Interview with Developer of BackupHDDVD

An anonymous reader writes "HD DVD and Blu-Ray were supposedly protected by an impenetrable fortress. However a programmer named "muslix64" discovered that this was not the case, and released BackupHDDVD. Now, Slyck.com has an interview with the individual responsible, who provides some interesting insight to his success."

Comments

Degrading Quality May Boost Cracking

[toonerh]

Unlike old DVD-Video, HD DVD and BluRay have a bit -- so far not set -- that degrades all output unless it is via an HDCP connection. This means my older Sharp 720p projector will be degraded along with all early adapter's HD gear

This creates a powerful incentive to not just "backup" your HiDef DVD, rather to remove an onerous limitation -- it may violate the DCMA in the USA, but it is morally and legally sound to most of the world.

Re:Degrading Quality May Boost Cracking

[purpledinoz]

Hollywood shouldn't be worried about this hack. They really should be worried about people actually buying these discs. What are the early adopter customers with the "non-secure" HDTVs supposed to do? Throw out their HDTV, and buy a new one so they can watch HD content? It's a real slap in the face of the customers... I hope both formats fail, and a new, non-restrictive format appears.

Re:Degrading Quality May Boost Cracking

[plover]

The original poster was incorrect in his explanation. The "bit" is implemented in the software, not in the disc. In Windows Vista, Microsoft is calling it the "tilt switch". Any attempt to "subvert" the Protected Media Path is supposed to flip the bit, causing degradation of the signal. This means things like "unsigned drivers" or home-grown ripper type activity.

Re:Degrading Quality May Boost Cracking

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

The mandatory player quality degradation occurs over non-HDCP compliant *digital* (DVI/HDMI) connections. They don't deem it necessary to lower the rez for analog (Component) connections. I don't think that's right (or if it is now, I don't think it will be for long). Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 already refuses to play regular DVDs above 480i resolution when a TV-capable graphics adapter card is installed. I connect my Media Center PC to my HDTV via analog VGA. Since the graphics adapter is capable of S-Video and Component output, MCE will not play DVDs, even over VGA. The "resolution" of this issue (no pun intended) is to set your display resolution to 480i or lower. (Or allegedly use AnyDVD, DVD43, or burn clear .isos with DvdDecrypter, but I wouldn't know anything about that...)

Media Center's PVR utility also encrypts & adds DRM to plain analog recordings made over S-Video -- on behalf of HBO, Showtime, and others. MS claims that this triggered by the Analog SGMS flag in the S-vid signal, but my own unscientific experiments suggest otherwise; if I set MCE to record a different, unprotected program, then change the channel to the "protected" program directly on the cable box (instead of through MCE's guide & tuner), I get an unprotected recording. That would suggest to me that the DRM flag is somewhere in the guide data rather than the S-vid signal.

At any rate, if MS is already superlatively brutal when it comes to adding unnecessary DRM to legacy technology, I can't imagine they will allow unprotected full-resolution component output through Vista's content imprisonment system. No other software DVD player I know restricts the playback resolution, and no other PVR suite I know of implements SGMS or wraps S-Video recordings in DRM of any kind. I *thought* that the HDCP spec required degradation of component analog outputs, but even if it doesn't, you can bet that MS will do it anyway, if past performance is at all indicative of future behavior.

Anyway, I hope I'm wrong & you're right, since HDTV recording from component inputs will probably be practical & affordable much sooner than many people think.

Re:Degrading Quality May Boost Cracking

[billcopc]

Problem is, people won't realize the High-Def either doesn't show, or doesn't matter. Even worse: they won't care. Most people get all glazy-eyed with technology, they just accept that not all movies are created equal. Others just want the fanciest, most expensive toy to show off to their sexually dominant peers.

It used to be, when someone bought a fancy overpriced stereo, came back the next day and said it sounded cheap, you'd tell them they need fancy overpriced cables to "bring out the quality" and off they go with $400 of cheap copper and plastic. Then when they come back you tell them "you need bi-amped speakers!" and off they go with $600 of cheap paper and wood. Then when they come back, THEY tell you "my stereo is shite, here's even more money, sell me the best you got".

With High-Def it's going to be the same song and dance. "My HD-DVD looks uglier than VHS", you need a new TV. "My HD-DVD still looks like shite", you need new cables. "My HD-DVD looks like Whoopi Goldberg's boobs", you need a power conditioner... the crappier something is, the more opportunity there is for upsale. That's why nothing ever works "just right", there's always some stupid feature that's glitched or backwards, just to make room for future improvement$. It sucks for discerning enthusiasts like you and I, because we're a minority. For every videophile that returns a crippled player on principle, there are 99 norms that will do the exact opposite and spend more money to "fix" the problem. High-Def is marketed as a luxury after all, and luxuries are supposed to cost lots of money for minimal functionality. At least that's what the retail world has been telling us all this time.

