Hackers discover HD DVD and Blu-ray "processing key" -- all HD titles now exposed
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Feb 13th 2007 7:46AM
posted Feb 13th 2007 7:46AM
Those cooky kids over at the Doom9 forums hate themselves some DRM. Not more than two months after discovering a means to extract the HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc "volume keys" to decrypt AACS DRM on individual films, we're now getting word that DRM hacker arnezami has found the "processing key" used to decrypt the DRM on all HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc films. Let's break this down for what it is: instead of needing individual keys for each and every high-definition film -- of which there are many -- the processing key can be used to unlock, decrypt, and backup every HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc film released so far. As arnezami points out, "nothing was actually hacked, cracked or even reverse engineered." All he had to do was keep an eye on his memory, watch what changed, and voila... the processing key appeared. So kick back and watch the trickle of HD titles hitting the torrents quickly turn into a flood (at ~20GB a pop, that's not an exaggeration) when the BackupHDDVD and BackupBluray utilities (or AnyDVD HD) are updated to reflect the new [Thanks, Eric L]
HA! Thats funny as hell. DRM is a waste of time.
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Windows, Windows, Windows, Baby yeah!!!!!
LOLLOLLOLLOL!!!!!!!!!
Sweet...
i bet they are happy about that!
ahah
Uh-oh! I think a bunch of execs in Hollywood just soiled their pants.
The cat is out of the bag now! Stop the presses!
If anything, this will make digital download movies more ubiquous.
Let's keep our fingers crossed that Fairplay and Windows DRM will get cracked real soon (for movies)
How long did it take to crack DVD's?
This is awesome haha.... though it took me 2 weeks to download an hd-dvd so I don't really envision this as the end of the retail market for them. (It's nice to learn your computer is or isn't fast enough to decrypt them without dropping the $)
Lets be fair though, DVD John CRACKED dvds, he broke the algorithm used to decrypt them.
Here they have only revealed a flaw in the implementation, they have not cracked AACS. All they did was show how shitty some well paid programmers really are. Funny stuff.
Can this key be revoked or are they totally screwed?
This development will devastate the movie industry. George Lucas says he doesn't want to make movies anymore..would rather make short films for tv. No one will want to sink millions of dollars making a full length movie if it's stolen.
Think about what the actions of a few will do to the masses. Say goodbye to new full length movies.
So long blu-ray...see you later HD DVD.
Well if you remember, Jon Johanson was aided in hacking CSS by the fact that US crypto export laws in the 90s prevented exporting encryption higher than 40 bit. CSS was developed with the international market in mind and thus could be brute forced in a much more reasonable amount of time than if it had used 128 bit encryption. I think that's was a flaw in the implementation too.
2 weeks to download and $25 for a blank disc...no urgent piracy threat yet...
Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are designed to be able to revoke these keys. Expect new titles released more then 2 months from now to not use this key. The company whose key was found will be forced to issue an upgrade and they will change how the keys are used so that it cannot be found in memory. There is a reason that people were trying to go after individual title keys since there is no way to revoke them.
"George Lucas says he doesn't want to make movies anymore.."
I say good riddance! Let the true artists make the mainstream movies from now on. You will see once people get accustomed to the higher standards, they will actually pay $10 to see a movie, and gladly buy the disc.
"No one will want to sink millions of dollars making a full length movie if it's stolen."
Because millions of dollars guarantee a good movie.
Wait, no.
You know, if a movie is good, I'll buy it. I own a large library of Akira Kurosawa flicks, all of Neon Genesis, a good number of Miyazaki films, a few reels of Steve McQueen, Smith's Jersey saga, the two-hour miniseries of Adama, as told by Moore (not Michael), the story of Mua'Dib and his sand-people, the... squishy misadventures of an Irken Invader by Vasquez, and as soon as I find a copy of it, Whedon's Serenity will join their ranks. But I'm not going to pay $20 for The Phantom Menace. I'll just watch it on cable (not pirating, but I'm still not paying). When a good movie comes out, I'll shell out to buy it. Like A Beautiful Mind, or the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Trilogy, a perfect example of how to get people to buy DVDs.
"George Lucas says he doesn't want to make movies anymore"
I thought that was the public saying that we don't want him to make anymore movies.
they wont be able to pay tom cruise £15,000,000 per movie. shame...
