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Microsoft Windows Media Player Encryption Hacked
NubKnacker writes "Here we go again. The Register has the story about the encryption in Windows Media Player being hacked by DVD Jon. From the article: 'Jon Lech Johansen has reverse engineered a proprietary algorithm, which is used to wrap Media Player NSC files and ostensibly protect them from hackers sniffing for the media's source IP address, port or stream format. He has also made a decoder available." This has been pending for some time now. Do you see a reason to install Windows/WMP just to be able to view a webcast?"
You know, this only happens because Microsoft is the industry standard. Imagine a world where there are competitive OS and software markets, with no Internet Explorer phenomenon. You wouldn't get this, because developers would actually try to create secure programs. Instead, Microsoft takes programs that are more or less comparable, and incorporates them into it's products, thus killing any competition for that program! (Read: Excel and Lotus 1-2-3)
Not only "land of the free" but "land of the lawyers" who love a good old 1st amendment smackdown. Shihar 153932
What's he got anyway, a red phone to the EFF? I certainly admire what he's doing, but you know he's not just knocking on the door asking for trouble, but banging with both fists.
i wonder if i can get this to fit on a t-shirt, like my DeCSS shirt...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
... get a job from any reputable company, unfortunately. Someone as resourceful as Jon, if given an opportunity, could be priceless.
For us who don't want to install an entire OS just to be able to see a video, this is a great day.
If Microsoft, the MPAA, and other corporations don't want their systems hacked, they must make sure that there is a way to play the content on alternative systems easily. Vendor lock in is not acceptable and the people have spoken. Linux (and other non-MS OS) users should not be forced to run Windows to play DVDs or ASFs or whatever. That is all.
Liberal Ontarians and French Quebecers are draining Western Canada's wealth. Stop them now! Support Western separatism.
Personally, if I have to load MS products to view, read, hear, or use something, then I will never view, read, hear, or use that data... period!
If DVD John can crack it, then it wasn't secure in the first place. In my opinion, DVD-J is making the world more secure by showing people that their encryption sucks. Go John go...
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
It's times like this when I wish there was a "+1, sarcastic" rating.
Actually, I think he's the only one who has...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
What I understand from the article is that the actual video stream isn't protected; what's encrypted is the server/file location and (perhaps) a username/password.
Is it really so ? Or have I missed something ? This is exactly the case. And because the address and port are so easy to find through netstat, "It's more likely that the purpose is to prevent competing media players from supporting the NSC format,"
A correct headline would have been:
Proprietary encoding of Media Player Broadcast definition files successfully reverse engineered.
The problem is, no one really makes use of NSC files anyway. Most streaming media is still done as simulcast, not as multicast.
--- Eat my sig.
Ok, maybe I'm just stupid ignorant, but I haven't found a way to record Windows Media streams to my HD to watch again later. Maybe it's there and I'm such a git I can't find it. But if it's not there, maybe one reason why is to prevent people from doing that very thing. Nothing like a proprietary format to ensure you only get to see what the provider wants you to see and when they want to make it available to you.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I see the whole encryption scheme as a lesson in frustration.
Why even bother when someone is able to defeat it in less than 24hours?
The more you try to hold on to something the easier it is to let it slip away.
Can someone out there please give a clear and succinct explanation to this whole encryption scheme?
>
> The utility is more like a utility like base64 decoders (this is not base64 though) than a circumventing tool.
Something like it would, however, make a damn nice Firefox plugin.
It's grown particularly galling during the Katrina disaster - if you're a TV station, and you're putting up a 2-minute clip of a news article or interview that you broadcast a few hours ago, why in God's name are you making us re-download it every time we want to view it?
Your servers are half melted down due to Slashdotting, your bandwidth costs are through the roof. If you must use a proprietary video format (seriously, if you're scared people won't be able to get the XVID codec, what's wrong with good old MPEG?), at least let us download the damn thing.
You stream live content. You download static content. Is the difference that hard to understand? Or is it that news broa-buffering-dcasters hav-buffering-e a strange sexual fetish for buf-buffering-fering?
Nope, it's their utter ignorance that only page view counts matter. Especially for advertising.
Ontario doesn't get any transfer payments, it infact pays the most out by far. Us ontarians are being robbed more than anyone else, while Quebec sits pretty wallowing in funds it doesn't deserve according to the formula. And recently it's been publisized in the media that our economy can't handle this practice much longer, so fuck you thinking your the ones being drained dry. And also fuck you for having a religiously entangled conservative party, I can vote for the ontario conservatives free of the fear of helping religious extremists (like Kline and co for example). IANAL(liberal)
This guy used to live and have a "Pot store" in the city where I live.
While I don't agree with his views on dope, I think it's absolute bullshit that he should be arrested and sent off to a foreign country for breaking laws in a country he doesn't even live in. Everybody else around here seems to think the same thing.
If the US doesn't want people buying pot seeds over the internet, then make damn sure they're confiscated when they come across the border.
When are people in the US going to start being arrested and shipped off to China for not bowing to the emperor, or something stupid like that. The US would be up in arms if someone were to try to impose Chinese law on US citizens living in the US, so why the FSCK should we impose US law on a Canadian living in Canada?!
Sorry....I got more and more pissed off as I was typing that, which I'm sure you can see by the tone......
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
A monster to them, a cult hero to the slashdot minions...
That is an interesting train of thought.
-Ms2k
Norway has a good, civilized and modern justice system that doesn't give corporations any more weight than regular Joe.
Neither does the American justice system. If you have money you can hire good lawyers and generally make the process really painful for the other side -- but that doesn't have anything to do with being a corporation vs a human being. One individual with a ton of money can make your life a living hell via the legal system just as easily as a corporation can.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.