Investment in DRM vs. Investment to crack

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone have a cost estimate for producing the AACS DRM? I'm guessing the crack didn't cost nearly as much.

Mij

Re:Investment in DRM vs. Investment to crack

[billster0808]

I don't know how much it cost to create, but the cost to crack it was just 8 days of work, and probably a case or 2 of Mt. Dew.

Re:Investment in DRM vs. Investment to crack

[Iphtashu Fitz]

I'd be willing to bet that the cost to produce AACS was pretty high in the grand scheme of things. AACS was created by a consortium consisting of IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Disney, and Warner Brothers. Granted that huge corporations like those can afford to throw tons of money and resources at a project like AACS, but the bottom line is that it probably cost a pretty penny. Consider the person-hours involved in just high level meetings among all those companies to hash out the AACS specification. If you get one person from each of those 8 companies to spend one full week of work (assuming 8 hour days) just on hammering out the specification then you're talking about 320 person-hours. Assuming those people have average annual salaries of $80,000 (SWAG) and work 40 hour weeks then that's over $1500 a week for their salaries, or $38/hour. 320 person-hours at $38/hour equates to $12,160.

Now obviously I'm pulling all these numbers out of you-know-where, but the point is that these companies invested a lot of manpower and a lot of time to create AACS. It may not seem like a lot to their respective bottom lines, but it does add up to a lot of salaries paid specifically on AACS, and most likely a lot of investment in hardware for development, testing, etc. It certianly wouldn't have been an insignificant ammount if you could do a full audit of all their books. I'd say (another SWAG) that the total cost of developing and implementing AACS would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000,000 when you include hardware & software design/development as well as the salaries, etc. of the people involved.

I'm glad he's not

[Weaselmancer]

If he was a native English speaker, he'd probably be in a country that has some sort of DMCA-type law. And he'd probably be in custody by now.

Server Bombed

[FST]

Well, the server is being bombed now. Here's the text from the page if you don't want to wait for 5 minutes per sentence.

The next generation of optical disc technology holds the promise to change the way we interact with and store digital media. Perhaps the most exciting change is the arrival of High Definition (HD) video, with its glorious 1920x1080 pixel resolution. It's a quantum leap forward in terms of watching digital content, as its vast resolution reveals a quality never seen before in such fine detail.

Because of the rapid escalation of digital file-sharing - especially of video files - Hollywood has been working around the clock to protect HD content. This is especially relevant for one of its primary delivery mechanisms - HD DVD and Blu-Ray discs. These next generation discs, with capacities of 30 gigabytes and 50 gigabytes respectively, have their content protected with an array of DRM (Digital Rights Management.) Both are protected with a scheme called AACS, or Advanced Access Content System. This DRM is a great leap forward compared to the weak CSS, or Content Scrambling System, that currently "protects" DVDs. Thanks to Fox, Blu-Ray has an additional layer of protection, called BD+, although most discs have yet to support this protection.

Although Hollywood has constructed enough DRM architecture to rival the Pyramid of Giza, it has long been suspected that it would be only a matter of time before HD DVD and Blu-Ray content protection were compromised. Convinced the golden DRM egg had been laid, it seemed that nothing could penetrate the great AACS wall. And to this day, that great wall still stands.

But why crash through the main gates of Constantinople when you can just pick the lock of a long forgotten rear entrance?

On December 26, 2006, a member of the Doom9.com forums named muslix64 introduced himself as circumventing the content protection - not the copy protection - of HD DVD. Additionally, he made available an open source program named BackupHDDDVD. At the time, this program was a command line program that bypassed the content protection - providing the individual successfully obtained the title and volume keys associated with the HD DVD. Once the individual has the keys, the AACS protection can be sidestepped, and the HD movie content can be extracted. According to muslix64, it took all of eight days to successfully circumvent HD DVD content protection.

Much of the more difficult work, such as extracting the keys, has been alleviated as the once encrypted information has proliferated online. To understand where this stunning turn of events is heading, Slyck.com spoke with muslix64, who agreed to a PM (private message) interview.

The mainstream media tends to have many labels for you, i.e. hacker, cracker, pirate, etc., in response to your efforts. What would you call yourself and what would you label your efforts?

I'm just an upset customer. My efforts can be called "fair use enforcement"!