Just like the VCR destroyed the movie industry originally, the audio tape destroyed the music industry, and the photocopier destroyed the print industry.....
It amazes me that whomever developed this technology did not see this coming. Why spend so much $$ on this only to know it would take no time to figure out the keys?
I only have a question: how long it's gonna take to release Blue-Ray/HD-DVD Decrypter?
Tim Fischer do you work for one of the big studios?
Anyone who wants to can download DVD Decrypter or a multitude of other software to copy DVD's and guess what? Million dollar movies are still being made and actors and studio execs are making millions.
If they are smart they should sell non-DRM'd HD and Blu-Ray DVDS. Most people will still rent them and buy them from Wal-Mart and Target. Now you'll be able to backup/copy (read; use) your DVD's anyway you see fit.
This will not be a disaster. Piracy has been show recently to have a statistically insignificant effect on media sales.
This could give HD-DVD the edge, making it the more attractive option for people. So this could end up giving HD-DVD the "next-gen format war" win, ironically.
This news has me considering going with HD-DVD. Before this, I had no interest at all in the next-gen formats at all.
You can't have encryption if you share the decryption with everyone. As soon as you place your content into the public domain, even for sale you lose almost all expectation of control.
Did you miss that this works for Blu-Ray as well as HD-DVD? Sounds to me like you were already a fanboy of HD-DVD and are now just masquerading as a new convert to the cause to try and convince others. You'll need a smarter arguement for most people though, hopefully.
Ok, so I've been reading the thread and wanted to relay what has really happened here.
Basically what was discovered was what appears to be a universal disk key. I could be completely wrong on the details that follow but the concept should be straight. All of the disks that have been pressed so far used a shared seed (the first on a list apparently) to create the disk keys, resulting in the universal key being possible.
They cannot revoke this key.
But they can change the seed used in future disk creation to prevent this key from decrypting the disks.
The reason this is significant is that you no longer need to find specific keys for disks, you can just use this key... for now.
The key was found in the memory or one of the software hd-dvd players, just like the disk keys were, so really what will probably come to pass is that in about 2 months (or however long it takes to react) new disks will hit the market that this key doesn't work with, at the same time they will force out software updates for the software hd-dvd and blu-ray players that encrypt the keys and keep them out of main memory. At this point in time we'll be at ground zero... well ground 300 (or whatever) since all previously released disks will still be decrypt-able.
There is a great writeup in how he found it if you aren't into technical details.
Great work arnezami.
Is it not "kooky" kids instead of "cooky"?
BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA... [wipes tears from eyes]
this is soooooooo excellent.
about key revoking - that 'll be part two of this comedy, if they even bother. I imagine a red alarm going off, keys being revoked, people being radioed in, etc.. and when all the dust is settled and new keys are in use, arnezami will watch that same spot in memory again - that will be a whole lot easier this time around - and post it online.
the **AA should listen to Steve Jobs, DRM doesn't work.
Do all HD-DVD and BluRay players have to be connected to the Internet? If not, there's no way they are going to change that Key. What a nightmare it would be if some of your discs worked and some did not. I would imagine retailers would sue the studios if this happened. Why? Because they would have to accept returns on these DVDs and that means you can buy any DVD, copy it, then take it back to the store and say it didn't play on your DVD player.
A network port is part of the HD DVD Spec but it is NOT REQUIRED by the Blu Ray Spec. In fact, the only players with network ports are the PS3 and, i think, the high end pioneer player.
Even Sony's own player lacks an RJ45 jack.
this happiness wont last long if they protect the key in memory later .
the worst part of it all is that the people who buy the movies have to pay a mark-up to pay the DRM coders, even though their expensive, pointless anti-consumer software gets crax0red before the hardware media itself even becomes popular.
...if a new Blu-Ray movie costs $60, let's say, then as much as $10 could probably be shaved off the price if they didn't invest so heavily in DRM systems that restrict consumer rights and fail to stop the real pirates. I say down with DRM.
