Hackers go two for five in SDMI copyright challenge

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- A music and technology forum that ran a $10,000 contest inviting people to hack into five copyright protection technologies said on Wednesday that two of the technologies had been successfully attacked.

But the group, known as the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), was quick to note that only one of the attacks was significant because it could be repeated on additional pieces of music. The group was formed to develop a standard for secure digital music distribution.

The contest results were released following weeks of speculation and embarrassment for the SDMI amid claims by researchers from Princeton and Rice universities and the Xerox Palo Alto Research Centers who said they had defeated four of the group's watermarking technologies, which try to guard against hacking by using hidden signals in the files.

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The SDMI would not identify the hackers who won the contest, but the researchers said on Wednesday that they had not submitted their attacks on the technology for consideration in the final round of the contest.

SDMI Executive Director Leonardo Chiariglione said the group received 447 submissions in the first round, which ended October 7. A second round began after that date to determine if submissions were repeatable on music or not.

"Whether successful or not, they taught us important lessons about what can and cannot work in the marketplace," Chiariglione said.

Edward Felten, a faculty member of Princeton and one of the researchers who claimed to have compromised the technology, said his group's entries were not considered in the final round of the contest.

"We haven't seen any evidence they were refuting our claims, but we didn't participate in the second round of the challenge," he said.

Felten said his group did not believe the second round was fair because the SDMI provided much less information than would normally be available to real hackers. "They wanted us to operate in a vacuum without even having access to the technology itself," Felten said.

The SDMI said the technologies that withstood the challenge included both watermark and non-watermark solutions. While SDMI had originally posted six technologies, one proponent withdrew its proposal early in the testing process.

"SDMI will be considering the results of the public challenge, as well as the results of the larger audibility tests, throughout this week," Chiariglione said.

Founding members of the SDMI include big record companies like Seagram Co. Ltd.'s Universal Music, Bertelsmann AG's BMG, Sony Corp.'s Sony Music, Time Warner's Warner Music Group and EMI Group's EMI Music. Time Warner is the parent company of CNN.com.

These labels have launched a crusade against digital piracy and are involved in a high-profile lawsuit against the widely popular song-swap free service Napster Inc. Last week, Bertelsmann broke ranks with its rivals and announced an alliance with Napster, inviting the other labels to join in its efforts to try to transform Napster into a secure, paid service.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Secure Digital Music Initiative
Princeton University
Rice University
Xerox Research and Technology
Seagram
Universal Music Group
BMG
Sony Music
Warner Music Group
EMI
Napster

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