What motivated you to help circumvent the content protection scheme associated with HD DVD and Blu-Ray?

With the HD-DVD, I wasn't able to play my movie on my non-HDCP HD monitor. Not being able to play a movie that I have paid for, because some executive in Hollywood decided I cannot, made me mad...

After the HD-DVD crack, I realized that things where "unbalanced" by having just one format cracked, so I did Blu-Ray too.

Explain how decrypting the device and volume keys are critical to your success. Could you explain the difference between the two?

The device keys, are the keys associated to the player.

The volume key, is the key associated to the movie.

I don't care about device keys. I do care about volume keys, because by using volume keys instead of devices keys, I totally bypass the revocation system. There is no "volume key revocation". There is content revocation, but I really doubt they will ever use it. If you use device keys, they can revoke them. Having the volume key means that you can decrypt ti

Re:He is obviously not a native English speaker...

[CRCulver]

Good, that only narrows it down to five billion people. The MPAA will be sure to track down this scoundrel soon.

AACS Easier to Crack Than CSS

[jizziknight]

So technically speaking, it was easier to bypass AACS than CSS. Oh, the irony. It figures that the more complicated the DRM, the easier it is to crack.

Re:AACS Easier to Crack Than CSS

[CastrTroy]

Well, he didn't crack it in the same way. With DECSS, you can crack any disk by just putting it in a drive and running the program. With the AACS crack, you have to run some other player and extract the title key out of memory, probably by using a debugger or something. The CSS crack was harder because they actually cracked every disk, and reversed the encryption. The AACS crack doesn't accomplish the same thing. Although you can still decrypt disks, you can't just make program that does it automatically.

Re:AACS Easier to Crack Than CSS

[Sycraft-fu]

Ya, perhaps sidestep is a better term than crack. In all likelihood the cryptosystem itself can't be broken, it's AES. While we can never say for certain there's not an unknown weakness in a system, AES is one of the most studied ones out there and thus far it remains secure enough to use for classified data.

So, like the author said, you don't attack it you go around it. Obviously if the movie is being played back at some point things are being decrypted and you can get your hands on that key. That's precisely what he does. The player uses its key to decrypt the key that the volume is encrypted with. He then nabs that key and uses it to decrypt the volume.

Re:AACS Easier to Crack Than CSS

[russ1337]

And if that doesn't work, I'll put an HD video camera in a dark box with a 52" HD Plasma and hit the record button.

Re:AACS Easier to Crack Than CSS

[SatanicPuppy]

I don't know why they bother. CSS was "easy" because the encryption didn't change, so once you'd broken it, it was done, unless they wanted to break the standard.

With AACS they "learned" something and used much beefier encryption, and mutable keys...Which makes the keys vulnerable. Some bright boy notices this, breaks the weak security on the keys, and voila! The system, while not broken, is seriously compromised.

It's all pointless though. The companies pushing the DRM have far fewer resources than the people who want to view the content, and the content itself cannot be truly secured because it's meant to be viewed! So they're just throwing away money, and, as Muselix64 himself cogently pointed out in the "interview", the turnaround for fixes from the companies is so long, that there is effectively no way they can stay ahead of the crackers.

Re:AACS Easier to Crack Than CSS

[rmckeethen]

Obligatory Star Trek quote:

"The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."

--Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, Star Trak III

Like a dog chasing it's own tail

[bcmbyte]

It sure seems to me that the media companies chasing the people finding holes in their impenetrable fortress' is much like a dog that chases his own tail. Every once in a while he gets it, but then it hurts and he lets go, and then he off again chasing his tail. The time and money they spend protecting their stuff might be better spend on an ad campaign, or better yet drop the prices of the content so that maybe, just maybe they will sell a few more..

Worst interview ever?

[Alphager]

It seems the interviewer knows _NOTHING_ about the subject:

[...]if an individual were to download "Serenity", and play it successfully on his or her Power DVD player - and never updated the software - would it be immune from any Hollywood counterattack?

You can play an unencrypted movie wherever you want; an update of the encryption-scheme will not magicalle re-encrypt the movie. DUH!

Do you see Microsoft Vista's implementation of HDCP being an obstacle to playing compromised HD movies in high definition?

An unprotected movie does not require HDCP; HDCP has _NOTHING_ to do with this.

Re:Worst interview ever?

[SydShamino]

You can play an unencrypted movie wherever you want; an update of the encryption-scheme will not magicalle re-encrypt the movie. DUH!
An unprotected movie does not require HDCP; HDCP has _NOTHING_ to do with this.