A new Blu-ray movie costs between $20 and $30, with most falling around $24. The cost is negligible. DRM may be bad for a lot of reasons, but it's not really making a difference in the price of movies. They'd charge the same price (or more) without DRM. Large companies aren't in the habit of passing off savings to consumers unless they are forced to. It's not costing them anywhere near retail price to get those discs to market.
what it does show is just how pointless DRM is - pirates will always be able to figure out ways around it, consumers will always be disadvantaged (to some extent) by it. The ways companies should be fighting against piracy should be through ease of use/playing/purchase and added value in packaging (like steelbook cases), things that can't be downloaded. IMO it should be about rewarding honest customers more and fighting illegal downloaders less.
phex @ Feb 13th 2007 9:58AM
I only have a question: how long it's gonna take to release Blue-Ray/HD-DVD Decrypter?
They'll be out a few weeks ago. Poke around at doom9.org
Nobuyuki Idei said "No, because Blu-Ray has higher capacity. It won't fit on an HD-DVD"
Size does not matter that much. Once you strip out the movie previews, foreign language tracks, etc... you will be able to get it to fit.
"Here they have only revealed a flaw in the implementation, they have not cracked AACS."
Makes no difference.
DRM exists to do a particular thing, namely to prevent copying. *How* you stop it from doing that is semantic. The point is AACS is no longer doing its job. AACS itself, as a DRM scheme, was cracked. The code may not have been; the DRM scheme was.
The big failing of DRM in general is that there are so many ways to defeat it, and *none* of them can be rendered moot or impossible if you actually want the media to be playable on the consumer end. *All* of these methods are inherently possible and always will be. This is one possible way of breaking DRM. It probably won't be the only way AACS is cracked, but it's the first. The fact that it was done on the front end rather than the back end doesn't take away anything from the result.
And this key can never be revoked, as some others have suggested. Key revocation is a feature of these new players but it can never really be put into practice, lest a costly and nightmarish consumer backlash develop - something neither the HD-DVD nor BD camp needs right now. A new key can be used for future discs, but these discs will remain cracked forever - and I don't see how a new volume key is going to remain secret for longer than about five seconds either. It's going to be kind of pointless to even bother updating those keys now that people know how to discover them.
So can you now download a Blu-ray movie, extract the video, and author a HD-DVD (if you have the equipment and burnable of course)?
Or the other way round?
No, because Blu-Ray has higher capacity. It won't fit on an HD-DVD.
:-)
Cheers and jeers.
Cheers to the Hacker for breaking the supposedly ultra tough, super secure, key revoking DRM from hell.
Jeers to the industry that built the most hideously consumer unfriendly DRM yet. Forcing all kinds of crap on digital displays HDCP in order to even see the movie. All this inconvenience and hardware incompatibility for what??? For nothing. Once again the pirates aren't slowed at all, it just inconveniences legit users to the extreme.
What next? A retinal scan with internet verification of everyone in the room before the movie will play? When will this madness stop? Eventually you will drive users to piracy just to get some compatibility and ease of use.
------Eventually you will drive users to piracy just to get some compatibility and ease of use.-------
This is true already. I buy my movies, though I'd rather download one again to load on my laptop for when I'm away rather than bring the DVD's or rip them myself. Not quite the point you made, but close.
More to your point, I could buy music from iTunes, but I'll "pirate" (again, I buy my music) the songs so they actually work on my MP3 player, which is not an iPod and doesn't support any sort of DRM...
Also, something I don't think anyone else has said, DRM and key revocation can or will hurt the rental industry too. Imagine renting a Blu-Ray to play on your non-networked player, only to find the disc won't play.
I noticed this at the bottom of the page:
All contents copyright © 2003-2007, Weblogs, Inc. All rights reserved
If you hate people zealously guarding their IP so, maybe you should consider putting this under a creative commons license?
Word!
Jonathan Sundy @ Feb 13th 2007 8:58AM:
"At this point in time we'll be at ground zero... well ground 300 (or whatever) since all previously released disks will still be decrypt-able."
Though I agree with most of your arguments, I think the idiom you're looking for is "square one," not "ground zero." Ground zero would imply more of a final ending than merely a digression back to the drawing board. (And to extrapolate from your attempted play on words, we'd be at "square 301" given that we've not lost progess already made.) ;-]
myk @ Feb 13th 2007 10:06AM:
"what it does show is just how pointless DRM is - pirates will always be able to figure out ways around it, consumers will always be disadvantaged (to some extent) by it."
