CD Copy Stopper

CTho9305 writes "Technology Review has an article about a new CD and DVD copy protection system by Doc-Witness, where the disc itself has a smart card on it. The card checks if a request is valid, and then returns a key to decrypt the contents of the disc. It apparently works with standard drives."

Comments

CD Costs

[DavidLeblond]

How will this effect the cost of the CD media? It doesn't sound very cost effective to me, seeing how it would be a matter of minutes before someone wrote a program to crack it. I'm sure the developers know this too.

Which User Agreement?

[LadyGuardian]

FULLY TRANSPARENT to the consumer (as long as he or she keeps the user agreement).

This worries me. They even mention down below how static systems are easily cracked and how 'phone-home' is offensve to user privacy and still not solid. Which user agreement will they use? The one that inclides fair use or a new creation that disables any and all attempts to protect our investment?

I'm not a 'consumer' with gigs and gigs of stolen MP3's, but I am someone with backups of my legitimately bought copies. I have two siberian huskies that seem to love chewing on CD and DVD cases (I'll stop leaving them at the door, I promise) so these backups become invaluable.

Sadly, people who've read their benefits section will realize that our right (yes, it is a right) to have legitimate back ups are tossed out the window...

Re:We've been over this...

[Dark Nexus]

I believe the intent for this is more for software than music or video.

Consider this the logical evolution of the hardware dongle that 3DS Max once did, and possibly still does.

No hardware changes needed? Really?

[Anonymous Canard]

It seems pretty disingenuous to me for them to claim that their technology is compatible with current hardware. Where hardware and firmware are sold as a single entity, I read that expecting to find some sort of protection system that would interact with current firmware, but they clearly need a trusted client on the device to interact with the smart card since they have to rely on that software not giving away the decrypt key. In other words, these may play on the current mechanical hardware, but they certainly won't play on current CD or DVD players without first getting a firmware upgrade. In all this isn't much different from shipping a separate smart card and CD-ROM.

At least I can't see any way to trust a client once it has been transferred to the general purpose computing platform; at that point the software is open to inspection and its secrets won't remain hidden very long.

Re:I bet $20...

[ivan256]

Try an hour. This uses standard readers. Spoof a ligitamate read and you've got the key. Sniff the IDE bus and you've got the key. The decryption algorithm has to be unencrypted and easily disassembleable on the disk for this to work in a standard reader.

Don't invest in this company.

I don't buy it.

[BeBoxer]

A photodetector at the edge of the CD turns the drive's laser light into electrical pulses, which travel to the embedded smart card and request the key.

I suppose it's conceivable that this might be possible with a CD-RW drive. But with a regular CD-ROM drive? I think that's bullshit, plain and simple. It's not like there is any command for sending data to the laser of a read-only drive. Do they send the request in morse code by turning the drive off and on again?

I think this is just more snake oil being peddled by folks who know the can make an easy buck off of nervous media executives. My guess is, it'll work fine during the dog and pony sales presentation, it'll cause endless support headaches for paying customers, and be trivially bypassed by the warez folks.

I swear, I don't know where they finds the folks who sign on to these deals. Have a problem with piracy? Make your product less attractive than the warez version by saddling it with a bunch of flakey 'copy protection' technology. That'll help your market share!

"Valid" Request?

[Kwil]

Could somebody tell me what an "invalid" request from a CD is?

'I want to read this bit, and the next bit, and the one after that..'

After all, I always thought it was what you did with the bits once they were off the CD and in your 'puter that was the problem.

Re:Oh boy:: me not worried, it won't work

[Indras]

1. As has happened so many times, the media screws up on Average Joe consumer.

2. Those who want to copy/crack/hack it, will. They can't stop it.

The sad thing is, when Average Joe Consumer starts having problems with the latest DMCA-compliant device, he is unable to fix it without spending a fortune to get a new player/decoder/etc, and often he is unwilling to pay. So, in reality, the only people who get to reliably use it are the hackers.

"Easy to use" and "hacker proof" devices are a lot like child-proof safety caps on medicine bottles. It's trying to make it easy to use for those with lesser abilities, and harder to use for those with greater abilities, which is impossible. That's like trying to come up with a math problem that an elementary student can answer, but a college math professor cannot.

It ends with alienating the target audience (my grandmother absolutely hates the childproof caps, and takes all the pills out first thing and puts them in a plastic bag...), and are unable to prevent its circumvention (...while every one of her grandchildren can open the bottles without a problem).