Slashdot Mirror
"DVD Jon" Reverse Engineers FairPlay
breun writes to bring us up to date on the doings of Jon Lech Johansen, known as "DVD Jon" after he cracked CSS encryption at the age of 15. As reported by GigaOM's Liz Gannes, Johansen has now reverse-engineered Apple's FairPlay DRM — but not to crack it. Instead Johansen's company, DoubleTwist Ventures, wants to license the tech to media companies shut out by Apple from playing their content on the iPod. And, soon, on the iTV. Johansen could end up selling a lot of hardware for Apple.
What's that smell..
Oh that's right.. a lawsuit.
Hold on to your hats boys and girls, its going to get fun.
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board -- Mark Twain Look for http://Thebar.steelbeachca
Why do I have the feeling that somebody is going to turn out like Dmitry Sklyarov?
This has already been done with Real's Harmony.
With each successive iPod update, Apple can keep breaking Harmony. Sure, they can come back and "fix" it again, only for it to be broken again.
Besides which, anyone can sell or deliver content on Apple's iPod now:
- They can deliver it in any number of media formats without DRM (since DRM is so evil, right?)
- If they really want DRM, any music provider not currently affiliated with a major label can distribute on iTunes to iPod via services like this
So, if we're to believe the putative reasons that FairPlay has been "reverse-engineered", it is actually to specifically enable and further the usage of DRM.
Is this what the people who would applaud DVD Jon actually want? More DRM, and DRM that won't be guaranteed to work (in fact, will almost be guaranteed to NOT work) the next time an update comes out from the vendor, at that?
DVD Jon is great. His idea of re-creating the scheme as opposed to just breaking it makes good business sense. Hopefully his past luck with the judicial system will stay with him and we'll see more creative uses of his hacking in the future.
Apple will snarl and bite yet another hand. Anyone that thinks Apple is consumer friendly is an idiot.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Johansen could end up selling a lot of hardware for Apple.
How's that? If Apple doesn't sell hardware they don't make money. If they don't make money from the hardware they won't be selling content. They only offer the content to profit from their own hardware. Am i missing something?
Developers: We can use your help.
So, DVD Jon is going into business to *sell* DRM?! And possibly at the expense of Apple?
That sound your just heard is thousands of Slashdotter heads asploding.
The drama abounds... Who will Apple sue first? Will anyone be brave enough to buy a third-party implementation of FairPlay? Will Apple try to thwart this by monkeying with FairPlay to cause compatibility problems, leading to a game of cat and mouse?
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
A: Who wants to bet that Apple has a bunch of patents to happily sue about. Apple doesn't make a boatload of money on the hardware (why else are they able to effectively price-match other MP3 players), but a huge amount from Itunes.
B: They can keep tweaking the format. Having every iPod upgrade break your music and you'll quickly stop buying it.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Johansen could end up selling a lot of hardware for Apple.
I'm sure Apple will see it that way.
This is yet another example of why DRM is nothing more than a snakeoil-based totally flawed concept. You CANNOT turn the concept of public key cryptography upside down like that. All DRM does is have you create a keypair (or create one for you and send you the private key), then it encrypts media using your public key before it gets to you. Great, except they have to (1) keep the private key accessable to their programs/devices that need to decrypt it and (2) keep it completely away from you (the "owner" of the key) and any other programs that could use it to decrypt media without following their silly restrictions.
Keep trying to hide it in software, keep trying to hide it in hardware, as long as debuggers, logic probes, and soldering irons are available to the general public, someone will always get it. And it only takes one to make it completely pointless. After that there will be a software or hardware solution available to anyone to do the same thing. Or more to the point, the un-drmed media will be in the wild.
Close the analog hole? Trying to force everyone to upgrade to monitors, sound cards (and speakers), TVs, etc. just to restrict what they can do will backfire as well. Eventually people will figure out that there is no benefit to upgrading all this stuff. And let's be honest with outselves, most of the really cool features of Vista have been canceled, it is nothing more than XP + DRM with some OSX eye candy thrown in to make it seem different. OSX is not much better, try loading a debugger while the DVD player app is running. Or even taking a screenshot.
Nobody is waking up going "geeze, my PC, Tivo, DVD burner, and VCR can do way too much, I really wish I could pay a lot more for devices that prevent a lot of the use that is available to me now".
Wow, I guess I really needed to go off on a DRM rant. I feel better.