Pointles...to those who break it. Yet, quite useful to those who use it. As has been stated, piracy shows little statistical impact on sales (and therefore, on revenue), which I believe is mostly due to the fact that piracy is, at this point, a little too advanced/time consuming for the average consumer. The vast majority of those who purchase movies legally have no interest in doing anything other than just that- purchasing the movie.
Everyone has a right to go to whatever extreme they deem necessary to protect their property. I know that if I was a movie producer wanting to earn money from a film, I would take whatever measure's necessary to ensure maximum profit. I would acknowledge the pirate community as a necesary and unavoidable margin of loss, yes, but my focus would be on making sure that the average consumer didn't ever consider piracy as an easy alternative to paying full price.
They're never going to stop trying to protect their products. Suggesting that they should shows that you don't understand their side of the business. If all digital media types were unencrypted and unprotected- as easy to duplicate as a VHS tape- that would almost instantly lead to inverting the current ratio of pirates and average consumers, which would definitely impact the bottom line for everyone trying to profit from making and distributing movies.
If you want free movies, then crack them and be the 1337 pirate you love to be, but isn't it a little naive to go around saying, "Hey, I'm a pirate- stop fighting and just leave the bounty on the dock for me so I don't have to put any effort into taking it from you, OK?"
Just my $0.02 on the matter :-]
I think the point is not that most people want to pirate movies, just that they now have many more devices that they wish to use the movies they buy on.
If you purchase a DVD and wish to watch it on your PC or the TV in the bedroom or that laptop or ipod or cell phone, why shouldn't you just be able to do that quickly and easily? Why do you have to watch a lower res version because while the TV or laptop could handle the high res, they don't meet the DRM HW specs so they are toned down.
Why should you have to manually record the movie to watch it on your iPOD or phone - which they are also attempting to prevent you from doing.
The sheer size of the high-def movies themselves is a limiting factor currently for most, but I've seen this with VHS, CDs, DVDs, and now HD DVDs and each time Hollywood fears they will lose money yet each time they realize a sales increase while the black market in other countries continues to stay in business.
Put all the DRM you want to on something - but let me play and watch my digital entertainment on whatever device I wish to with my legally purchased items.
Ok, speaking business-wise, downright protecting intellectual rights with an iron fist is not the only way of business-may even be a bad one.
Movie theaters lose money on movie tickets, but use it to get profit out of condiments. Fast food loses money on food but gets their profits from drinks.
Companies need to revisit their approach to marketing their products. If people are not paying cash for the movies, what can entice them to?
Napster was great in that people could instantly sample music that was recent. I was more exposed to different songs and artists, which made me buy complete albums at the end. Nowadays shopping at online media sources has become easier, but with the necessity to commit to a product with limited knowledge, which makes the experience heavy.
Smart business is contrary to having your way with the iron fist- I feel it is better to observe the current conditions and direct its flow to your interests rather than superimposing your fantasy on reality forcefully.
I sincerely hope the MPAA / RIAA spent MILLIONS on this DRM crap. Serves them right for punishing consumers and not pirates.
Down with DRM
First of all, I don't care what Steve Jobs says about DRM. He is full of shit. Steve Jobs' smelly pirate ass thinks that he can have his cake and eat it too. He is two-faced to say that DRM does not work. Tell me Steve-O, why can I not rip a DVD into my iTunes or front row, but only rip a CD. You want to control my living room but you won't let me use my current paid in full collection of media! Its almost funny how the millions of Apple loving lemmings praise Steve for his outlash against DRM, yet he is the king of DRM.
Now as for the HD-DVD / Blu-Ray dilemma....
It will be cracked? There will be torrents of HD movies till the end of time. Bandwidth will only increase and compression will only get better. People will be able to trade ultra-cheap optical storage devices full of pre-loaded media libraries forever! For $69.00 you can get a 250GB drive. You can store a zillion DVDS or a bunch of HD-DVDs on that sucker and share it with whomever.
Who wants to invest $1000s into an HD media collection when you can load your HTPC with your friends movies in an unlocked format.
In time we will see that just as the mainstream adopted Napster, it will adopt these practices. There is no stopping it.
