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Vista DRM Cracked by Security Researcher
An anonymous reader writes "Security researcher Alex Ionescu claims to have successfully bypassed the much discussed DRM protection in Windows Vista, called 'Protected Media Path' (PMP), which is designed to seriously degrade the playback quality of any video and audio running on systems with hardware components not explicitly approved by Microsoft. The bypass of the DRM protection was in turn performed by breaking the Driver Signing / PatchGuard protection in the new operating system. Alex is now quite nervous about what an army of lawyers backed by draconian copyright laws could do to him if he released the details, but he claims to be currently looking into the details of safely releasing his details about this at the moment though."
If only there was some EFFin' organization that provided such a service. I don't know what the EFF we'll do now. I guess we are all pretty EFF'd.
Mark says that it's possible. He also says enough that someone else as "skilled in the art" as he is can probably figure out what he did.
And what he did, if I understand correctly, is have some of his own code run as kernel without it being in a "test signed" driver. That seems to be the essense of his approach. Once you figure out how to do that, you can basically do anything, and Microsoft can't stop you.
Freedom to tinker: http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/
From the about page it says:
He [Alex] is currently studying at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada"
So does the DMCA apply?
Someone in America cracked this first.
except Alex is Canadian
Knowing MS, they'll probably find out the specific methods he used (plus other unrelated skills/techniques) during the interview process and eventually tell him he wasn't MS material.
Oh yeah, and then they'll sue him too. Of course, to get the interview he had to sign a NDA and can't do anything in response.
Honestly, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it happened like that.
Credit where credit is due, and all that.
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
This is a Blog entry, not an Article or News story. From the Blog...
1). It doesn't work out of the Box.
That being said, it turns out the code I've written does not work out of the box on a Vista RTM system.
2). It uses a method provided by Microsoft.
As part of the Protected Media Path, (PMP), Windows Vista sets up a number of requirements for A/V software and drivers in order to ensure it complies with the demandes of the media companies.
3). It hasn't been tested.
Although used on its own, this POC doesn't do anything or go anywhere near the PMP (I don't even have Protected Media, HDMI, HD-DVD, nor do I know where PMP lives or how someone can intercept decrypted steams),
4). Author is more afraid of the DMCA than of violating Microsofts EULA terms.
a particularly nasty group of lawyers could still somehow associate the DMCA to it, so I'm not going to take any chances.
This isn't a story. Its pre-mature speculation.
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
actually, his first name, too. but that argument makes google a 50% russian company.
If it didn't have some FUD right in the summary.
'Protected Media Path' (PMP), which is designed to seriously degrade the playback quality of any video and audio running on systems with hardware components not explicitly approved by Microsoft..
No. It doesn't. It does it for specific DRM content.
These restrictions only apply to DRM content, such as HD DVD or Blu-ray. User's standard unprotected content will not be faced with these restrictions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_Video_Path
Administrators can turn PatchGuard off at boot time. He didn't break it.
There's no way to turn off PatchGuard off, only Driver Signing, which watermarks your desktop and disables PMP. Ways to break Patchguard 2.0 were published recently by "Skywing" on uninformed.org
Here in Canada, we are so used to people using "America" to mean the United States of America that we refer to ourselves as Canadians and reserve the use of "America" and "American's" to mean the USA and its residents. By people I mean Canadians, US Americans, and others.
;)
If you want to refer to all members of North America you say "North America", and "The Americas" for both the entire landmass (North, South, and Central America).
By using "Canadian", "American", "Mexican", and "North American", we can avoid all of the confusion.
Pretty much everyone on the planet means USAian when they say "American", so why fight?
Plus, when USAians say "America" they generally mean themselves, forgetting that anyone else lives on this continent and takes credit for anything anyone up here does, do it does our ego good to be specific
And what's even more funny, in the last paragraph on his page:
"He is also a Microsoft Student Ambassador and is representing the company on campus as a Technical Rep."
No... it's not.
I knew some AC would say this, so I should have just preemptively explained it.
If the sentence were "Don't use the same word three times in the same sentence", then you would be correct. However, the sentence is "Grammar tip", which is a fragment. The second part is an appositive, relating to "tip." The colon is the giveaway.
See? AC's don't always know everything.
I usually go with "Californian" to describe my nationality. I've even gone as far as to put that on my disembarcation form and haven't run into any problems. Most foreigners know at least the large US states (only people in here in the US are ignorant of world geography). As an added bonus, I tend to get treated better since people in other countries pretty much blame the red states for the US's obnoxiousness.