"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.

Comments

Real already did this

[daveschroeder]

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?

Re:Real already did this

[daveschroeder]

Close: they know what the restrictions are right now. They don't know what the restrictions will be tomorrow or next year. Apple has, in fact, issued updates to iTunes to tighten the restrictions on music that had already been purchased, and they may very well do so again in the future.

Um, examples, please? Are you talking about things like being able to burn one playlist 7 consecutive times instead of 10? (Even though you can just make one change to the playlist, change it back, and then burn again?) Other than that, I am not aware of any changes that makes Apple's DRM more restrictive, unless you're talking about the waaaaay-old changes to iTunes that disabled the ability to do music sharing via IP (as opposed to only on your local subnet, the way it is now), which had nothing to do with DRM, or the syncing changes in iTunes 2.0, which again had nothing to with with DRM, or disallowing music from easily being downloaded by others (as opposed to streamed) via iTunes, which, again, had nothing to do with DRM.

As I said in another post, Apple has actually been making their DRM more lenient: you can now two-way sync any iPod with any iTunes libraries on computers that are authorized on the same iTunes account (and you can have up to five computers and an unlimited number of iPods, which is how it's always been). Previously, you could have an iPod associated with only one music library; now you can easily keep all libraries in sync across multiple computers and multiple iPods.

While your point stands in general with regard to DRM, Apple has not introduced any new restrictions that fundamentally limit what you can do, and instead has removed limitations that previously existed.

Microsoft has done precisely the opposite, even introducing a new music player that doesn't play its *own* ironically-branded PlaysForSure content. (And to others reading this, no it wasn't just a rumor or misunderstanding...Zune really won't play PlaysForSure content, and vice versa: http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/the-engadget-in terview-j-allard-microsoft-corporate-vice-presi/ )

Suuuure

[finkployd]

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

Re:*sniff*.. *sniff*.

[roseblood]

Indeed. Apple is not going to like the fact that some other company is going to sell their technology. Thats what patents are for right? Wait... there is plenty of prior art for cryptography (thats all DRM is, crypto for media, when you're given the right to play the media you are allowed to decrypt it.)

How will it work here? A court says DVD JON stop it, that's apple technology they worked hard to make. A court says APPLE CHILL OUT, DVD JON is going to let other MP3 players play FAIRPLAY files and non-Ipod owners will spend their money on your iTunes store.

I'm sure apple would love to sell more iPods, but then again, they could end up selling more music.

I predict lawsuits myself, the legal department will feel the need to get them going if only to prove to the bosses that they are doing productive work for the company.

Apple saved from Anti-trust in europe

[RichMan]

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.