HEEHEHE HAH HA WHO WHO HAH HA HEHE HOHOHO HAHA!!!
Compression of video isn't getting any better than H.264 for awhile. The computers out now can't handle it, so until quad core machines are the mainstream $500 default, I really don't see another jump in compression technology for hi res video.
@ePants
I don't think that most people who want to buy a movie do it because they have no interest in pirating the movie. Lots of average people can figure out how to copy a DVD movie by going to a place like Doom9 and following the guides there, or else just ask a friend who already knows how. I guarantee that most people who actually buy the movies do it because they want a real collection, like any other collection of items for sale. It's a status thing. If you have racks and racks of DVDs with the shiny covers and nice packaging, it's like check out my awesome collection of DVDs. Now, if you have racks and racks of DVD-Rs marked up with a Sharpee it is considerably less impressive from a capitalistic standpoint.
I definitely agree that people have a right to do whatever they think they have to do to protect their property. Otherwise, car alarms would be illegal. Although a lot of people do want to use the content they buy for their own purposes without having to break the DRM, a lot of other people want to have it for free. That's just a product of human nature. I doubt most people on here can honestly say that they do or would not protect their own property.
@ Zach
I don't really think Jobs is the king of DRM. Apple is implementing a business model that he suggests (and is not lying) is forced upon him by the other companies involved in the process. I don't think Jobs really cares THAT much about DRM, otherwise Apple software would be hard to pirate (and for those of you who don't know ie Windows die-hard, it's not). You can't rip a DVD into iTunes because Apple doesn't own the movie company that made your DVD (then again, if they did, they might implement DRM, but that's neither here nor there for now). So really, your arguments are terribly misguided due to your unabashed hatred for Steve Jobs and Apple.
Actually, broseph, I really like Apple and Jobs. I am just not a blind follower. Why can't I rip a non-copy protected DVD into my iTunes? Why must I use H.264 with the Apple TV? Call it what you want. Call it DRM or call it proprietary features, in the end it is Jobs trying a little too hard to run his show as a closed circuit. Such restricted use does corroborate the non-DRM open source mentality that he is presentaly eminating. Overall, I think that many companies can learn a whole lot from Apple. Their streamlined look and functionality, their simplicity, and their friendship with really cool celebrities has opened many doors for them. (particularly iTunes Music Store).
But I also think that Apple should learn from other companies...particularly Sony. While it was once the King of portable music (ie the Walkman), it now is struggling for market share. I attribute this not to technology but rather to too much proprietary bullshit.
rp @ Feb 13th 2007 4:17PM
"I don't think that most people who want to buy a movie do it because they have no interest in pirating the movie. Lots of average people can figure out how to copy a DVD movie by going to a place like Doom9 and following the guides there, or else just ask a friend who already knows how. I guarantee that most people who actually buy the movies do it because they want a real collection, like any other collection of items for sale. It's a status thing. If you have racks and racks of DVDs with the shiny covers and nice packaging, it's like check out my awesome collection of DVDs. Now, if you have racks and racks of DVD-Rs marked up with a Sharpee it is considerably less impressive from a capitalistic standpoint."
Indeed. If we get down to it, /everyone/ is /interested/ in pirating. But to clarify...the guy who buys a movie and copies it (for whatever purpose) isn't the pirate who. The guy who buys a 'pirated' copy of the disc for dirt cheap or downloads it for free (without making a legimate purchase) is the real pirate.
-And I completely agree with your status/image example, btw. Unless I were able to fit mass quantities of movies onto a single disc to save physical space, I'd still rather pay $20 for one movie with a shiny case than pay $1 for 20 movies to sit on the shelf looking tacky.
It's really unbelievable that companies (content producers) would pay big money on research, licensing, programmers, lawyers, court costs to come up with DRM. They'd also rather lose money on missed opportunities to sell their stuff due to DRM problems (a compatible player is not yet ready, or can't release a movie yet until the cracked DRM is patched up).
Then they pass the cost on to the consumers. Legit consumers who actually buy their DRM'd media would shoulder the cost but don't get fair use rights (backup their own copy should the frail physical media get damaged, or watch the content on another device - as if the consumer bought the physical media rather than the content). Illegit users basically incur the same cost (blank media, burner, software, time and effort) but the money does not go to the content producers. In the end both legit and illegit consumers enjoyed the content, both practically incurred the same cost, and the content companies made the same small amount of money (from the very few legit consumers who bought their stuff).
