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MS DRM Version 2 - Cracked
As the title says: Microsoft Digital Rights Management Version 2 has been cracked. The Register has the story, including a link to a downloadable zip file which contains source code, explanation and a small DOS utility. Grab it while you can. You can also read the explanation directly here, and you can also find it with Google.
in the immortal words of someone who's name escapes me:
"Information wants to be free."
There's a lot of bored but bright minds out there, and putting mountains up in their way just BEGS them to be climbed. As the old adage goes, Why do people climb mountains? well, there's actually 2 reasons, 1) because they're there.. 2) they're in the way of where you're trying to go..
*yawn* nice try MS, better luck next time eh?
What I don't get is why not use some proven technologies to get this done right? secure key-based encryption, rotating key servers, etc?
This is good news. Why? XP is just about to be shipped into retail stores. MSFT can't really do much about it now unless they release some Windows update - which is unlikely to catch 56k'ers attention much.
I'd rather have a bowl of coco-pops.
This from the "readme" that comes with the zip:
Not only can MS revoke the certs used, it looks like they can also screw your system if you use tricks like this....
WARNING!!!!! I have just learned that the new Microsoft Media Player EULA includes a clause that says they can *automatically* modify the software on your system, without any confirmation from you required! In other words, they can disable your software, or force an upgrade so that FreeMe won't work, just because they feel like it. Be careful out there!
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
Would it be possible for someone to use this work to create a fix for these people?
To me, fair use rights aren't a big concern. If you can see it or hear it, you can get an adequate sample for fair use with a cheap camera or audio recorder. You don't need perfect digital video samples to make your point for a review.
The larger issue here is this desperate attempt to cling to a ridiculously outdated and inefficient method of securing profit in return for desirable intellectual production.
Put in simple terms, DRM hurts our economy. Very, very badly.
Economic growth comes from improvements of efficiency, clearing out the dead wood and finding a use for it elsewhere. Following the analogy, DRM is better systems of stakes and cables holding the dead wood from being carted off.
There is a whole ridiculous, unproductive structure built around milking every penny out of copyrighted works. This is justified essentially by accusing every citizen of the stupidest kind of miserliness, unwilling to give a dime to make they're favorite movie studio make another next year, but willing to pay a dollar as long as you don't let them into the theater otherwise.
Yes, there are people out there like that, but I don't believe they're the majority for a second!
The tools are out there, and could be supported and working everywhere in weeks if people want them to be. Don't like the details of that system? Propose another. It's not rocket science: donation doesn't need real-time verification, so it's an easy problem, as long as we agree on some system.
Once people get in the habit of freely parting with their pocket change for things that they'd gladly pay much more for, copyright will be a ridiculous anachronism, and we can finally get on with reaping the benefits of the information age.
I really like the quote he/she makes on the Philosophy paper:
:-)
"One final quote from Vaidhyanathan, this time talking directly about
the DMCA:
This law has one major provision that upends more than 200 years
of democratic copyright law. It forbids the "cracking" of
electronic gates that protect works - even those portions of works
that might be in the public domain or subject to fair use. It puts
the power to regulate copying in the hands of engineers and the
companies that employ them.
"
As it happens, this is an "autoemployed" engineer using the power that the U.S.A. laws have given engineers to regulate the use of this copirighted material, in this case allowing access to it
Ironic...
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
The notion that "information wants to be free" is a rather interesting case study of anthropomorphism gone horribly wrong. Information doesn't want anything. Truth, the facts, raw data, none of them want anything. They're just sentences, numbers, claims, opinions, ideas. Unless you're willing to extend the definition of a meme to the extreme, they're hardly capable of even Darwinian ambition.
But people often want information -- want it to be free, or secure, or copyrighted, or burned, or locked away for the greater good. People want the latest news, the biased studies, the most accurate statistics. They want each other's secrets, their inventions, their inspirations, their dirty laundry . They want to be the first in the know, the winner in the argument, the smartest in the class. They want to be told what to think, to make others think like themselves, and to be the first with a new idea.
People in the Western world are conditioned to believe that with a little applied brain power, they can be anything they want. So they insist that information should be free, despite omnipresent evidence to the contrary. They ignore the fact that library books cost ten cents per day late, that a reliable Internet connection costs fifteen dollars a month, and that university tuition costs four thousand dollars a year.
Knowledge is power. The right kind of information is all that's needed to upend governments, bankrupt companies, exile citizens, and execute prisoners. It can turn a housewife into a millionaire, a CEO into an inmate, and a celebrity into a punch line. A poor man will kill for money, but a rich man will kill for secrecy. The patent office is filled with millions upon millions of facts which are worth anywhere from pennies to princedoms to the right people.
Information doesn't want to be anything. Information just is, which makes it an asset, which makes it vulnerable to the economic laws of supply and demand. So if your information is about Linux, it's probably worth nothing at all, save your reputation as a programmer. But if your information is about, say, Microsoft Office... in that case, it's worth whatever Bill Gates can get you to pay.
http://lookingglass.akardam.net/mirrored/msdrmv2-r emtool/
r emtool/
For link-wary: http://lookingglass.akardam.net/mirrored/msdrmv2-
Does anyone think this is useful? Yes, M$ has the right to sell whatever fucked up version of protected audio there is, and publishers have the right to *ATTEMPT* to market this crap. We have the right to refuse to buy it, and show them it won't sell. But what purpose does this crack have? Yes, I guess it shows that besides not being popular, it's also no secure... but won't people just use this to go rip protected .WMA files now?