I don't think you read these questions the same way muslix64 did. You are incorrect, because the content industry could force future versions of PowerDVD to automatically downgrade the video quality of any unencrypted video it played. This would be a "Hollywood counterattack" that does not re-encrypt the video like you assumed. Likewise, because an unprotected movie does not require HDCP, Microsoft could force all video played on its operating system to be downgraded unless HDCP is enabled.

I know, neither PowerDVD nor Microsoft would ever actually do this. Even if they did, there are alternative open-source players, and alternative open-source operating systems, to which these changes would never be made. This is exactly what muslix64 says when he replies "Or you can use open-source player, like VideoLan, if a player like PowerDVD become more restrictive about playing decrypted movies."

And the best part is...

[DrYak]

This can't be stoped. It's not like the first DeCSS that used stolen Xing keys and could only work for as long as the keys weren't revoked.
This uses the keys specific for the DISC, which can't be changed anymore.

And the best part : In order to decrypt the movie and play it, every player *HAS* to have the volume ke in memory or SIMD register for a short period of time. No matter if players key are revoked, version upgraded, bugs fixed, etc... This technique doesn't rely on any bug that can be patched. It only rely to the fact that, whatever player you choose, at one moment it needs the volume key - which you can then grab and share on the net.

There's no way to patch this.

This is one more proof that the fundamental mechnics of the DRM - ie.: providing both the crypted data and the key in the same place - is flawed. You can't protect a content from the one who bought the disc. If data must be decrypted on the buyer's computer, then nothing cab prevent it from being circumvented.

Re:And the best part is...

[purpledinoz]

You underestimate the movie companies. The next step is to encrypt the the data on the disc, and throw away all the keys. This way, no one can decrypt it. Not even the pirates! There is one side effect though, no one can watch the movie either. Oh well, it's a fair compromise.

Re:And the best part is...

[mrchaotica]

And the best part : In order to decrypt the movie and play it, every player *HAS* to have the volume ke in memory or SIMD register for a short period of time. No matter if players key are revoked, version upgraded, bugs fixed, etc... This technique doesn't rely on any bug that can be patched.

Hence Treacherous Computing. You really think Microsoft and the content industry haven't thought of this? Sooner or later Windows is going to start encrypting memory and running non-"Trusted" programs in a sandbox that prevents them from accessing the hardware directly, specifically to prevent this kind of attack.

Re:And the best part is...

[arodland]

The hit isn't that bad if you have dedicated encryption hardware, which clearly exists. And Microsoft aren't the only ones in on this thing. AMD, Intel, Infineon, and IBM are all TCG partners.

Re:And the best part is...

[diegocgteleline.es]

And the best part : In order to decrypt the movie and play it, every player *HAS* to have the volume ke in memory or SIMD register for a short period of time.

Which is why Windows Vista adds a special type of processes: "protected processes": You can't look at the memory of those processes, you can't debug them, you can't do *anything* to them. Not even the antivirus software can look into them. And because the kernel can't load unsigned drivers, you can't do kernel tricks to jump the protections. Microsoft will use it to "protect" the processes that handle the DRM data or the final video. Not even the administrators can start them, your binary must be "microsoft certified" in order to get that spcial "protected process" flag.

(And yes: if hackers manage to run protected processes without getting a certificate from microsoft, the windows platform will get some funny viruses that can't be deleted by AV software)

Re:And the best part is...

[mrchaotica]

Linux is already able to encrypt swap and I haven't heard anything about that slowing the computer down too much. Besides, some CPUs already have hardware-accelerated cryptography engines anyway. Finally, all new computers will come with a TPM, if they don't already. Although I don't think it's strictly required that the TPM be a cryptography accelerator, it makes sense for it to be.

Re:And the best part is...

[ncc74656]

Can you imagine the huge hit on performance that would be? Every memory access has to be accompanied by a decrypt, every memory write accompanied with an encrypt. It will set back PC performance by many years.

...and this would be different from any other Windows release how, exactly?

Re:And the best part is...

[try_anything]

I wonder how much money is being made off DRM by companies like Microsoft that know it will never work. When the guys with the money (the media companies in this case) want something impossible, and want it badly enough, smart tech vendors can make a lot of money by playing along.

Re:And the best part is...

[Workaphobia]

Fool. Bruce Schneier could still watch it.

Re:And the best part is...

[mrs clear plastic]

Good.

If the movie companies do an 'encrypt and throw away the key`, that would be great.

To be frank with you all, I am quite discouraged with the quality of the product that Hollywood is putting out now. No, not discouraged; appalled is more like it!

To put it bluntly, this stuff is not even worth the raw material in the darn DVD itself.

