Intel has confirmed that code posted to the internet last week is the master key to its HDCP standard.
"We can use it to generate valid device keys that do interoperate with the (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) protocol," Intel spokesman Tom Waldrop said.
"For someone to use this information to unlock anything, they would have to implement it in silicon -- make a computer chip," he added. "As a practical matter, that's a difficult and costly thing to do."
While Waldrop gave the impression that Intel wasn't scrambling to somehow rectify the situation, the spokesman also stated that Intel would take legal action against anyone who used the HDCP code for a crack.
"There are laws to protect both the intellectual property involved as well as the content that is created and owned by the content providers," said Waldrop. "Should a circumvention device be created using this information, we and others would avail ourselves, as appropriate, of those remedies."