Rumours abound on technology news sites this week that the master encryption key between the HDCP (high definition copy protection) system has been leaked into the wild. Whilst it has not yet been officially confirmed, Intel has confirmed that it is investigating a possible security leak.
Should it prove to be true, it could prove fatal to the protection protocol. Every HDCP enabled source and display possesses a unique key to encrypt and decrypt protected media for transmission and playback, possession of the master key would allow anyone to create their own valid source and sink codes and therefore play back HDCP enabled content on any devices.
This could prove a headache for AV vendors of HDCP enabled routers and switchers, who have invested significantly in technology to enable multi-display and source AV systems to handle HDCP protected content, if the standard is now abandoned.