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DVD Drives Defeat Cactus Data Shield
jsepeta sends in a story about Cactus Data Shield, one of the schemes to be used for copy-protecting compact discs. A reporter for TechTV notes that DVD drives see right through the disc corruption that Cactus uses to supposedly prevent those CDs from being ripped.
Will this end up like the VHS market where VHS recorders started intentionally mis-recording Macrovision protected content, despite the fact they had fixed the original flaw that allowed macrovision copy protection to work? Or will the DVD drive manufacturers stand up to the recording industry?
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Another point is that many drives have maingenance modes which allow the host computer to see exactly what is on the disk without correction. This is normally used for testing, but again would be very useful for breaking the DMCA. Just read track w/o correction and aply the correction at software level ignoring the bad bits.
I guess that a DVD-rom drive is more sensitive to errors on conventional CD's as they have much finer bit resolutions for DVDs so they alreasy have the modified error recovery built in.
Protection of CDs is pointless and it interferes with customers' own rights and annoys the customer. The original article mentions a class action against Universal about Unplayable CDs.
See my journal, I write things there
It seems to me this is just one of those CDAutoStart things that Windows responds to in particular.
I got tipped off to this by when they mention "Track 1" never plays. I BET they didn't notice the total track count go up by one, as the Windows software talking to the DVD player parses its error-handling differently (correctly), and the result is like putting a PC hybrid CD in a Mac. In fact i strongly expect this Cactus lockout thing would not work on a Mac by default, and very very likely Linux/*nix as well. The tracks would appear as normal, though possibly not that first track, because its header DOES get lost in the scrambling, maybe.
Perhaps this is hogwash, but I've heard about Macs seeing through similar schemes before. I think that these TechTV guys sort of percolated through the truth of older reports to home users that are kinda savvy but don't like leaving their Gates Paradigm Computing, thus only the windows DVD stuff, no mention of other platforms at all.
On the other hand, if this is not unique to Windows (I wonder about Mac DVD players) then maybe that program has low-level drivers which affect how the CD drive does checksums, but DVD players do differently anyway.
Yeah, another victory for the Fair Use groups, as the people designing this have their asses backwards because they're counting on all computer users (mass 37331 pirates) to be Windows computers. OOPS...
Universal, i will scout for your discs, and as a Mac user of self-proclaimed badassary, "hack" via insertion your CD, rip, burn and mail to your well-tanned California ass.... Mwahaaha... All right enough fevered fantasies of geek revenge... back to work...
--hongpong.com
Ah, I see. Corporations are helping us to reach Nirvana by not allowing us to own property. They figure if we simply license everything, we won't own it and all of us will become Zen masters with no attachment to the physical world.... and here we are, all thinking that this is some scheme to gain power and extort more money from the hapless masses. Dammit, I knew corporations had the good of humanity in mind all along.
As described in a comment on FatChucks
(Tested it on 'Natalie Imbruglia - White Lillies Island' with a Yamaha 6x4x16x SCSI CDRW drive)
1) Get IsoBuster (A Win32 app)
2) Rip the entire disc as raw data. May struggle/take a while. Tell it to ignore any read errors
3) Open the raw file in CoolEdit (or any decent audio editor) as a 44.1Kz 16-bit stereo sample (with Intel byte ordering)
4) There you have it! The entire CD as one big sample!
5) In CoolEdit, you can use 'Edit->AutoCue->Find Phrases and Mark' to split the tracks up automatically
6) Save 'em out, and convert to MP3/Ogg if neccesssary
Too bad this Cactus system didn't become the standard before this was discovered, then RIAA would be a laughingstock.
That's cute.. Dell uses DVD drives which by-pass the copy protection...
If they enforce the DMCA on this, they can change there commercials..
"Dude, You're getting arrested!"
Computational Madness in a round package.
They keep saying that they couldn't play the first track. Of course they can't play the first track, that's what contains the filesystem with the CDS player.
Correct me if I'm wrong (nobody's perfect), but this seems pretty simple to me.
Can you imagine a MOSIX cluster of these?
