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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."
As fast as you can
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
How about a team of pro bono attorneys who are willing to defend (fight?) cases like this in which a researcher simply wants to share his/her findings? Sort of like a non-profit organization.
Sounds like somebody will soon get a juicy job offer from Microsoft to tighten up the system...
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
...darken as thousands of crack Microsoft lawyers parachute down into the city in search of the terrorist, erm, defendant...
... but there is no space in the margin of this comment to write it.
"Vista DRM cracked by anybody with the desire to do so".
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
It's really too bad that this is coming out now, rather than in 3-6 months when it would make more of an impact. While the article raises some issues that won't be easy to solve, right now this seems to give M$ a head start on tightening the DRM noose even more or insisting on TPM.
and then ask Network Solutions to suspend their domain. It works on GoDaddy domains.
I called it a mighty Sperm Whale, she called it Finding Nemo.
Hopefully, other players in the media industry see this and realize that DRM is a pointless encumbrance!
Yeah, right. They'll just keep up with their usual approach, one akin to installing a governor on your car to deter theft.
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
Just release it, the deluge of bad PR will suck the moneyline away from the lawyers long enough for you to jet to Aruba or somewhere.
stuff |
Now that people know it is possible, I am sure it is only a matter of time before others across the globe attempt to find the weakness. Some of these people won't even be affected by USA law, unless they decide to visit or transit through the country.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
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.
Alex Ionescu is the main kernel/HAL developer for the GPL'ed ReactOS project (www.reactos.org), which is aiming for an OS that is fully binary AND driver-compatible with Windows XP/Vista. If you look through the work he's done in the ReactOS SVN (developer name 'ion'), I have no doubts that he's fully capable of analyzing and defeating any kernel-level protections in Vista.
Although ReactOS can share a lot of work with the WINE project for the win32 userland, it could still use any developers that are familiar with win32 development and would like to see a truly free operating system capable of using windows drivers/software.
After all, it's only going to get cracked sooner or later. So there is no point is there?
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Excellent news.
What with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray being cracked already, and now this, combined with all the hate and general unity by consumers against the big movie and music industry, how much more signal do they need that DRM is pointless and unwanted and to finally stop trying to force it on us?
that he put his name to it, rather than just release his findings anoymously from a public internet terminal.
Make sure you download the automatic update for your Vista installation so that your DRM features continue to work smoothly. (btw first time an update was ever released before the software it's updating...)
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
If I drive a car, or heck use a toaster. Isn't it legal for me to give the product to a mechanic or someone versed in the art to check whether it's safe or not?
.. I need to know if the DRM or digital signing is crap. I don't want spyware to be fakely "digitally signed" and run on my system. If the DRM is crap why would anyone release anything with it? Why are software companies able to prevent or hinder research into the security of their products and announcements to the public w.r.t their safety?
So if I use windows
I'll gladly do it. I live an arm's length away from the furthest reach of the DMCA.
Yes, I know it's been said very many times before, but I'm moved to say it again. It's simply obscene that runaway copyright law provisions should be used to casually stomp on this kind of freedom of speech, especially in the U.S.A., where allegedly there is a First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech. I would very much like to see a full-out legal confrontation between these terroristic laws as they stand, and the Constitution. The alleged and artificial "right" of the smirking lawyers at commercial companies to keep their nasty little secrets does not in any sense abrogate the innate, natural right of the people to talk to each other about any damn thing they want, particularly complex subjects, and in any way they wish, including via carrier pigeons and Morse code, let alone in plain English (or whatever language) on the Web.
It's really a shame that other countries such as Sweden actually surpass the U.S.A. in this area.
Frankly, this pisses me off enough that I'm very strongly tempted once my finances improve enough for the expensive legalities, to spit in the eyes of these jerkoffs with a direct, blunt and extremely widespread explanation (possibly on a Russian server to further annoy and frustrate them) of whatever it is that they absolutely are frantic to not have explained, along with the text of the Constitution with the First Amendment highlighted in red. I think a well-crafted attack on this crap would gather quite a lot of support, moral and otherwise.
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
Since the DRM in Vista is so inextricably tied in to the OS, then ANY hack which allows you to run stuff at kernel level will, by definition, be able to break the DRM. Which begs the question: could Sony's next rootkit be a violation of the DMCA, instead of just a huge pain in the ass?
"can't run, can't hide...oh well, return 0"
...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. Woah! "anyvideo and audio"? I thought it was just Blu-ray and HD-DVD movies which have the Image Constraint Token (ICT) flag set. TFA quotes it as "some premium content", which doesn't make it much clearer. Anyone want to clarify?What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Someone in America cracked this first.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
... since this basically takes soe wind out of the vista opponent's sails. less worries, after you have kernel-patched-illegally-moded ... so "hackers" will complain less, vista will spread like oil after a big tanker disaster, and the tech guys will be more willing to support it at their companies and relative's home pcs. essentially, the $@#^&! level will be lowered.