Finkployd
Currently if I want to get my music on iTunes, I can approach apple with it, and get it DRM'd and then sold on iTunes.
Talk to me when DVD Job offers other MP3 player manufactures that ability to use a FairPlay DRM'd song on there own MP3 player. That is the lock in I would like to eliminate (and apple wants to keep).
He is so getting sued & this time his home country's laws will not protect him.
TFA does make an interesting point: he isn't stripping DRM, he's adding it... but isn't that exactly what Apple is licensing?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
ant vs steam roller.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The author of this article seems confused, or at least implicitly blames Apple for "closing off" the iPod.
The iPod can play non-DRM'd media formats, in mp3, non-FairPlay AAC, etc...
If content from other music stores can't play on the iPod, it's not Apple's fault. It's their own fault, most probably because of the RIAA, for clinging to their own proprietary DRM.
On the other hand, it is Apple's(and the RIAA's) fault that iTMS content cannot play on other devices, and this is why we really need a way to strip FairPlay DRM.
It looks like this technology just benefits the record companies, who want to force all their music licensees into developing proprietary DRM technologies that make every single media device mutually incompatible with every other one.
Sigh.
Luckily, this is old news - Johansen had already circumvented the FairPlay encryption algorithm. He just wanted to develop something which was marketable to other music stores who want to compete with iTMS and who have the RIAA's proverbial gun to their heads. This seems like good news for everyone but the people who are buying the music, and (as I see it) the people who create it, who are tethered to an unfair distribution model.
Enabling more DRM usage, and DRM that won't even work on the device every time Apple updates the iPod?
Yeah, I'm sure people will be falling all over themselves for that: not only more DRM, but DRM that isn't guaranteed to even be functional.
Way to go!
DVD Jon, didn't break the FairPlay, he emulates it with his software. So he's not in violation of DMCA I think. Just like the Samba project reverse-engineered the SMB protocol, they did the same. So he's going to talk to Steve in January and has at least one (1) customer (Microsoft? haha)
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Apple will snarl and bite yet another hand. Anyone that thinks Apple is consumer friendly is an idiot.
They'll do more than snarl and bite. I just saw a bunch of sinister looking stealth UAV's loaded to capacity with Norvegian-nerd-seeking lawyer-missiles and Apple logos painted on their wings jetting off from our local Air Force base. They were heading in the direction of San Francisco.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
>>if they really want DRM, any music provider not currently affiliated with a major label can distribute on iTunes to iPod via services like this
Who exactly do you think WANTS DRM? Yes, it's the MAJOR LABELS. Other resellers (Real, Walmart, Microsoft, MTV, Napster, etc etc) who want to put major-label music on the ipod have no option to do so currently. (Tell me again about how Apple makes almost no money from itunes sales, but is unwilling to make bucket-loads by licensing their DRM.)
DVD Jon is for interoperability last time I checked. This promotes that, although not in the any music->any player way. (Apparently DVD Jon is the fanatical open-source saviour some people seem to think.)
Dave Schroder, was it really necessary to call him an "unfortunate idiot" just to prove your point?
I believe this saves Apple from the anti-trust case in France that was considering Apple as monopolizing the market. As other vendors can now sell to the Ipod this technology saves Apple from that lawsuit.
Just go stright for the source. I can't see this bloke staying out of hot water for very ong.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Just look at his business name and you'll understand. DoubleTwist. He's backed Apple into a corner where they are screwed no matter what they do. Fighting his app could require them to change their DRM such that it breaks for existing media which would alienate customers, stir up tons of bad press, and further expose the downsides of DRM. OR They can let his application survive, some music companies will license it, build their own alternative distribution online stores probaby in highly specific niche music markets, and slowly chip away Apple's hegemony.
As you noted if you try to compete with tht eipod then apple can just change the encoding of the music so it breaks on your harmony player. But the reverse is not true. If I am selling songs I can encode them so they play on apple ipods yet are drm protected. Once I manage to emulate that for any given edition of the DRM format, the apple can't change the protocol because it would mean old songs won't play.
that is you encode the songs such that if old itunes music stroe songs play then your songs must play too.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Not because I agree with either side -- DVD Jon is a bastard for not simply releasing this to the public -- but it looks like it's shaping up to be hilarious and fun to watch in the same way the ending of Dune was. You think you have me surrounded? Beaten? Then, out of nowhere: "If I am not obeyed, the spice will not flow."
