Texas Instruments aims lawyers at calculator hackers

“Lawyers for Texas Instruments are taking aim at a group of
calculator enthusiasts who posted the cryptographic keys used to
modify the devices so they run custom-designed software.

“Over the past few weeks, TI has sent webmasters letters
invoking the DMCA, or US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (PDF),
and demanding they remove the keys published in blog postings. The
private keys are needed to sign operating systems before they work
on a wide variety of calculator models designed by the Dallas-based
electronics manufacturer.

“Because TI generated the keys using extremely weak 512-bit
ciphers, the hobbyists were able to crack the vast majority of them
in a matter of weeks using an open-source project for distributed
computing known as BOINC. The keys make it possible for them to
write DIY versions of firmware that in some cases hasn’t been
updated in more than four years.”

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