Hmm, I guess actually this ties in pretty closely with some points announced in microsoft's argument against "full-disclosure". Some would argue unless this stuff is widely deployed (the crack that is), then the music publishers won't ever beleieve it's been "broken", since theoretically breaking something doesnt pose much of a financial risk.
But you still have the equivelent of the "script-kiddy" mentality at work here. How many people do you think are downloading this right now, so they can go get the latest Christina Aguilera album online, then crack it and "release" it to their l33t w4rez group? *sigh*
The same reason that I wanted DeCSS.zip, even though I don't own a DVD drive. To fight the power, if only in a little way, and make sure that this genie never gets put back into the bottle.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Well as I'm working on stuff based around the MS DRM platform right now (look just shut up ok?), I was interested to see if it would work. From the comments here it looks like no-one tried it yet.
Guess what. It doesn't work. At all. I generated a whole bunch of protected files, with varying license rules, and it couldn't work with any of them.
Still, the technical documentation was a nice read.
It's bound to be cracked at some stage, this just isn't it. Even microsoft themselves say that there are ways to get around it, unfuck for example.
If fair use is a birthright, then they can't take it away from us.
If fair use is a result of the sale contract, then they can take it away from us... but they won't. What kind of twisted record store is going to make me sign a contract (necessary to override the implicit contract of copyright law rights) before I walk out with a CD?
Repeat after me:
If you open the box, and see a piece of paper claiming that you have forfeited some rights, throw that piece of paper away. It is not a contract.
If you start up a piece of software that you have completely paid for (e.g. there is no continuing online service), and you are supposed to click through some dreaded EULA before it will install, then unless you're in one of the damned UCITA states, ignore that EULA. It is not a contract.
If someone wants to take away your rights, they need to do it with an actual contract, which can be read and agreed to by you before you give them your money!
The current practice of deceiving people out of their rights with unenforceable legalese-sounding claims should be considered fraud. Can anyone out there afford to buy a congressman and get this looked into?
Disclaimer: IANAL, and I suspect that the violations of corporate perogative above may be dangerous even if not violations of law. Don't blame me if you listen to some random Slashdot user and end up as the next Dimitri.
But:
* 2001-10-18 23:08:39 Microsoft Digital Rights Management broken? (articles,news) (rejected)
Yeah, I'm the person who spotted this on sci.crypt and got it mirrored on www.cryptome.org.
If Slashdot would have published my story last night then they'd have been breaking the news rather than chasing after the register. Sigh.
"Mary had a crypto key, she kept it in escrow, and everything that Mary said, the Feds were sure to know."
The author has remained anonymous! No DMCA prosecutions here, assuming she has covered her tracks properly.
.wma format, making a personal copy on our hard drives to assert fair usage rights, and sent this information along with our real identities to the RIAA or elected officials? The cause ain't exactly for world peace, but if we're really pissed off about this, then I for one would be willing to take a risk.
The author is wisely remaining anonymous, because one lone act of civil disobedience may be influential, but easy to control. This begs the bigger question: what if there was organized disobedience on this issue? What if many of us applied this DRM2 crack by legally purchasing music online in
--- When I grow up, I want to be a legislator of scientific laws.
US copyright does not create property rights.
I used to agree with this, but now I'll have to differ on this point. Here come the flames...
How do you define property? Quite simply, it's the right, given to you by law and society, not nature, to control something. It's my house because I can decide who can enter in and who cannot. It's my car because I can decide that, if you drive it, you're commiting a crime. I control those things.
The control is completely artificial. It's been decided in our culture that people should have a right to control these things they call "possessions." There have been plenty of cultures in which the right to control was out of the hands of the people.
Now, I will admit that it is much easier to understand possession as it relates to physical things than as it relates to ideas or art. However, our current system has defined the control of the latter as property, and we accept it.
Removing control of my house from me is stealing. Likewise, removing control of my artistic works is also stealing.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
It works perfectly on Windows XP (Media Player 8) with the 2-play DRM demo. The decoded file plays with no restrictions at all :)
Found DRMv2 header object.
Found KID (EBqWe20fOki1LarX5Whk/Q==)
Found DRMv1 header object.
Starting to look for license.
License file full path: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM\drmv2.lic
BlackBox library to use: BlackBox.dll
Keystore to use: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM\v2ks.bla
Created BlackBox instance - extracting key pairs
Public key 1 x: 17230ad28b03681ef892a2a7a94355290e72cd31
Public key 1 y: 39c9997ef2128ae4cd75553861120f507a4487e0
Private key 1: 2fce44939b8c10ae0e6dd2991b35698ee657d8d4
Checking license with PUBKEY 17230ad28b03681ef892a2a7a94355290e72cd31
Matched public key! Proceeding...
Content key: 5f fa 87 95 38 27 99
Opened output file
Starting to process data packets
113 packets of length 5974