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
All he's done is reverse engineer for the sake of interoperability. Now you'll be able to download songs from, say, Walmart for 88 cents and play them on your iPod.
The next step would be to reverse engineer the iPod, so that you can play iTMS tracks on your Zune or iRiver or whatever other device is out there.
As long as the DRM on these other players works just as well as the iPod, the only thing that changes is that the single-vendor lock-in that Apple has worked so hard to create gets shattered. This is good for the consumer, and may perhaps be what finally moves DRM from the "evil" category over to "annoyance" in the mind of consumers, thus increasing the market size.
Only an idiot would voluntarily lock themselves in to a single vendor (Apple, Zune Marketplace) if they had the choice. PlaysForSure was Microsoft's shot at creating an open marketplace for players along with an open market for media players, which, if DRM must exist, is the best market situation from the consumer perspective: you get to pick the best music store (or several of them) and the best player (or several of them). Music and players are interchangeable commodities.
I still don't like the fact that downloaded music is licensed in stead of purchased (as with a CD), but if all DRM were made interoperable (as France recently tried to do), the difference would be tolerable.
I still plan on purchasing CDs for the foreseeable future, but this developement is definitely welcome.
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
I'm sure Apple isn't:)
Agreed. And this is why they're going to come down hard on Jon, not because they really care that much about the iTMS, but because it might encourage sales of other MP3 players at the expense of the iPod.
If Apple really was interested in running an online music venture and making their money there -- as in, really having that be their core business -- they would have tried to license out FairPlay as widely as possible and make it a de facto standard. (Which it already practically is, without licensing; given that the iPod is the de facto standard MP3 player.)
However, since the iTMS is really only there to grant legitimacy to the iPod as a device (does anyone remember how the music industry was screaming bloody murder about iPods being "piracy machines" back before the music store existed?), it makes no sense for them to share this "excuse" with anyone else's MP3 players. They benefit more from a consumer who buys an iPod than they do from a consumer who buys a few iTMS songs -- you'd have to buy a LOT of music to give Apple the same amount of profit that they get from a single iPod, and most people don't buy that much.
I think you'll see Apple go after this in the courts if it can, or just start a vicious cycle of "upgrades" and "enhancements" to the format if it can't.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Why? Simple reason: to successfully reverse engineer something, you need to hire a 'virgin' software developer who has not seen the code of FairPlay. DVD Jon has cracked FairPlay several times in the past and he has seen the code of FairPlay.
Nice work though...
I hope I'm wrong, but I have less faith that "eventually, people will figure out that there is no benefit to upgrading all this stuff." I can't help but think that MS wouldn't have the market share it does in the OS and Browser segments if people were prone to figuring these sorts of things out. When it's time for a new system, consumers by and large seem to run with the default setup, and buy the best complete bundle value (as they perceive it) when Best Buy has a sale. It isn't until later that they realize they've lost capability, and then they probably won't even remember the times their eyes glazed over as their /.er friend tried to warn them about this crap.
I'd be pleased if your view of humanity proved the more accurate 5 years from now.
Pi Ran Out
I read that the DVD cracking was carried out by two unnammed crackers in western Europe, which subsequently passed it on to DVDJon, who then posted it to the net. Is this true?
Not really but the laws concerning patents, copyrights and the like are vastly didferent in Sweden I'm sure he'll get a C&D is just want stop him. GO DVD JON! He's one of my pirate heroes!
WTF?
Not really but the laws concerning patents, copyrights and the like are vastly didferent in Sweden. I'm sure he'll get a C&D, it just won't stop him. GO DVD JON! He's one of my pirate heroes!
WTF?
"Johansen could end up selling a lot of hardware for Apple."
How do you figure? Apple's doing _FINE_ on their own.....
Anyone that thinks Apple is consumer friendly is an idiot.
It's about time someone in this discussion made a reasonable, well-articulated statement, rather than an inflammatory blanket statement.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Jackass
content sellers - yeah we'll just start up a company to compete with the ITMS selling the exact same thing they do...NOT
content owners - a lot easier and cheaper just to let ITMS sell your stuff for you
hardware vendor - no good, making your device play ITMS files is a 100% DCMA / copyright violation...doesnt matter if you can make it play on your device, its not liscenced for your device
basiclly he created his own version of fairplay which can not legally interoperate with Apple's so it could only be used to create a smaller, less capable, DRM ecosystem
Now you'll be able to download songs from, say, Walmart for 88 cents and play them on your iPod.