There is an excellent review of CPRM, SSSCA and the coming "Secure PC" on The Register. Here's a short excerpt from this article:
Not even watermarking is going to see them out of this. Watermarks can be removed anyway, and even if they succeed in a lunatic scheme to require that every computer audio board have some kind of watermark detection circuit, A/D and D/A converters that are fast enough and good enough are cheap, widely available, and easily hooked up to a PC.
Are the record labels just clueless or is there some other diabolical plan in the wings?
All kidding aside— here is a formula that might be useful to publishers of digital data:where If L > 0, the data will be copied.
A publisher can control the level of his data's protection only to the degree that he can control these variables.
- Cm cannot be kept artificially high, due to market forces to the contrary;
- Ce continues to drop, as coding ingenuity continues to outstrip copy prevention standards almost as quickly as they are developed;
- Ca is relatively low for the end user, since it usually only involves paying for software you had anyway; and
- Pa is low because the crime is widespread and social costs are low, so enforcement at the end user level is minimal.
This leaves a publisher of digital data with two variables he can control: the data's cost and its value. This provides two options for perfect copy protection:- make the product free, or
- make the product worthless.
Since neither option would be attractive to most publishers, it would appear that widespread copyright violations (and violators) will be with us for a long, long time.By making it slightly harder to turn your CD into mp3/ogg's, by the techniques described above (Macs, binary imaging, then spliting with Cool Edit, etc), groups will end up doing the releasing, like in the warez scene. This will ensure a more organized (complete cd's, as soon as the CD is release), high quality (decent hardware used to extract the audio) music album releases.
The only thing hurting the warez scene is games being so friggin big nowadays... multiple CDs, etc. You can't run bladeenc, or oggenc on a game.
Maybe DVD-Audio will help combat music piracy, but that's a bit off.
People will be lining up to buy them. When they notice that they can't rip, it'll be too late- and the only response they will get is "what, you want to pirate music? You are a bad person, I ought to report you." Makes me glad that I've already got a drive.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
It seems that everyone believe that "fair use" is a right. In fact, it is not a right but it's really a exclusion from prosecution. What this means is that if you use legally licenced copyrighted material (music, book, software, etc..) in a "fair use" manner, you cannot be prosecuted for violation of copyright. This does not mean that if you purchase a CD, you have the inalienable right to make a backup copy. There is a subtle but distinct difference.
Having said all this, record industry does have the right to implement copy protection. I'm not saying that it's good, I'm just saying that they have legal right to do so. Under current law, record company is not obligated to grant you the ability to use the material in "fair use" manner. At the same time, you are not obligated to buy copy protected CDs.
The RIAA and MPAA are selling data to us-- and trying to protect themselves by making this data unavailable to us once we've bought it. If we can't get at the data, there's no point and we won't buy it, so the data will always be accessible somehow.
However, since the customer is allowed to hear the music or see the film, the data has been "released" into the wild and can easily be recaptured in other formats. In other words, they cannot use purely digital, "black-box" means to protect this data because we have nice analog visual and auditory systems that require this data to pass through the air in order for us to perceive and enjoy it.
Once the data is in the air, any microphone, nice camera, etc. etc. will be able to grab it out of the air again.
The only way I can see copy protection working is if in 50 years all "out-loud" music is strictly forbidden and illegal and instead, we have a DBC (digital-to-brain converter) implanted in our skull that accepts an input from the line-out jack on our "secure" digital music device.
There will have to be secret police everywhere to make sure nobody actually hums along, because if anyone does, someone with a hidden microphone (banned decades ago, but available on the black market, nevertheless) might capture it and distribute it, not to mention the 20 other people in the room who will hear this humming and thus "steal" the music without paying the original artist/composer for it...
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Cactus protection?
Don't touch the data or you will be subjected to thousands of lawy^H^H^H^H little pricks!
Talk about hidden meaning.
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Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Rc = ( Cm + Ce + ( Ca * Pa ) - Cp ) * Vd
Has no one ever tried to understand the formala you posted ?
The risk that data will be copied rises when the cost of recordable media rises ? Your formula should have been:
Rc = ((Ca * Pa) -Cp) * Vd / ( Cm + Ce )
Jan
For a fun little diversion, go to the midbartech website and try to get information about one of the Cactus products. You'll get to a page that has a one-field form asking for a password. Get your browser to show you the source for the page, and groove on the unbelievably sophomoric obfuscated password verifier. Ha!
By doing Copy protection CD they'll piss off customers, customers will burn even more CD-Rs, and after that they'll shove Digital right management crap down our troats, people will be even more pissed, buying even less... and they'll blame it on piracy instead of blaming themselves.
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:)
LOWER THE PRICE OF THE GOD DAMN CDS IF YOU WANT MORE VOLUME SELLS, I can see some mozart crap sold at C$6 at my local music shop, why would I have to pay C$20 for a metallica CD? Don't tell me because of the expenses and all, the expenses are the packaging, the design, the loans, etc etc.. YES... well, the mozart CD went thru the about the same process, Metallica sells a LOT more hense more VOLUME hense more PROFIT in the end to repay that possible loan (well now they are rich anyways), so why 20$? maybe they'd sell a LOT more if CDs would be cheaper and become the "trading cards" of the kids instead of being overpriced unreachable-to-most-teenagers-that-aren't-working
3 times cheaper would mean greater volume, greater splitting among artists, greater audience, greater penetration of the market, and I'D BUY SOME, which I don't do since maybe 5 years after being raped having to pay c$50 for imports that I really wanted and they would classify imports when they had actually a TON of them and anyways, even metallica is "imported" to canada so who cares about the "import" label. I was ripped off, I've searched for alternatives, and I got one.
You can screw people off big time and keep it up for YEARS, but history shows that in ANY circumstances, people will find alternatives or revolt when they are mistreated or abused.
I did my part, I have 100's of Original CDs, but I had it with that system, and seeing them investing massively in crap like DMCA or DRM instead of doing the obvious: CUTTING THE PRICES, simply disgust me. Again, I'd buy a shitload of CDs if the price would be right, it isn't.
For people with the lame "expenses" arguments, tell me, why are tapes 1/2 the price of the cd? it's the SAME process, heck a cassette costs more to produce than a CD, in both time and material, so why is it cheaper? there are many reasons, but I don't care, WHY wouldn't the CDs be cheaper? why would I shell C$30 for a DVD or C$20 for a CD if they could be sold for a fraction of that price?
I am not saying I copy my stuff, I don't even own a dvd player because I just skipped that technology, I'm still happy with my SVHS tapedeck. But I am really not surprised (like most of the people here) of what's happening. Someone is really high at RIAA... Towelie must be running things
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
The article specifically mentions that the player software on the disk is Windows only. Will I be able to play this disk on my Mac/PlayStation2/Linux/Car CD Changer?
I was recently in a local music store that carried "The Fast & The Furious" soundtrack. (First off, figures Universal would start with a CD like this--no one wants it, so there won't be a huge outrage over it!) On the back, it states something to the effect of "This CD is copy protected and it meant to be played in standard CD Audio players or Windows-based PCs"
No, it will not play in your Mac. No, it will not play in your consoles. It may play in your car CD player, but that totally depends on the model. And to be honest, I'm not sure about Linux--I'm not going to spend $20 on that POS CD to see if it works under redhat or not.
On top of the fact that this protection decreases the quality of the CD-Audio, etc., it also further extends Microsoft's monopoly. Now if you want to play an Audio CD in your computer, you had better have Windows! This is something that needs to be fought immediately. (Some nice "DEFECTIVE CD" stickers would help, I think)
Jobs' recent quote when the iPod shipped was right on the money:
"Piracy is a social problem, not a technological one."
That really sums it up. And you can see in Apple's products that they really believe this.
Ripping MP3's (or AIFF's) in iTunes is ridiculously simple. Like it should be. (Single click rips an entire CD)
Copying those MP3's to a portable music device is also incredibly simple. Even automated if you use an iPod (though iTunes works great with other MP3 players too!)
The only copy protection on my iPod is the fact that it's a one-way sync. And for what it's worth, it's a LOT LOT LOT harder to do a 2-way sync than a one-way sync. So I really don't believe the conspiracy theorists, and I think it's all about keeping things simple!
Steve's on the right track here. He understands.
There's no real technological reason that other companies can't do what Apple's doing. But for some reason, they "get it" and folks like MS, etc. don't.