Microsoft E-Book Protection Cracked, Research Unpublished - Is there any copy prevention scheme that has not yet been cracked? SDMI, CSS, Adobe's e-book protection, Real Player's audio- and videostream protection, various pay-TV signal encryption methods -- none of these schemes withstood careful examination by researchers and hackers. Instead of admitting defeat, however, the content industry continues to use the DMCA (the direct result of its own lobbying efforts) to quell free speech. The SDMI crack has only been published with delay because the RIAA had threatened litigation, and we all know the stories of DeCSS and Dmitry Sklyarov. Streambox VCR, a tool for capturing Real Media streams, is no longer published after litigation of Real networks under the DMCA. Niels Ferguson has announced not to publish any results of his efforts to crack HDCP (a copy prevention system for digital video) for fear of litigation.
MIT's Tech Review reports that a programmer, who wishes to remain anonymous, has now demonstrated breaking Microsoft's E-Book Protection (LIT files):

The programmer's software works by recovering a series of well-hidden encryption keys specific to each activated copy of Reader and to each owner-exclusive e-book. It essentially reverses the process that publishers follow when they assemble source files such as text and images into a final e-book. The software dumps unprotected copies of these files into a new folder on the user's computer—as the programmer demonstrated to Technology Review using an actual owner-exclusive e-book purchased from a major online bookstore.

However, for fear of facing a fate similar to Sklyarov's, he has decided not to publish his program. This is yet another example of the "chilling effect" the DMCA has on cryptographic research. As results have to remain unpublished, corporations can gleefully refer to "alleged" security violations to customers and boast of their "secure content protection" schemes. This is like creating laws against blasphemy and then complaining that unbelievers can't come up with any logical argument against the existence of God (something which, incidentally, is quite common around the world).