If I can burn them to a CD I can already do that.
If I go to a restaurant and enjoy a meal, am I purchasing content?
If I make something similar for my family the following weekend have I copied content?
If I have near perfect recollection of a tune, and can whistle it and sing it and play it on the piano or guitar, am I copying content?
If I read a book and describe it to friends, am I copying content?
Of course, all of these descriptions fall under fair use. But it is fair use that is under attack by a select few. These simpleasures I have mentioned and many others could in fact be impacted by DRM and current lobbying efforts by 'content' vendors.
For instance: Walt Disney has been dead many years now, and he is regarded as a true pioneer and legend of animation. However, it illegal to study Disney at any school, and it always will be. You cannot learn to draw like Disney because all of the Companies' 'content' has perpetual copywrites and trademarks that are rigerously enforced. All of Disney's wisdom, inspiration, and capablity died with him and will not be seen again. Very anti-socail of the Disney Corporation.
Many years ago (prior to the 1940s) music in America was alive and vibrant and available to everyone. Think about Jazz in Kansas City, Soul music in Detroit, Gospel in the South, Hillbillies, Migrant worker camps as a result of the dust boll, hobo camps along the rail roads, etc.
There have always been an aristochracy that holds and prefers to 'own' everything. They have often hired the best minstrils and musicians and kept their works to themselves, often to engratiate themselves to other powerful persons.
However, prior to the 1940s and the introduction of Radio and Television on a wide scale in America, music and the arts where very accessable if only locally and ethnically.
The radio brought hilbilly and hobo music to the masses (Burl Ives and others), Gospel music to the northern states, and Jazz to the world. This was a unique and fascinating thing to everyone, and it had value. People would pay for 45 and listen to it at home over and over imagining the smokey campfires, the hunger and loneliness, the hardships they would never face, in the comfort of their living rooms. People would pay to be inspired and so on.
It didn't take long for radio station owners to understand mass marketing. They may not have understood at all it was they were doing in regards to harming our culture, but the money was obvious. These were hard times for migrant workers, recent war vetrans, mothers left alone to raise families, etc. These were also hard times for the working class across the country. Lots of blood was spilt over the formations of unions and the rights of workers.
In this environment of outrageous abuse of human rights by major land owners and manufacturers, the music industry as it was becoming was no different. The problem was that when they violated their musicians rights there was no physical harm, and so it continues to the present day. Only the dollar amounts and the players have changed, the techniques for making money in the industry are the same. It goes something like this:
"Hey I heard that there is a guy who will pay for you to sing into a tin can."
Sing into a tin can and make a few bucks, but "Please sign here."
"They sold a million copies of our song!" "Cool."
Go back to record maker and try to get compensated. Get laughed at instead.
The youth of our time have no sense of history (just like we were) and are easily convinced that what you hear on the radio is all that there is. Sure they have friends that are in a band, but that is just pretend. The band just plays what they hear on the radio and they suck at it, usually.
Sometimes those bands that don't totally suck hear about the guy with the tin can and come to think that is the reason and end of all music.
None of my 6 children have ever gathered around a campfire with competent musicians and played, sang,
Is this the reason why SharpMusique disappeared from his website last month?
Unless DVD Jon has a political, ulterior motive here, it seems incredibly counterproductive to the cause of user freedom to try and get more businesses onboard with the iTunes DRM. To do so is to ignore the real societal issue of DRM.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
Now get to work on HDCP!
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I am sure he has looked at the legal ramifications of a news release like this.. or has had somebody else look the situation over.
The dude is obviously rather smart no?
i think "jon" is a great role model for kids.. he should get his own cerial
Kill your TV
Is it just me, or does "DVD Jon" look A LOT like Bill Gates? I mean... whoa, freaky, eh?!
how is babby formed?
if apple decides to sue, that gives the consumers the right to shit apples all day long.
Buy non-DRM media where possible - like CDs instead of the crippled stuff off of iTunes. The more you put up with this crap using hacks, the more the media companies are going to push it on us.
IANAL. However:
DVDJon and his company are not just circumventing DRM. They are eviscerating meta-DRM:
On one hand, they are circumventing FairPlay's copyright protection technology. Seems like a clear-cut violation of the DMCA, doesn't it?
