Re: hacksdmi?

[Ralph Moonen <ralph () TINK ORG>]

At 22:34 10-10-00 -0700, Blue Boar wrote:

> P.S. Yes, the whole premise of "secure music" is fundamentally
> broken.  Yes, the minute someone figures the algorithm, the
> watermark is gone.  Yes, converting it to an MP3 would hopelessly
> destroy the watermark.

This is not true per se. Might be true for *this* algo, but the guys 'n
galls at the Fraunhofer institute have figured a way to put in digital
watermarks that:
-survives heavy compression
-survives many sequences of D/A - A/D conversion
-survives all kinds of effects(!!)
-survives even in short samples of the music
(So before you sample that drumloop and time-stretch it....)

It is done by analysing the spectrum and adding or subtracting
from the lesser (i.e. odd) harmonics. Since these harmonics will
retain their relative strengths through most processing (compression,
effects, d/a- a/d etc) the watermark stays intact. By tweaking the
exact algo dynamically depending on the actual music, it can be
made inaudible, and even when analysed, practically undetectable.

Scary uh?

>  Yes, this is copy protection, and we know
> that can't be made to work.

Well, all they really want to do is make it cumbersome, so as to
deter the script kiddies of piracy, so to say.

--Ralph