Stardate 20011020.0603 (On Screen): Microsoft confirms that a program being distributed anonymously
does indeed remove the copy protection from its .WMA file format.
Nevertheless, the damage to Microsoft's overall digital rights management (DRM) software campaign is slight, Usher said. The company has built in a means to update the protections for cases such as this. Some music on the market may lose its locks, but the software as a whole will remain secure, Usher said.
You know, if I was a recording exec who had just had the copy protection for the last three years worth of my music removed by hackers, I would not be very comforted to know that Microsoft's "software as a whole" remained secure. This particular break probably didn't have much effect simply because the .WMA format hasn't yet been used extensively, but if it does become broadly used and this happens again, the definition of "some music" might be billions of dollars worth. (discuss)
Here's a description written by the anonymous author. (It includes a PGP signature. I hope our hero is smart enough to use a different one for his public personna. If he's using the same one, he will have proved his identity. Those who live by crypto...)