Imagine if content producers didn't have to spend on DRM. They could sell their stuff cheaply. Let's say they sell a high def movie on a disc for $5. Ordinary consumers would rather buy it legit than illegally download it, buy blank media, buy a media burner, buy media burning software (assuming they already have an up-to-date PC and a fast internet connection), spend hours downloading and burning it, deal with the hassles of slow and/or unssuccessful downloads and unsuccessful burns producing coasters, and still end with the same cost, if not more.
$5 too cheap? We'll if 5 (or more) people buy this movie (because it's cheap), then the movie studios would have gotten the same $25 when they we're selling the DRM'd content that only a few consumers would buy. Economies of scale work in favor for these content producers that they can outdo the bootleg producers. Money goes to the content producers who can pay the artists their fair share and no DRM tangles affecting legit consumers.
I hope the companies would have learned by now that hackers and bootlegs will always exist. Making life difficult to legit consumers by imposing DRM on them is not the solution. In fact, it plays a major role in pushing legit consumers over to the "dark side".
LOL, LMAO, LMMFAO, LAKLAOAKLLAKL. F U, darth vaders of the Gutenberg era.
I think a few people misunderstand something: only one "real pirate" with some wacky software has to go through the trouble of decrypting a movie and starting a torrent. Then the average user just has to download the files(s) to get an unlocked, no-DRM copy which is in many ways easier to play than a legit, retail copy.
All my friends (even GIRLS!) who download pirated DVDs have almost NO technical knowledge and rarely have any trouble doing this. And they still buy legit DVDs to boot.
They should never have allowed software players, because software will always be cracked. It would have been much, much harder to crack if all the processing was done in hardware (either in the drives or on video cards).
You forgot to raise all those examples to the power of the ever increasing internet.
This just further proves that DRM is pointless. As long as content can be viewed/heard it can be copied.
Zach, Itunes does not support video conversion. If you buy a program like CloneDVD Mobile ($39) you can easily rip any DVD you wish to mp4 format which is then drag and drop into itunes and your ipod.
Keep up the great work DOOM9, fair rights use shall prevail!
as for:
"instead of needing individual keys for each and every high-definition film [...]the processing key can be used to unlock, decrypt, and backup every HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc film released so far"
this is not at all true - this rumour is spreading fast and this doesn't make it more true.
a) the processing key that has been found will no longer work, as soon as any(!) device gets revoked (otherwise revocation would be useless).
b) even with all current HD-DVDs, the processing key only is useful, if you have the Volume-ID of the specific disc. And that you still have to hack each and every time, just like the Volume Unique Key before. So actually nothing has changed.
It seems that AnyDVD HD from Slysoft is going a completely different approach - that piece of software seems to unlock all HD-DVDs generically. At least that's what it says on their forum.
Kentaro yamada @ Feb 14th 2007 6:55AM:
"Companies need to revisit their approach to marketing their products. If people are not paying cash for the movies, what can entice them to?"
That's just it- people /are/ paying cash for movies. The people who /aren't/ are still a small percentage. The people who /aren't/ buying them (in favor of pirating them) can only be entice to buy them by making pirating a less feasible option.
Check my hypothetical example again and compare it to yours. You pointed out two cases where a loss is outweighed by a gain. That's exactly my point; the losses and gains don't necessarily need to be from seperate products, but may simply be the same product 'sold' to different demographics. Lose money on pirates while make money off the more numerous average consumers, which I said from the start:
ePants @ Feb 13th 2007 11:40AM:
"I would acknowledge the pirate community as a necesary and unavoidable margin of loss, yes, but my focus would be on making sure that the average consumer didn't ever consider piracy as an easy alternative to paying full price."
Kentaro yamada @ Feb 14th 2007 6:55AM:
"Napster was great in that people could instantly sample music that was recent. I was more exposed to different songs and artists, which made me buy complete albums at the end."
That's where things get complicated, becuase the two demographics can easily (and often do) overlap, but in a completely unpredictable way. Simply because you personally end up buying the album after "sampling" it doesn't mean that's the way all other pirates operate. I think it's a safe assumption that this strategy leads to many more illegal "samplings" than legitimate album purchases, regardless.
Kentaro yamada @ Feb 14th 2007 6:55AM:
"I feel it is better to observe the current conditions and direct its flow to your interests rather than superimposing your fantasy on reality forcefully."
That's /exactly/ what they're doing. They realized the growing trend to pirate media, and have taken steps to "direct it's flow to [their] interests" by making pirating more difficult than it would otherwise be.
You arguments are sound, Kentaro, but you've failed to realized that your suggestions are exactly what is already going on.
Keep it up guys. this is a war.
The closed source business model is dying slowly, and the MAFIAA aren't going to fare well when it does and they know it. People need to make stuff for the right reasons. If you have any creative ideas you want to put into film, visit blender.org. "Elephant's Dream" is the HD animation they made with no closed source software whatsoever. It is very possible. Combine this with distributed processing, and I say it won't be long until Pixar has an open competitor they didn't see coming. Exciting times.
Good day.
Everyone should have guessed that DRM would be broken since these schemes always have been. But it's still just copying movies and songs - no big deal - nothing that we can't live without.
oh there goes the millions...and millions.. of money for security. it took just one person. PWNED
I've always wanted to bore myself to death in hidef with brain-numbing Hollywood content devoid of all originality.
19GB to go...
The problem with DRM is simple: It's a pain in the butt. One of the most convincing reasons to buy your media instead of pirating it is that piracy is illegal. However, if we add a few convincing reasons _not_ to buy the media (DRM that stops you from using it the way you'd like to, takes over your computer, etc), suddenly "piracy is illegal" is the main argument against "piracy is the only way to use the media the way I'd like to"; obviously, we're going to see more piracy when this happens. If I can't copy a CD to my MP3 player and hard drive, it's useless to me. If I can't play a DVD in my computer, I don't want it. If I pirate the discs in question, I can do these things.
The ??AA argues that DRM is intended to stop piracy. Maybe that's what it's _intended_ to do, but it does a poor job. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are perfect examples: Pirates can exploit buggy software players to copy the disc, while legitimate users can't play the movie at all because their brand new $600 monitor isn't HDCP compliant. Now what happens if you buy one of these discs only to get it home and then discover nothing you have can play it? No store will let you return a movie, because that would make it too easy to copy and return them. (Shows what store managers think of DRM...) You've just spent $25 on a movie, and you have nothing; the only way you can actually watch the movie now is to download a copy!
DRM also prevents playing of these movies on Linux - there is yet no HD-DVD or Blu-ray player for Linux, and DVD players have to be obtained and installed manually, because these players must break the DRM in order to use the disc. All you Linux users wondering why your distro didn't include DVD support and why you still can't play these new formats? DRM. Either hack around it or switch back to Windows (or buy a Mac).
And come on, how does disabling the fast forward button during advertisements stop piracy? What a load.
w00t. just think... limewireHD :D
The thing is, a seed is not a key, its just the entropy used to generate keys. So if they used the same seed for all disk keys it means that a well crafted equation could come up with a disk key in far less time than the 2^128 keys you would have to check otherwise, consider that if you followed the same process they used to make disk keys from that seed, you would come up with real keys at a rate much faster than trying every possible combination of bits.
Second, the real decryption key HAS to be in memory anyway, there is no other way of doing decryption like that. You can't encrypt memory without a TPM or hardware component holding the private key, because somewhere you then have to store the decryption key for that too. You probably couldn't use the registers in a CPU either because they're not very big, most aren't big enough to store a 128bit key in one register.
You guys should read up on palladium, MS and hte others pushed it so hard because it was supposed to stop stuf like this, with partitioned kernel memory space and processes, in effect palladium would have hidden the dvd player process and the memory space it used with no real way to get to it.
They aren't going to keep screwing with hack solutions, stuff like this just makes them want to lock your PC more, something much more drastic has to be done to stop them from going forward with more TCPA development in the future, because thats the holy grail to them, not hiding keys for a few months and changing them.
What pisses me off is the huge processing power they want you to use just to watch a movie that most cpus can easily handle otherwise, the old terminator 2 hd disc they made with WMVHD, my old p4 1.3 couldn't play it right off, but after decryption it was fine with room to spare, talk about a waste of power and energy.
