I had a few thoughts on the recent HD-DVD folderol that was going on at Digg and other places, and I figured I would let them stew a couple of days to see what I managed to mentally sift out of them.
There have been a few interesting points made on the subject of the release of the HD-DVD key. If you haven't heard, or you just didn't care, or you had been left ignorant by big media news (no surprise if that's the case), then you should know what happened before we begin.
Very simply and quickly, as I understand it: HD-DVDs are next-generation DVDs that hold more data and contain higher resolution movies. All the data on the discs are encoded with one of many secret keys (basically a special, unusually big number) that is licensed to makers of HD-DVD players so that they can decode the video contained on the disc for playback. Without the specific key for the disc, you can't play the video, nor can you digitally transfer the video to a different format. Someone recently discovered one of these keys and made the information public, which would allow someone to write programs to remove the encryption from those discs and enable all of the things that are otherwise impossible without it. So what does Digg have to do with any of this?...
more