version 3. Although these won't hit store
shelves until the May 22, pirates have already successfully tested
SlySoft's program with early release previews of the Matrix trilogy.

AACS LA's attempts to stifle dissemination of AACS keys and prevent hackers
from compromising new keys are obviously meeting with extremely limited
success. The hacker collective continues to adapt to AACS revisions and is
demonstrating a capacity to assimilate new volume keys at a rate which
truly reveals the futility of resistance. If keys can be compromised before
HD DVDs bearing those keys are even released into the wild, one has to
question the viability of the entire key revocation model.

After the last AACS key spread far and wide across the breadth of the
Internet, AACS LA chairman Michael Ayers stated that the organization
planned to continue clamping down on key dissemination, despite the fact
that attempts to do so only encouraged further dissemination. In a monument
to comedic irony, the AACS LA has elected to put out the fire by pouring on
more gasoline.

AACS clearly has yet to stop those determined to break the DRM scheme from
copying movies, but its key revocation model does create additional burdens
for device makers, software developers, and end users. As the futility of
trying to prevent copying continues to become more apparent and the costs
of maintaining DRM schemes escalate, content providers will be faced with a
difficult choice of whether to make their content more or less accessible
to consumers.

We are already seeing the music industry beginning to abandon DRM, but it
doesn't look like the movie industry is ready to take the same logical
step. Instead, the MPAA wants to have the best of both worlds by making DRM
interoperable and designing it in a manner that, according to MPAA head Dan
Glickman, will permit legal DVD ripping "in a protected way."
Although the MPAA's plans for DRM reform could reduce the incentives for
hacking AACS, the war between hackers and DRM purveyors will continue for
the foreseeable future.
===

 /m

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