Slashdot Mirror
QTFairUse6 Updated Hours After iTunes7 Release
Nrbelex writes "Mere hours after iTunes 7's release, QTFairUse6 has received an update which enables it to continue stripping iTunes songs of their 'FairPlay' DRM. Some features are experimental but at least it's proof that the concept still works."
In a DRM system, the consumer's machine needs to get both the encrypted content, and the key to decrypt this content. Otherwise, the consumer cannot listen to the audio he just purchased. As long as we listen to music with our analog ears, and watch video with our analog eyes, this will be the case.
As any cryptographer will tell you: if you have the cyphertext and the correct key, you can decrypt the content. Therefore, DRM systems are, by their very definition, nothing more than security by obscurity. It is a cryptographical pipe dream.
Support a Europe-related section on Slashdot!
Only a matter of time till both Apple and MS initiate lawsuits on those that cracked their DRM. No doubt aided and abetted by the **AA. The silver lining is that if this gets to the SC, the DMCA *might* get struck down as unconstitutional.
Cracked DRM? where? What this program does is something similar to dump some part of the memory in your machine into a file. It does not cracks anything, it does not modify any program, it is not any key generator, it just dumps a section of your computer memory into the disk.
Guess what, Microsoft Office does exactly that when you click the "save document" function. =o)
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
So, I could download something from iTunes, and without hassle, put it on my non-apple MP3 player, have a copy on my work (windows) PC, my home (Windows) PC, my notebook (BSD), and use it on my Audiotron player (MP3 and WMA compatable) that pipes it through my sterio?
Somehow I doubt it, yet those are all legitimate uses.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
iTunes works not because you can't copy the song or because of DRM. It works because of two simple reasons:
1. price
2. easy to use
Fairly simple. 99 cents is a sum that convinces people it's more convenient to click and pay than to fire up a filesharing system or phone 'round with their friends. It downloads quickly and it's guaranteed to work with your iPod, no need to wonder what format or how to transfer it, the software is built to fit.
That's what makes it popular and that's why people pay for it. I bet a sizable sum that most of them didn't even notice yet that it contains DRM. Simply because nobody bothered to try to copy it instead of simply clicking and paying the buck.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's called slashdot. It's a self-regulated forum of intellectuals who espouse fairness, rational discourse, wit and good fellowship above all else.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
The DMCA is pretty clear on what it means by circumvention:
If you think you can convince a judge that this isn't textbook circumvention, hey, go for it. But saying it'd be an uphill battle is putting it lightly. Especially if you go in there claiming that it's somehow impossible for a "mere memory dump" to constitute circumvention, when it is clearly one of many types of transform wherein you put a protected work in one end, and get an unprotected work out the other.
(Do not confuse this post with DMCA advocacy. I strongly disagree with outlawing technologies and actions; I think the law in this area should merely concern itself with results. But I also think you can't fight against something you don't understand; you just make yourself sound like an idiot. You need to understand there is a distinction between what the laws says and what you wish it said. Understanding the DMCA better is a necessary step in fighting it.)
Actually, the European Comission does consider that there is a right to purchase things free of conditions, and in the case of any transaction that looks like a sale, it is a sale, and the constraints the seller can put on the purchaser are very limited.
Sorry, but QTFairUse6 does NOT break DRM in the same way that Hymn, et. al. do it. Hymn breaks DRM by getting the keys and decrypting the files itself. What QTFairUse does is... use iTunes to break it (relying on the fact that you have ciphertext, a key, and a black box (iTunes) that can take those two inputs and produce unencrypted audio).
If you examine the source code, you'll see why it hasn't been ported to Mac - it isn't portable. It relies on the fact that for a brief period of time, there will be a frame of decrypted AAC data. It first attaches to the iTunes process, then it attaches a breakpoint inside of iTunes. You play your audio, and when iTunes finishes decrypting a frame of m4p, it hits the breakpoint. Then QTFairUse, acting as a debugger, grabs a copy of the AAC memory buffer, and writes it to a file, which is (surprise) unencrypted. (This was how the first iTunes hack was done, too).
What QTFairUse6/MyFairTunes does is make it entirely automated by faking out a debugger. If you knew where to set the breakpoint, and where in memory to find the unencrypted data, you could basically do the same thing with your bog-standard VisualStudio debugger (albeit more slowly).
The iTMS 6 format wasn't broken, just an alternate attack vector was found. And it might be more difficult in OS X, since a process can prevent itself from being debugged by setting permissions to do so.
That's why QTFairUse is version specific - it needs to know where to find the memory buffer, and where to set the breakpoint.