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'DVD Jon' Breaks Google Video Lock
WillemdeMoor writes "Yahoo News runs a story on Jon Johansen, aka DVD Jon, cracking Google's in-browser video player. Addict3d.org has some more details, including links to Johansen's patch (Win32 executable) and Jon's blog entry at nanocrew.net."
You can skip the articles they don't tell you much other than what is in the Slashdot Summary. However, the blog entry has the code part on it. Here are all the articles including code entry...
.Net run-time framework, will remove Google's restriction and allow the playback of video files that aren't on the video.google.com server.
6 ,00.asp
// Google mods
.NET runtime.
Story:
Ryan Naraine - PC Magazine Tue Jun 28,10:49 AM ET
Norwegian hacker Jon Lech Johansen has cracked the lock on Google's new in-browser video player.
Johansen, also known as 'DVD Jon' for his work on decrypting DVD security codes, has created a patch for the Google Video Viewer--less than 24 hours after the search giant shipped the video playback plug-in, a tool based on the open-source VideoLAN media player.
The patch, released on Johansen's 'So Sue Me' blog, effectively disables a modification Google made to the VideoLAN code to prevent users from playing videos that are not hosted on Google's servers.
Johansen said the patch, which requires the
The 21-year-old hacker, who faced two trials in Norway in 2002 and 2003 for his role in the release of the
DeCSS decryption software, is a hero to many for his efforts to defeat DRM (digital rights management) mechanisms built into media player technology.
He has been involved in a public cat-and-mouse game with Apple Inc., releasing several tools to bypass the DRM software used to encrypt music sold on the iTunes Music Store. LINK TO: PyMusique Unlocks iTunes Copy Protection. Again. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,177952
Johansen has also cracked Apple's AirPort Express's encryption and released a proof-of-concept program that allows
Linux users to play video encoded with Microsoft's proprietary WMV9 codec. The proof-of-concept is based on the VideoLan code.
Addict3d.org more details:
Jon Lech Johansen, "DVD Jon", took just one day to build a crack to allow you to play video on your website using Google's VLC-based player.
This means you can publish video that will play on your webpage and will work for anyone who has Google's player installed.
Johansen, also known as 'DVD Jon' for his work on decrypting DVD security codes, has created a patch for the Google Video Viewer--less than 24 hours after the search giant shipped the video playback plug-in, a tool based on the open-source VideoLAN media player.
Crack can be found here -
http://nanocrew.net/wp-content/GVVPatch.exe
http://nanocrew.net/?p=114
Blog Entry:
Google has released Google Video Viewer, a browser plugin based on VLC. Here's one of the features they've added:
+
+ const char* allowed_host = \"video.google.com\";
+ char * host_found = strstr(p_sys->url.psz_host, allowed_host);
+ if ((host_found == NULL) ||
+ ((host_found + strlen(allowed_host)) !=
+ (p_sys->url.psz_host + strlen(p_sys->url.psz_host)))) {
+ msg_Warn( p_access, \"invalid host, only video.google.com is allowed\" );
+ goto error;
+ }
This "feature" prevents you from playing videos that are not hosted on Google's servers. Download and run this patch I wrote to remove this restriction. Running the patch requires a
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
Per the GPL, if he's making the changes only for his own use, and not for distribution, then he doesn't have to.
Google's reaction was to disable the video service.
Yahoo News is not a news agency, its just a feed from the Associated Press or Reuters. Yahoo hosts the content from the feeds, that is all.
In his defense though, it's the news source, Yahoo, sensationalizing his mods and not his own blog entry (i.e. he doesn't claim that this is some grand crack). His candor in his blog entry doesn't even hold up to the grandiose imagery of a scheming, brilliant hacker striking another blow against "the man" as painted by Yahoo. I actually feel sort of sorry for the guy given the magnitude of the patch being so inflated.
I'm guessing it's because he used MS Visual Studio to compile it, which will require .NET for damn near anything with a GUI.
goto when used correctly can simplify code and make it easier to read.
Most colleges just say never use it because so many people turn out horrible code by using too many or misusing the goto statement.
http://code.google.com/patches.html
:)
With that link, and a little knowhow, you, too, can crack the code and make your own Google Video viewer. The upshot is that you can compile it for Linux (Google has only released it for Windows). The downshot is that I'm surprised it took Jon so long to make the change.
It's not like it was hard to find... go to http://video.google.com/ click on "Install", and then click on "Get the source code". It's under "patches".
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
He in fact ends his paper by saying that goto is not to be avoided at all costs, in fact quite the opposite.
"The exercise to translate an arbitrary flow diagram more or less mechanically into a jump-less one, however, is not to be recommended. Then the resulting flow diagram cannot be expected to be more transparent than the original one. "
You have to understand when he wrote that paper people were doing what we would do know as while loops and switch statements with goto. He was arguing for alternatives like those.
Using goto as a method of doing exception handling in a situation where you either don't have or want to avoid higher level structured exception handling is a reasonable approach.
David Tribble has a good analysis of the article and opinions about modern use of goto:
http://david.tribble.com/text/goto.html
Doh! If it did work it would do the opposite of what we want.
Here's reaction: It's not hacking, it's just compiling. We gave the world the patch for god's sake.
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Have you seen my Bookmarklet to fix the URL of the Play Video link so that it can be copied-and-pasted into xine (and then played)?
Did anyone notice the entire Matrix Revolutions is available there in Google Video? Pretty cool. You might think it's just 30-second clips, but hit "Play whole video" and off it goes. Whole movie. Wondering if this is a special "show-off" case google snuck in, or a black-hat's upload?
see this link for the video
Evan - needs to hit preview before submitting
Wikipedia knows all.
uhhh...all you have to do is download vlc 0.8.2 apply the diff patch http://code.google.com/vlc-diff.txt and then configure and make the program and it becomes in essence the same as google video player.
but i guess you don't know anything about compiling and or use a binary only linux distribution.
It's valid Java. You can specify a finally block with no catch blocks. A finally block will always be run, even if an exception is thrown (the exception will still propagate). For example, I sometimes mark undergraduate concurrency coursework/exams written in Java. try-finally blocks are used there to ensure correct lock management: