OK you computer hackers, You now have a $10,000 challenge From MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.com/news/460310.asp Hacking dare: break code, get $$$ -- Music industry issues challenge with $10,000 reward By Lisa Napoli Sept. 15 — Come on, admit it. You think you’re smarter than the evil music industry, which you say has been ripping you off by overcharging for music and then, adding insult to injury, trying to shut down your beloved Napster. WELL, THEY KNOW you think so. So they’ve issued a challenge: Break the code on the secure formats they’ve been creating — and they’ll give you 10,000 bucks. This is no idle threat being launched by the Secure Digital Music Initiative, the industry consortium set up 18 months ago to figure out what the heck to do about the digital music mania, then just brewing online. (Napster hadn’t even crossed founder Shawn Fanning’s mind at that point, much less become the powerhouse it now is.) Starting Friday, the consortium wants you to visit HackSDMI.org to see if you can hack SDMI. The challenge is open until Oct. 7. “By successfully breaking the SDMI protected content, you will play a role in determining what technology SDMI will adopt,” says the release trumpeting the contest. SDMI, a coalition of over 200 music labels, hardware manufacturers, and online services (they pay $20,000 to join) has been much-criticized for being slow in developing formats and methods to combat online music piracy and compete with the MP3. Some people are angry with the group for issuing this challenge, claiming that it’s a “publicity stunt” designed to get “free consulting services.” The Linux Journal has launched a boycott of the effort. Leonardo Chiariglione, the man in charge of SDMI, doesn’t seem phased by the salvos. Perhaps that’s because he invented the MP3 format in the first place, back in 1987, long before the Internet was available to the general public. Chiariglione is an Italian engineer who, among other things, heads up the Moving Pictures Expert Group. He’s been working on media compression algorithms for more than 20 years. Running SDMI, he said, is a hardship on his family. It’s an unpaid job that requires him to travel frequently to the United States. But it was the logical next step for him to take. “The reason why I accepted it is because with MPEG we have produced the technology for compressing audio and video, and with SDMI we are producing the technology that protects the audio and video,” he said in an interview earlier this year. He seems nonchalant about what he has wrought in creating the much-embattled MP3 format. “The fact that MP3, everyone can have it, everyone can rip tracks from a CD, that’s tantalizing,” he said. “Let’s preserve the positive side of MP3 and let’s put a protection, a security layer, so that music retains its value.” With broadband Net access growing, making it more possible to swap video, Chiariglione said that security layer takes on heightened importance. “On the Internet you are going to have thousands, tens of thousands potentially, millions of different Web sites giving you content the quality of TV today,” he said. “This is really something that is really going to change many lives.” Without realizing it, Chariaglione already has. And now he’s got the task of, in essence, competing with his own invention. ------------------ Stay Cool...
