AfterDawn: News

Sony reveals new DRM technology

Sony has announced that they have developed a new "block cipher algorithm" that is specifically designed to enable advanced copyright protection and authentication for distribution of digital media such as music, movies and images.

Sony says it plan to reveal more details about the technology, code named CLEFIA, at the Fast Software Encryption 2007 conference which begins on March 26 in Luxembourg. To date, Sony has revealed that the technology is "a 128-bit block encryption that supports key lengths of 128, 192 or 256 bits." They also say that CLEFIA is powerful enough to defend the digital media against "known cryptoanalytic attacks."



Sony hopes that the technology will make its way into software and AV devices in the future and they claim that CLEFIA can offer stronger security while requiring fewer operations during encoding and decoding processes. The whole process would reduce strain on hardware and can lead to smaller and better AV devices in the future. The company also revealed that the technology "achieves a maximum data bandwidth of 1.42 Gb/s in 90 nm CMOS cell libraries, which would be efficient enough to bring CLEFIA to smartcard environments."

More news will be posted on the technology as it becomes available.


Source:
TGDaily

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 24 Mar 2007 21:37

• Previous article

• Plasma industry will see growth, but not as much in revenue

• Next article

• Report says Mac OS X not as secure as Windows XP

• 6 comments

• BobbyBlu

  When will these company learn no matter how much copy protection you make it going to get cracked if alot of money is involved.The same people that make this mess is the same people who crack them....lol

  24.3.2007 21:45 #1

• cleverick

  anything is breakable if you hit it hard enough...

  24.3.2007 21:50 #2

• bobiroc

  News - Sony Releases new DRM
  
  News (3 Days Later)- Sony's new DRM cracked

  25.3.2007 07:19 #3

• MrGrimace

  Every copy protection will be cracked. The ultimate goal of the protector is to make the time it takes to decode not worth the information contained inside. The problem that all of these companies don't seem to understand is that thanks to free, copy protection-free encoders, only ONE person has to break the copy protection before the entire internet has the content. All of the companies that keep coming up with new copy protection software (At least CP software that doesn't take a month to decode) are performing an exercise in futility.
  EDIT:
  A 128-bit encryption is great (about 3.4028236692093846346337460743177e+38 possibilities would take about 643955492761849914117 years using a brute force attack on one of today's computers), but at some point the key has to enter into memory where it can be extracted and used by a cracker.
  
  The other aspect of this that people should be outraged about is that the search for these new encryption technologies drive up the cost of the final product. (Likely more than the reduced demand due to piracy) Additionally, the decryption requires computer power to decode that could be used elsewhere.
  
  Copy Protection on the internet is a lost cause. The sooner that the big names in entertainment realize this, the sooner they can work with the consumer to find a happy medium.

  25.3.2007 07:42 #4

• Pop_Smith

  In other news:
  
  Too bad for Sony, their "CLEFIA" has been successfully decrypted. An unknown group of hackers modified the PS3 version of Folding@Home so they, along with anyone whom wants to download and install a patch, could use their PS3's to circumvent said encryption in a months time or less. ;)
  
  Peace

  25.3.2007 10:01 #5

• pstamer

  Sony DRM protection= toast. Muahahahahahaha. ( continues hysterical laughter)

  25.3.2007 12:38 #6