Lets take those permanently locked DVD's and burn them in a boiler to make steam to run a turbine to generate electricity for that community theater where some really decent stuff is performed!

Luv

Re:And the best part is...

[Baricom]

Sorry, but I'm afraid you're thinking of Chuck Norris.

Sorry about that. I may be a grammar Nazi, but at least I'm an unbiased one. ;)

Slow Down Cowboy! Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment. (That is, unless you're Chuck Norris.)

Re:And the best part is...

[IamTheRealMike]

There's no way to patch this.

Oh pish. Of course in theory you can always extract the key from any player, in practice it's possible to make this so hard to do nobody can manage it. This is the approach satellite TV vendors have used - of course they keys are somewhere inside those smartcards or devices, but good luck to you if you try and extract them. The fact that most software players suck at protection is no news, for as long as there will be software HD-DVD/BluRay players, there will be leaked title keys. However, the point is that whilst it's easier to crack software players it's also easier to update/upgrade them, so the cost of a player revocation is much lower.

So what do creators of players do? Well, there are variety of techniques you can use to obfuscate the keys, make it harder to extract them, make it easier to update in the case of breaches, and so on. These techniques have been used successfully by Blizzard and Microsoft - Windows Media DRM is "self healing" and whilst tools to extract the keys do occassionally surface, they tend not to work for long. Blizzards "Warden" anti-bot software is pretty good at both detecting software modifications and preventing them from working, again the trick is to make online updates very easy.

Finally, there are hardware/software features being developed that can hide information inside the hardware so extracting the keys becomes a matter of hardware cracking rather than software cracked (look at LaGrande) which is a much harder problem fewer people are able to do.

AACS itself is just a piece of mathematics that makes it plausable for every key in the world to have its own player key, and to revoke those keys with linear storage cost. AACS itself has not been broken. Badly written players have been, but that was always going to be a problem. This guys issue is that if he distributes his crack, the chance of the studios figuring out which player he attacked increases, at which point they can revoke it (probably they can already guess, there aren't that many around right now). If he doesn't distribute the crack then the system relies upon him purchasing every title released and extracting the keys at home, which just doesn't doesn't scale. Sure a few titles might be lost, but who cares when thousands are published every year ....

I think the guy is pretty naive, in mixing up theory and practice like this. He says:

If you can play it, you can decrypt it! There is nothing you can do about it. The only thing they can try is to slow people down.

Well, like I said, satellite TV seems to disprove this. The box itself can play any channel (ppv movie channels for instance) but it's pretty hard to decrypt that stream if you haven't paid for it. So hard in fact that in the case of DirecTV I think it only happened once. The HU card was broken (at ridiculous expense, cost and risk), so they rolled out the P4 cards and the system has been secure ever since. Sky Digital in the UK was never broken at all. If the movie guys are determined eventually they'll just go the route digital TV companies did and ban software/pc based players.

Re:He is obviously not a native English speaker...

[Anonymous Coward]

Two, now.

-muslix64

So let me get this straight...

[gillbates]

If I understand it correctly, my output resolution will be degraded unless I buy a MPAA-approved display device?

Why would I bother upgrading from DVD if I'm not going to get any better quality?

Tip to Hollywood: Deliberately crippling technology doesn't boost sales. As far as I'm concerned, there's no point in buying into this. Why would I bother to spend a lot of money for something that won't work with my existing equipment, and likely won't work in the manner I intend to use it?

I love this guy...

[LukeCage]

After the HD-DVD crack, I realized that things where "unbalanced" by having just one format cracked, so I did Blu-Ray too.

Bless you, muslix. Now the two formats can compete as true equals where it counts: in the ease of supplementing your legitimate media collection with illegal copies of things that you "kind of like".

Let's not pretend that there is one type of pirate. There are many levels of pirate, and by far the most common type (at least in my experience) is the "pirate" who buys plenty of legitimate media, but occasionally supplements their colleciton with an illegal copy of something that they don't care enough about to pay full price for. You can see the popularity of this line of thinking by watching people paw through the "bargain bin" at any major retailer. These are the movies that no one liked enough to pay full price for, but still maange to sell. This is more of a problem, as I see it, with the uniform pricing structure of DVDs. Let's not pretend that "Batman Begins" and "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants" are worth the same amount of money to most people. They are simply not, and should be priced differently from the get-go. Sadly the media companies instead try to rake in bucks from the "gotta have it now" super-fans crowd by artificially inflating the price; the side-effect is piracy. I would wager that the media companies gain more money then they lose by this process; the convenience of the consumer does not enter into the equation (these companies have demonstrated, repeatedly and without a doubt, that the convenience of the consumer is a very, VERY low priority to them).

