HD-DVD Processing Key Ignites Digg Firestorm

As I write this, Digg has gone more than a little crazy. It started when users dugg a story on the AACS processing key that allows decryption of all HD-DVD movies published before April 23rd. Digg, apparently along with a number of other Web sites, received a request from the AACS copyright holders to take down their references to that story. They complied.

But on today's socially filtered Web, that didn't go over so well. Digg users responded by creating and digging an avalanche of stories including the processing key, including everything from silly images to Onion-style news reports that just happen to mention this valuable little bit of hex. (Right now, I think you have to go six pages deep to find a story that's NOT about the processing key.)

Well, after hours of digg-bombing, Digg has capitulated: As Kevin Rose mentions on the company blog, Digg will allow stories on the processing key to run. And hopefully sometime in the next week or so we'll be able to read a top story on Digg that isn't about this.

Here's what really gets me about this Digg firestorm: This processing key is old news. Very old news. More-than two-months-old news. The AACS licensing authority has already responded to this break, and hackers have already released much more comprehensive attacks on AACS. So what changed? Did the AACS folks wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Did they forget how well it worked when they tried to sue DeCSS out of existence?

Who knows... No matter what happens, we're sure to see lots more analysis of information control, copy protection, and socially filtered news in the next few weeks. It should be interesting. And with that, I shall continue listening to Feist's awesome new album, The Reminder.

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