However, as long as they don't publicize their circumvention method, but instead make it available under NDA to legitimate customers, they are providing an avenue for Apple's legitimate competitors to enter the iTMS market. Competition has been explicitly protected w.r.t. the DMCA.
DVDJon &co. are "crossing the streams" and make DRM itself the subject of competition. DMCA may make circumventing copyright protection illegal, but the 6th Circuit said that you can't use the DMCA to stifle competition. So, can you use the DMCA to stifle DRM competition?
If the court says that DVDJon can't [enable someone to] make a legitimate iPod clone, the DMCA is set up for a major anti-competitive argument, complete with precedent, all the way to the SCOTUS.
If, one way or another, competition (legitimate, not free "competition" from unauthorized downloads) is upheld over this meta-DRM that DVDJon is attacking, then any DRM moves closer to commodity status. That reduces the incentive for tech companies to invest in DRM - a Very Good Thing by itself. But it also opens holes to, hypothetically speaking, the MPAA members' wet dream of having your HD-DVD/Bluray player ask the mothership for permission before it plays the next episode of The Sopranos.
All in all, very well played.
Despite many predictions (by Slahsdotters, and by Real itself in its financial disclosures) that Harmony would incite a lawsuit, there have been nothing but strong words exchanged.
Was Apple afraid it would lose? (And since when has that stopped anyone?) Does Apple prefer repeatedly breaking Harmony with firmware updates? Or does Apple just not give a shit about minor players like Real?
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
What is not clear is how the reverse engineered FairPlay will be marketed. If it is marketed to the online music retailers so they can offer iPod compatibility, then Apple probably doesn't really care enough to take action. If it is marketed to the portable music player hardware manufacturers, then Apple will definitely care because the iPod sale is its bread and butter.
The first scenario makes a lot more overall financial sense because the iPod dominates the market as an end user device. The reason that other portable players have been crushed in the market is not because there is a lack of online music retailers who sell content that is compatible with those devices. It is actually the opposite - there are tons more online music retailers who sell content for non-iPod devices. The reason is that the device of choice is the iPod, and the only online music retailer who sells content from the major music publishers that can be licensed for the iPod is iTMS. If the other online music retailers could also license DRM'd music from the major music publishers for the iPod, then the only threat is to the revenue stream of iTMS - not the iPod.
Well done that man! We need more people like dvd jon in this world.
Locked out how? I'm pretty sure that the iPod can play/import standard MP3 files, and its pretty well known how to produce those.
Ooooh. You mean they want a DRM format. Well fuck em, I *DONT* want a DRM format, and I dont give a damn wether its from Apple or anyone else.
Apple has enjoyed a good run with iPod. I imagine if this technology is offered to the content vendor and enable Apple to sell more iPods. Apple probably would not take them to court. Apple isn't really making a huge profit off iTune.
If this technology is offered to hardware vendors so other MP3 players will be able to play DRM songs from ITMS. You will see Apple take them to court ASAP.
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity....Calvin
In fact, it looks like MS isn't supporting much at all:
10 iPod vs Zune Myths
What was the name of this technology, until DVD Jon hacked it?..
That is, if you have reverse engineered the encryption process to produce FairPlay files from mp3s, does it follow that you can also trivially implement decryption to play them back? I'm not clear whether what he has done only enables other stores to sell iTunes compatible material, or whether it also is going to enable other manufacturers to play back iTunes material.
That's the exact reason why this won't fly. Firware upgrade anybody? No firmware upgrade? Well, buddy; don't buy any newly encoded ITS songs (Games, Videos, Movies) then. They will look and sound like pink noise, if that.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
>known as "DVD Jon" after he cracked CSS encryption at the age of 15.
This is incorrect. DVD Jon made a GUI, the other two guys in his team
(one of them a German AFAIK)did the cracking, but Jon was the one with
a publicly known identity and was targeted because of that. He's done
a lot of cracking since then, but CSS wasn't done by him.
This is well known, particularly among people who posts on Slashdot. Should have been, at least!
Remember Harmony?
I'm not sure if you didn't know this, but he's from Norway [the capital of Sweden, you know ;-)]. And Swedes in general will probably not care about this because:
1) Most people haven't heard about FairPlay or DRM.
and most importantly
2) Swedes and Norwegians don't mix very well.
it was done by a team of iranians, not euroes. they were schooled in the uk and was done as a project. dvd jon got it from the group's school account ftp site.