Of course I am deliberately discounting bring up That Guy. You know That Guy. He is the guy with the huge collection of pirated movies for the sake of having them. To be fair, unless That Guy has a lot of friends (and usually they do not) they are no real threat to media companies. That Guy would not have purchased the movies anyway, and his collection is (to put it bluntly) a dick-measuring contest to make himself feel better anyway. Every That Guy that I have ever met has had movies of laughably bad quality in their collection; their love is not for the cinema but rather, like a dragon, they hoard the wealth for it's own sake rather than an appreciation for it. And that might be the dorkiest thing I have ever written.

Re:I love this guy...

[goombah99]

Is THAT you, there "that guy". You were pretty cagey about your proclivities up until you mentioned the dragon.

Re:I love this guy...

[mgiuca]

There is also the type of "pirate" who doesn't do anything which was illegal before DMCA. He's the pirate who:

• Doesn't give movies to his friends.
• Doesn't get movies off his friends.
• Doesn't download movies.
• Rents movies he wants to watch once, and watches them once.
• Buys movies he wants to watch many times, and watches them many times.

He's the "pirate" who pays hollywood what they are entitled, and benefits by enjoying the movies he wants to watch.

He is, according to the MPAA, a "pirate", because when he did buy a movie, he bought it once. He isn't going to re-buy it to put it on his iPod, he's going to rip it, reencode it and save it on his iPod. He isn't going to re-buy it on his PSP, he'll do the same thing. If his disc gets scratched, he won't buy another one because he made a backup. He watches his movies in any operating system he wants, not just the ones which paid the hollywood license tax.

He also thought some of the songs in the movies were pretty good, so he extracted the audio, cut it, and put it on his iPod. And his favourite clips are sitting on his computer so he can watch them whenever he wants without going to find his disc.

He's the guy who indulges in what ironically used to be known as "fair use", and who would now be forbidden from it, were it not for heroes like this muslix dude.

Russian dolls.

[DrYak]

running non-"Trusted" programs in a sandbox that prevents them from accessing the hardware directly, specifically to prevent this kind of attack.

Yes, and how Windows it self will know that it isn't running inside a "simulated" trusted computer (the TC chip is virtual and part of the emulator) running inside an actual regular computer (with no chip to prevent you from running whatever you want ?) ...or running with a root kit hidden it self inside, like the Sony's one ? Treacherous Computing may work on the paper, but Microsoft isn't exactly known for perfect implementation of security tools. Root kits WILL be available.

For this to work you actually need TC-enabled computers. There aren't currently enough of them.
So either Microsoft pisses of its customers with something like "HD DVD & BD can only played on Windows Vista running on special mother boards. The rest of 80% of you just can't play them at all" (and currently customers are already pissed enough because they can't always play in full HD when they don't have display systems that *are* getting popular those days). Or either microsofts accepts to let some player run outside it's protected models and you don't even need a virtual machine or root kit to extract the needed data from memory.

As said by another /.er : stoping to provide the decryption key is the only way to avoid circumventing protection... but won't be implemented for very obvious reasons.

When will the *IAA learn?

[Luscious868]

The *IAA wastes so much time, energy and ultimately money on various DRM implementations and the end result is always the same. The DRM is eventually cracked so those who want to pirate material can and do yet the DRM is cumbersome enough to upset and turn off a certain percentage of legitimate customers.

My roommate purchased an HDTV a few years ago before the HDCP standard emerged and he recently bought a Playstation 3. He was seriously pissed when he found out he couldn't watch Blue Ray Discs at the highest resolution because his TV wasn't compatible.

Things like this only serve to alienate legitimate consumers who are already inclined to pay for the product. The pirates just wait for the DRM to be cracked.

Seems like a decent guy

[Bralkein]

Since the DRM on these new formats is so insulting, I'll always be happy to see it suffering setbacks like this. However, I'd be slightly less happy if the person who cracked it was just some guy who wanted to be able to get everything for free and impress his mates by giving them free movies. Assuming this muslix64 character is telling the truth, he seems like a decent sort. His story is just that he wanted to be able to use his own purchased movies in the way that he wants to, in his own home. So consider him thoroughly endorsed!

On a different subject, this still leaves Linux (and BSD, ReactOS, Haiku etc., etc.) users in a spot of bother. I don't understand if having a movie key would allow you to watch something on the disc even without the right player software to access the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drive, but even if you don't need special software it still looks like extraction of the movie keys can only be done with Windows software, and presumably OSX software in the future. I'd still really like to see a proper, Free Software, libdvdcss-style crack for these formats. I'd like to think it's only a matter of time...

