Microsoft Vista’s “Protected Media Path:” Cracked Already?

January 29th, 2007

I’m gonna cut right to the chase and give this stuff to y’all straight: security researcher Alex Ionescu has just published a claim on his blog that he has developed a means to bypass Window’s Vista’s “Protected Media Path” DRM scheme. Yes, this is the entrenched DRM scheme built into Vista’s very guts that I mentioned a little while ago as being irrelevant to anyone who simply avoids protected media.

However, Ionescu is a bit of a candy-ass, and is a bit trepidatious about releasing the information because, as he puts it, the open-source community has no interest in his code (don’t be so sure about that, bucky) and releasing it as an anti-DRM device would be a scaaaaaaary, scaaaaaaary violation of the Digital Milennium Copyright Act. Oooooooooh! In Herr Ionescu’s defense, however, I must note that his description of the method on his blog may very well be detailed enough in and of itself to give other…shall we say, less scrupulous researchers enough information to reverse-engineer it for themselves. Sly!

Do keep in mind, though, that refraining from wasting your cash on protected media is a much more certain and stable means of avoiding any issues with Vista’s copy-protection. Don’t make me PMP-slap you!

By Derek C. F. Pegritz on January 29th, 2007 | Scategory: Computer Nerdery, Open Culture |