...
maybe time to buy ms stock? o.k., i would rather invest in the fur industry (i heard, bloody baby seals are in vogue)
Could not be more redundant.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
(Also, that "sentence" I quoted is a fragment. And you didn't capitalize "i" in the previous sentence, which is actually a run-on.)
It's a shame that things have come to a point where developers/security researchers have to worry about releasing findings like this, perhaps *even* when they are not under US law.
no text
There needs to be an installer to bypass the PMP and DRM functionality in Vista so that every user can have the right to CHOOSE!
Relocating to San Francisco / Palo Alto... Hire me?
Well, he's already probably a bit screwed.
Here's the problem: there's virtually no way to get in trouble, if you just release an exploit anonymously. (By definition, if it's truly anonymous, they can't catch you; there are lots of ways to basically ensure your anonymity today.) Where you start to get in trouble is when you want to release an exploit that's going to ruin somebody's day and take credit for it.
This comes up with regards to other, less-politically-sensitive bugs. When you step forward and take credit for something that you've released, you're basically holding up a big "come and get me!" sign. It's a lot easier to sling mud at a person, than it is at some anonymous entity on the Internet.
It's really taking credit that burns people, not releasing the bug/hack/exploit. It would have been trivial for this guy to release his code, anonymously or even pseudonymously, and keep it firewalled from his real-world identity. If he had done that, there might have been some attempts to uncover who he really was, but I doubt anyone would try that hard -- it's harder to go after someone that's anonymous, than an actual person. With a person, you have something to put in your mind under 'enemy,' that you just don't have with some vaporous person or persons on the Internet. Being anonymous diffuses a lot of the hatred, because it's harder to hate someone that might not exist. By standing up and taking credit, you're accepting everything.
Personally, if I were to discover something like this, there's no way I'd publicly admit it. I live a happy enough life without becoming some sort of hacker/security icon; the downsides of becoming the next Dimitry Sklyarov seem far greater than the possible benefits. Release the code somewhere in public, maybe signed with a private key that you have stashed away (so, decades down the line, you'd be able to claim it, if you wanted to and if the statute of limitations had run out), and only communicate via Usenet dead-drops and anonymous remailers. The tools to remain completely hidden are all there -- heck, you could probably do interviews in Wired under a psuedonym, the only absolute would be keeping the Clark-Kent-esque secret of your true identity hidden, and I'm not sure if some people would be able to swallow their pride enough to do that.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
With having to mix in support for the old legacy drivers, along with the newer trust system, its not too supprising that a loop hole was found. This is area where Apple has the advantage. Microsoft would probably have been in much bigger trouble if they decided to require all driver makers to rewrite their drivers (and manifests) with the newer spefication.
Although I wouldn't be supprised if in the future Microsoft does in fact lock down its operating system and write all drivers for third party itself, requiring the hardware maker pay them to do so.
Thank you. I am enlightened.
"can't run, can't hide...oh well, return 0"
I don't think so. Businesses don't care; this will not affect them. Home users don't care; they don't want Vista. It's the lack of a compelling reason to purchase Vista that's stopping people from purchasing Vista. Windows 95 was a major upgrade. Windows XP was a major upgrade. They both got major attention. Windows Vista is a minor upgrade. It adds eye candy and some features that only business users typically need (like whole-disk encryption, which is a recipe for disaster in the hands of home users.)
The bottom line is that home users will be the major adopters of Vista because they will get the machine with Vista and they will run it with Vista. Corporate users who get new machines in with Vista will probably, if they have a volume license, run Windows XP on them instead, for the foreseeable future, not least because Vista has a brand-spanking-new TCP/IP stack which at least in the beta was known to be vulnerable to a whole laundry-list of otherwise-outdated attacks, things Windows hasn't been vulnerable to since the late nineties. Personally my biggest concern about vista on the corporate desktop (luckily not a decision I have to make) is that the network stack will be a vector of attack into the network, one that our firewall has no power to stop since users are continually opening outgoing connections.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
[sig]
Suppose I *did* pay for Vista.
Suppose my current hardware is fast enough and has enough resources to run even the most demanding of applications.
Suppose my current monitor can handle the resolutions required.
Suppose I did have a hd-dvd drive and some movies.
Imagine how pissed I would be if I couldn't watch them at native resolution because according to Microsoft I had the wrong connector.
I want an Operating system, not a restricted system.
liqbase
Even if Vista were perfect and beyond any cracks/hacks, the DRM on the media will be defeated on other platforms. The content will then spread without DRM. Somebody in Hong Kong or Vietnam will make a standalone Blu-Ray/HD-DVD player that rips directly to open formats, and that will be that.
All the effort MS is putting into this will not make the studios happy, and will not make the customers happy. I think they made a bad choice.
