AACS versus The Blogosphere: bets, anyone?

Saturday, May 5th, 2007

The Advanced Access Content System (AACS) copy protection body has decided, with all the wisdom of dodos walking happily towards the strange new white ape that just landed on the beach, to take on the entire blogosphere over the mass publication of a software key that could be used to break encryption on some HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs.

The current number of returns you get when searching for the key on Google is in the region of 700,000 pages and rising.

AACS has, in effect, given the finger to the blogosphere. It gets the finger right back, of course.

The public never wanted Digital Rights Management (DRM). Never. Only big companies ever wanted DRM incorporated into CDs, DVDs, Windows Vista, downloadable music files, recording and playback hardware. How anyone ever thought we’d take to the idea that we can’t legally make backups of the things we purchase is beyond me. So, too, is the notion that we’d willingly accept high-definition DVD content being output at a lower resolution if a specific HDMI-connected monitor isn’t detected, even if the one you’ve got can handle the resolution of the disc. If it weren’t for that pesky lock-out, eh? It’s designed to persuade you to go out and spend a grand or more on a nice new monitor when there’s nothing wrong with the one you already have.

Bloggers ‘crossed the line’ when they posted the software key, according to the AACS. I haven’t posted the key myself, but wow—these guys really want to go down fighting, don’t they? I would post the key if I could find a decent-sized banner of the version which has been converted into hexadecimal colours—that is, stripes. Yep, someone has successfully made a colourful badge of the code. Of course, it’s an illegal rainbow because the string of numbers is owned by AACS, apparently, irrespective of whether they appear as such or translated into colours, along with a load of other number sequences that have never ever been made public. So how can you say you own something when you won’t reveal to the world what it is you claim you own?

“I own… something…”

“Yeah, what?”

“I cannot tell you. It is a secret. If you find out, you will have to be eliminated.”

“Oh. And if I use this thing without knowing it belongs to you?”

“You will be breaking the law. You will go to prison. You will be the best friend of hirsute men every morning in the showers. “

Cuckoo. Cuckoo. This isn’t new, though—companies have long had trade secrets, but it’s hard to accept anyone claiming ownership of strings of numbers and colours. If someone told you to take off that dress because they own the colour blue, you’d rightly kick them from here to three weeks from today. That, or prescribe heavy doses of anti-psychotics and sign a sectioning order.

Michael Ayers, chair of the AACS business group, says that tracking down everyone who has published the key will be a ‘resource-intensive exercise’. I put that forward to win Understatement of the Year 2007. It’s also impossible, especially as more and more people will be switching from publishing the key as a number sequence to a hexadecimal colour banner instead. Mr Ayers said that while he could not reveal the specific steps AACS would be taking, it would be using both ‘legal and technical’ means to prevent the circumvention of copy protection. Presumably this doesn’t mean the AACS body would break the law and set about hacking people’s websites. So how can the AACS use ‘technical’ means to remove disputed content of blog entries made by anyone? Writing a letter isn’t technical; going to court isn’t technical. Can we expect to see the AACS employing hackers in the near future to do some collateral damage to the blogosphere? I for one would love an explanation from Ayers as to what he means by ‘technical’ in this context.

“We will take whatever action is appropriate,” says the bullish Ayers. “We hope the public respects our position and complies with applicable laws.” Fat chance. “We trust the public will take our threats seriously,” is what he’s really saying. “Do as we say or we nail you.”

He added that the copy protection on the HD-DVDs was ‘absolutely not broken’. “There has been a lot of misunderstanding. The key that has been leaked has now been revoked.”

We are, once again, being lied to. Ayers relies, like so many big business representatives, on public apathy and ignorance. But the Internet has long proven itself capable of breaking down the old paradigms. It is essentially a chaotic system. Try to impose order and control upon it, to any globally significant degree, and you are doomed to failure.

Let’s get this straight, I have no desire to hack a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc. None whatsoever. But I loathe DRM technologies. They are offensive. Anyone who does anything to subvert the rule of big business over what the rest of us can do with the things we buy is, in my book, a bit of a hero—whether that’s cracking the HD-DVD encryption codes to prove the futility of any and all DRM implementations, because every security measure is always hackable sooner or later, or by running activation-free copies of the allegedly pirate-proof new Windows Vista just to prove it can be done and to undermine the obscene prices Microsoft is charging.

I don’t advocate but I must admit to admiring the technical skills involved, and the revolutionary aims.

I don’t like the idea of illegality but I care more for justice. I’m not fearful of illegality, though, because my sexuality was illegal from puberty until I was 21 years old, and even then only legal with certain rules and restraints placed upon it by unfair governance. And no, I don’t mean handcuffs. But the law on sexual equality in the UK changed not by sheepish compliance but by people fighting the law, breaking it until… Well, until it broke. Sure, the actual rguments were won for the most part but people also had to go to prison, lie down in front of traffic, march in protest, throw eggs at politicians and bishops. They had to risk unpopularity, condemnation, humiliation, biased reporting. Not everyone. But some people had to do something. Or nothing would get done. Nothing would change.

This fight over copy-protection on high-definition DVDs is not about people wanting things without paying for them. It’s about guerilla work in cyberspace with its focus firmly set on ensuring we have the technological and civil freedoms in the future that we don’t right now. It will be interesting, to say the least, to see what the AACS comes up with for its second salvo against bloggers everywhere. It is setting itself up for spectacular and enormously satisfying failure. DRM is on the way out. Ayers is pushing yesterday’s deeply unpopular product.

While the war plays out, if you can get past the indoctrinated-from-birth notion that the law is always just and fair and has to be respected at all times in all things, then you’re three-quarters of the way towards being a radical. Well done. You’ll be thinking about what you eat and drink next. And who you vote for. Viva la difference, here’s to revolution!

Now, anyone got a nice big copy of that colourful banner they can let me have?

Currently listening to: Morrissey – Your Arsenal – We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful

categories: technology

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