Intel insists cracked HDCP code is not easily applied

by Steven Mostyn - Sep 17 2010, 15:12

If you’ve got an especially unscrupulous nature and are in the habit of exploiting crack codes in the name of illegally ‘liberated’ entertainment, chances are you’ve heard that Intel’s High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) master key has been broken.

News of the HDCP crack first appeared online earlier this week via micro-blogging site Twitter, along with a URL address linking directly to the code on Pastebin.com.

HDCP is the anti-piracy software used across a host of high-definition consumer electronics devices, preventing pirates from making illegal copies of movies. 

However, while the prospect of watching pirated movies on your HDTVs, Blu-ray players, DVD players, and set-top boxes might be a tantalising thrill, chipmaker Intel Corp. insists that actually utilising the code will be extremely difficult.

According to Intel spokesman Tom Waldrop, “someone would have to make a computer chip from it and put that chip into a device,” in order for it to enable the playback of pirated media.

Waldrop added that, “should any circumvention devices appear on the market [or] if someone uses this to try to create hardware that could take advantage of this hack, there are legal remedies that can and will be pursued.”

Intel, while confirming the cracked code, has said it is still in the process of establishing exactly how the protection software was broken and who posted it onto the Net.

Around the Web