If you like Linux, you will like aacsauth too ;) Everything you need: private key, public key, and source
http://rapidshare.com/files/18598966/aacsauth.tar.gz.html
This is great news for me. I'm not a pirate, but I do rip movies I've bought. Also, considering the decreased resilliance and increased cost of the new discs, everyone would be well advised to maintain a backup, hate to throw ~$40 down the toilet.
Just remember: If a human invented it, a human can hack it. We and therefore all our technology are fallible.
Lose the key? www.hddvd.com
another bright side to this, the prices will drop :D
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Wow, that didn't take long. Too bad HD discs maybe next technology.
http://www.discountbluray.com
You all are a bunch of thief's. You people suck. Now what happands to the people like me that have HD-DVD, do I have to throw It out. Or Am Im going to have to buy new stuff so I will work I don't have that kind of money. There nothing worse than a F*&^ Thief.
when a movie company says it is losing money because of piracy,it means it is losing possible money. they are saying that the person who buys a pirated copy would have bought a legal one instead and therefore they have lost that sale.this has nothing to do with the profits they are making now.the big movie companys are not going to be driven out of business because they want us to watch movies do you think they are making them for our benefit,no it is to make money.they are simply ignoring the realities of the world you can not make something that someone else can not take apart.what must really be frustrating them is with all their lawers they are useless.ask anyone who will talk and they will tell you that the inner workings of the movie industry is extremely immoral .you only have to ask about the casting couches and the women and men on them.pirating is only illegal because the big companies are not benefitting from it or are they?
Their will always be people that do not have access to internet or just wont bother to wait and download or simply do not know or are not even aware and will go out and by their favorite HD DVD or Blue Ray. So they will always make their money, maybe not ass much as expected but still very lucrative in theaters and resuming on DVD's (HD or Blue Ray.
To Whom It May Concern:
As previously pointed to, most pirates know nothing...just average users who 'googled' enough to find working decrypters...aside from my knowledge of C, I am one of them. It is not a question of mass technical excellence that will bring DRM to its knees...but a mass exploitation. Fortunately, not enough consumers bother to or even conceive of 'googling' for a way to avoid having to buy a digital media format. And that's not even considering the lazy ones who do not wish to put forth the effort to do all that is required.
To those who think this will impact the market in the slightest:
The computing realm continues to be a booming market because of the relatively short time of development and testing turn-around, high degree of interoperability, and high adoption rate. It is for these reasons that the production studios will never cease to create formats for digital information exchange in this medium. Additionally, since they are reasonably intelligent fellows who wish to earn money to live, they will try to earn some money for their efforts...so the will sell it *gasps*. But some people will steal...*gasps again*. So they will do their best to protect it. However...
If it is digital, then it is information. If it is information, then it can and must be
interpreted. If it can be interpreted, then it can be understood. If it can be understood,
then it can be remembered.
No software protection is enough in absolute terms. The true pirates who hack these encryptions typically code at a lower level than the programmers who encrypted the source. Low-level programming trumps high-level simply because high-level is built upon the infrastructure of low-level. The only way digital media protection can have any sustaining chance is if the encryption is done at a lower level than typical "pirate raids." This implies Java or C# to C++ to C to assembly to hard-coded instruction set...unifying hardware architecture. Hopefully, people will realize that this will breach market competition before it happens.
To Steve:
You must have recently taken a course or read a book in information theory haven't you? All this talk about a seed key and whatnot....someone is excited to know and share that the have intelligence in the subject. Yes, very good...however, theory is often abominated in practice and finding such functions is much harder than simply doing the math backwards or finding an anti-derivative.
To those who would rather purchase discs for a status symbol:
Please waste your money...and while I retain those ugly 'sharpied' DVDs (note that it is spelled "Sharpie" and not "Sharpee") please know that I spent quite literally 1% of the monetary value of your legitimate DVD movie collection. And with that money saved, I was able to purchase a new big screen flat panel LCD tv @ 1080p.
To Kevin Ciaccio:
Well you are an idiot. If you don't burn DVDs then how did you stumble here? I think you're just jealous that you spent hordes of money on the same things we spent zilch on.
- Ginkgo Biloba