I'll bet...

[tkrotchko]

It seems likely to me that MS has a trick to allow protected processes to be debugged. It's either a secret mode of Vista, or they have debug builds of Vista that allow this type of snooping to take place.

I mean, in the perfect world, you develop non-protected, and then you turn it into a protected process once it's been debugged. But back in the real world, certain programs will break and you'll only be able to debug in "protected" mode.

If Hollywood is bright, they'll just ignore this. The DVD is certainly exploitable (in fact, in hindsight, it was trivial), but last I checked they make a ton of movies from selling DVD's. I fail to see this is any different.

LATENT TPC

[goombah99]

How do you know that Intel has not been putting a TPC module in every CPU for the last five years? They've had this ring architecture for a decade, could there not be one more ring they never told us about? in five more years they could turn it on and surprise! every computer less than a decade old is TPC complient. The remaineder still run but can't use the new OS or must run in a reduced privledge mode.

Re:LATENT TPC

[TheGavster]

Intel, like all corporations, likes money. I see it far more likely for them to use the space for a few more K of L1 cache than to implement some secret doomsday circuit so that someone else can make money.

Who would name his kid that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone who likes muesli and Intel architecture but isn't so good at spelling?

Re:He is obviously not a native English speaker...

[McFadden]

Probably none, who would name their kid that?

David Beckham?

DRM Cracking Quiz

[Compulawyer]

To paraphrase from an old law school joke:

Q: What is the fastest way to crack a DRM scheme?

A: Label it as uncrackable.

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week. The 9:00 show is completely different from the 7:00 show. Be sure to tip your bartenders and waitresses.

Re:DRM Cracking Quiz

[amosh]

I don't mean to flame your .sig... but you've got it exactly wrong. Laws about tech will always be bad, until enough techies become lawyers.

Hmm, person X is a lawyer. She makes mid six figures and works 80 hours a week. She have a staff to handle IT issues. Her motivation to 'become a techie' is...? I, on the other hand, got sick of the fact that other people were writing the rules that controlled my industry. So I left off being a netadmin and now I'm in law school. You want the laws to be sane? Start writing them, rather than leaving that to people who don't have a clue, and don't have the slightest reason to care.

Linux HDDVD/BR Software Player

[Pikoro]

How about a player for linux?

Since, based on the past, none of the studios will license a key for a linux player, I propose we create a player that, as part of playback, incorporates this "crack".

To get around this, the player will prompt for the disc key before playback. Then, the disc is decrypted as playpack is performed, thereby bypassing the "Player Key".

That's why they have not, and will not, enable

[SuperKendall]

You have found the very reason why they have not enabled the flag and will not for years to come - way too much old equipment and way too many customers to be pissed off.

In the technical rounds it was easy enough to add the flag, but once the marketing people realized what it would do they nixed the use of it.

If you use device keys, they can revoke them

[buss_error]

I don't care about device keys. I do care about volume keys, because by using volume keys instead of devices keys, I totally bypass the revocation system. There is no "volume key revocation". There is content revocation, but I really doubt they will ever use it. If you use device keys, they can revoke them.

Which is why I will never "upgrade" to HD. When my lowdef stuff stops working, I'll simply opt out of the rat race and not buy anything. Books are still good.

I will not pour thousands of dollars into a HD system only to have some jerk in a corner office somewhere decide that my investment constitutes a risk to his profits, and be able to take it away from me without consequence, without my consent, and without buying me new geegaws. F'em. They don't generate ANY content I'd be willing to pay that much to watch.

But that's just me. Feel free to pour $BUCKs into their profiteering maws if you wish. It's your money... well, your's and mostly THEIRs, since they can decide to take it away from you.

Re:He is obviously not a native English speaker...

[JazzLad]

muslim + x64 = muslix64Just another observation No, muslim+x64 = muslimx64. musli + x64 = muslix64

Sheesh, and they make fun of his English!

Re:I'll bet...

[Fulg]

It seems likely to me that MS has a trick to allow protected processes to be debugged. It's either a secret mode of Vista, or they have debug builds of Vista that allow this type of snooping to take place.

Well, there's this:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options

...which already allows one to "hijack" any executable and replace it with another, on a retail system (it's still there in Vista). No idea how/if it will work on a protected executable, though. It would certainly be an interesting experiment, but I don't have such a system here.

This trick is quite handy to stop services that you don't have rights to, by replacing them with dummy executables... *cough* corporate USB port disabling software *cough* :)

Re:new, non-restrictive format

[Baricom]

I dont believe that 'consideration' is anything more then marketing spin coming from those companies.

