Release of working key opens gate to new hardware, software ripping solutions

When Intel Corporation devised High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) it delighted the entertainment industry.  At a time when the industry was cooking up high definition television and Blu-ray movies, they now had the perfect scheme to lock customers in and prevent pesky activities they hated -- like piracy or creating backup copies (HDCP worked alongside AACS to lock Blu-Ray movies in common hardware/media pairings).

The scheme was working out pretty well, until this week when someone using the account IntelGlobalPR let slip the scheme's master key on Twitter, confirming that it wasn't quite as secure as was believed.  While that account appears to be in no way related to Intel, Intel is confirming that the information is accurate.

Intel spokesperson Tom Waldrop comments, "We have tested this published material that was on the Web.  It does produce product keys... the net of that means that it is a circumvention of the code."

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