Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Breaking Google's DRM

Posted by michael on from the don't-be-evil dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Google's new Google Print service (that lets you see scanned pages from printed books) has a pile of advanced browser-disabling DRM in it ('Pages displaying your content have print, cut, copy, and save functionality disabled in order to protect your content.'). This works with JavaScript turned off, even in Free Software browsers. Seth Schoen has posted preliminary notes on some breaks to the DRM (beyond just automating a screenshotting process), including a proposal for a circumventing proxy that would fetch Google Print pages and strip out the DRM. A full exploration of the html obfuscation and DRM employed by Google would be very interesting; certainly the ability for a remote attacker to disable critical browser features like save, right-click, copy and cut against the user's wishes is a major security vulnerability in Moz/Firefox and should be fixed ASAP."

3 of 892 comments (clear)

  1. Ethereal? by JUSTONEMORELATTE · · Score: 0, Redundant

    C'mon, if you are delivering the info to me, then it has to come across a network device, and Ethereal can see it.
    If someone is motivated to get a copy, then it's not that hard to write code to read the packet dumps and re-create the content.


    --
    How about cash?

  2. PrtScn by indros13 · · Score: 0, Redundant
    Nobody seems to have mentioned if PrtScn would work. Is that what the author meant by copy (beyond automating a screenshotting process)? If you can do a screenshot, then what's the big deal? (besides wanting to copy unauthorized portions of books online).

    There are always libraries and bookstores and copy machines. I haven't seen anyone say why it's so crucial that we be able to have unrestricted digital copies of books just because Google (and Amazon) make it possible to search them thus.

    --
    Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
  3. Can't I Just Write an HTTP Client To Circumvent? by Ted+Stoner · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Who cares what functionality browsers have if I can just code an http client or do some command line http request for content? If the code runs on an untrusted platform and is not decoded in a tamperproof video module, then I have access to it.