That could be, but I'm hoping it's something more than that.

From what I can tell, there's three camps of consumers when it comes to DRM:

1. The camp that can't stand it, won't buy it, and goes without the content.
2. The camp that doesn't like it all that much, but buys it anyway.
3. The camp that won't pay no matter what you do, and pirates the content instead.

I know the recording industry is losing out on sales thanks to DRM because they're losing me. I just discovered an amazing album on iTunes, but I'm not going to buy it because of the DRM. If FairPlay wasn't there, I would have just spent $9.90 to download an out-of-print album. I have heard other Slashdotters express similar sentiments.

Lifting DRM seems like a win-win-win-win scenario to me. The hold-outs like me will suddenly start buying music, the existing paying customers will be happier that they can move their music back and forth, and some of the pirates might start paying now that the convenience is there. I don't think they'll lose anybody to the lack of DRM, because piracy is ubiquitous - if you want a song for free, it's out there. The recording industry makes more money because at least as many people are buying, if not more. About the only company that loses in this scenario is Apple. The recording industry could give them an ultimatum - no DRM or no music - and Apple would lose the lock-in that managed to defeat the recording industry last time they renegotiated the contract.

Lately, the prevailing theory for why DRM is present is not that it stops piracy, but that it locks content to one format so consumers have to buy it again and again for different platforms. That's a nice theory, but I question whether it truly works that way. When was the last time you remember somebody doing that? For example, I've never seen anybody buy a DVD of a movie they already have on VHS. (Admittedly, I could be living a sheltered life.)

Re:He is obviously not a native English speaker...

[Digital Vomit]

I thought the name was describing the 64-bit version of a breakfast cereal?

Re:If the capability exists, it will be used.

[SuperKendall]

So basically... "We're going to hold this gun to your head, here, but don't worry -- we're not going to use it! It's just easier to put the gun there, now, than it would be to do it later...but we don't want to deal with the mess it would make if we used it, so just forget it's even there. Trust us!"

We don't have to trust them. We have Blu-Ray/HD-DVD backup. I am just explaining what will happen, and why.

No, thanks. I think that as the media companies become more and more desperate, as it becomes painfully obvious that DRM just doesn't work, they're going to pull out all the stops and go down fighting.

Why would they? They will have seen the music industry cave to DRM free formats by that point and realize what large sums of money are to be gained by leaving things as they are.

Don't ever question what a broke junkie will do for a fix, and don't ever question what an obsolete corporation will do to protect its business model.

Don't ever think that a company will give up a large pile of money shoved in front of its face. That's the predictive model I use.

Re:new, non-restrictive format

[truedfx]

From what I can tell, there's three camps of consumers when it comes to DRM:

1. The camp that can't stand it, won't buy it, and goes without the content.
2. The camp that doesn't like it all that much, but buys it anyway.
3. The camp that won't pay no matter what you do, and pirates the content instead.

Your second camp can be divided into the group that doesn't like it all that much, but buys it if the DRM can be bypassed, and the group that doesn't like it all that much, but sucks it up and deals with it. I consider them very different groups.

Re:new, non-restrictive format

[hearnz]

Absolutely. I have no problem with paying what I regard to be a fair price for music/movies/whatever - but I refuse to buy something if it has DRM on it that will restrict my use of it. This would make me either camp 1 (or maybe 3...) - except I'm quite happy to pay for DRM-protected content if I can't easily buy a non-DRM version, AND I can easily strip the DRM from what I buy. If it is more convenient for me to pay a few bucks to quickly and easily find a high-quality version of something I can use freely, than it is for me to hunt down a decent-quality pirated copy, I am more than happy to do so.

I pay, I download, I strip the DRM, then I use how I please. It may be technically *illegal* anywhere that has DMCA-type laws, but frankly anyone who says it is *wrong* can bite my shiny metal ass.

My preference is, and will always be, in order:
1. Pay a *fair* price to quickly and easily buy a legal, DRM-free version
2. Spend time/effort to find a pirated/cracked copy
3. Buy a DRM-infected version and remove the DRM

I utterly refuse to buy DRM content if I do not already possess the means to remove it easily and permanently.

DRM will never stop piracy (to quote mulix64: "If you can play it, you can decrypt it") - all it does is inconvenience paying customers, turns some otherwise-paying customers to piracy, and presents only a trivial obstacle to piracy.

As soon as the MPAA/RIAA realises there are many people out there with the same views, the sooner they will start making better profits from online sales, WITHOUT pissing off their customers.