Bigtime Consulting - "We're the best because we cost the most"
1. Anyone with half a brain new this was coming.
2. No doubt there are *lots* of exploits waiting to be found. This is a Microsoft OS after all. Microsoft's core strength is Marketing and general amoral anything-goes business practices certainly not operating systems.
3. This is all very temporary. As Tivo's smart card/signed OS has shown Microsoft the way to maintaining their artificially high price for an operating system and subsequent inflated hardware prices.
It makes me so sad to see stories like this tagged with "haha." There is such a small number of people that understand the implications of DRM and the ultimate harm to all that they are simply marginalized as "nut jobs/OSS holy warriors."
The last laugh absolutely, positively, is Microsoft's and the broader special interests they serve.
Since this is the slashdot echo chamber, go about your business being morally outraged and doing nothing.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
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.
. . . the only incentive one needs to complete a task is the knowledge that it has been, and can be done. It doesn't much matter if he releases his code. TFA has enough info for anyone savvy enough to duplicate his work. Once it's out of the bottle, it'll be like WGA all over again. Another cat . . . another mouse . . . another cat . . . But perhaps the knowledge that Windows ultimate "security" DRM is, indeed, insecure will turn out to be the mouse that roared.
"If your parents never had children, chances are you wonât either." -Dick Cavett
They did make manufacturers rewrite their drivers to support DRM. Microsoft even required manufacturers to implement hardware "tilt bits" that trigger if something weird happens, like voltage differences that could occur if someone is tapping the bus.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
"It's time to un-PMP ze audio"
So I assume you are not planning to run either Vista or OSX?
I hear there are a number of Free/free operating systems that don't impose any DRM on you...
I strongly suspect that Microsoft only put this functionality in because otherwise HD-DVD would never fly - the studios would tell them to cram it up their ass sideways, and there wouldn't be a format war, which would leave Sony as the de facto winner. Frankly, I'd rather my windows had DRM than let Sony win, even if it is a war with no winners (including the consumer.)
And before you ask, yes, I have given up on Windows for everything but my work machine. Someday when I buy this machine from my employer (which we are permitted to do at the ebay depreciated value, whatever that means) it will be Linux-only.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'd heard it called Protected Video Path in the past.
TPM, DRM, PVP, PMP,
It's all Geek to me.
Why can't Microsoft let us be,
All we want is to be free.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Didn't read TFA, but when I saw this in the blurb:
draconian copyright laws
...I just assumed it was us.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
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
"Sufferin' succotash."
Eh, I should have read his other blog posts. His work around doesn't involve PatchGuard at all, nor does it involve running an unsigned driver.
Never mind. My bad.
This statement bothers me. Compairing DRM to a door is foolish. compairing DRM to a door lock, maybe. I bother having a door because it keeps the wind, rain, and other elements outside. I dont keep it locked because people who want to steal things will easily defeat a lock.
I often have trouble remembering which way is out of bed in the morning.
but he claims to be currently looking into the details of safely releasing his details about this
Freenet: It's Not Just For Kiddie Porn Anymore(TM)
+++ATH0
US law is like Man Law - a universal truth with a reach that transcends all borders.
No one ever said we have to upgrade to Vista.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
That guy is my new hero. I just hope he doesn't get sued for his work.
The dyslexic atheist says, "There is no dog"
And posting anonymous makes you what?
Remember when Asian DVD manufactures *had* to implement DVD-region-encoding? Even though they absolutely didn't want to? Even though the market clearly didn't want it?
:)
Their solution was to ship region-encoded players (thus fulfilling their legal obligations) that were incredibly trivial to unlock - usually pressing two buttons simultaneously on the remote or similar nonsense.
One could argue that Microsoft has delivered a DRM system that satisfies the content producers yet is crackable enough to allow vista to be successful in the market.
In fact, there's no way you can prove that the hack itself didn't originate in Redmond.
Or this is just all pie-in-the-sky and everything really is exactly as it appears.
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
If I drive a car, or heck use a toaster. Isn't it legal for me to give the product to a mechanic or someone versed in the art to check whether it's safe or not?
Probably only if you own it. If you don't own it, there's a chance that it could be damaged and you would be liable for the damage. in the case of Windows, you don't own it thanks to copyright law, so if you "damage" the DRM during testing it you could be liable for that damage. How one can damage something doomed to failure to begin with I have no idea. Apparently simply declaring (to the world at large) exactly how it is doomed to failure with enough specificity is illegal according to the DMCA.
Vegetables? That's what food eats right? Sam
This includes, and especially applies to things the government does not want you to say.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
that about sums it up. I want my OS to do whatever i want it to and more. I have a free copy coming for a laptop i just bought.. but will i actually use it? Not with this type of bullshit on board. And what if i want to use it on my desktop instead? Is microshaft going to fuck with my shit if they smell something they deam funny?
Lets get some phreakin directX on linux please so we can ditch MS.
*blech
Kill your TV
Sadly, it's one of DMCA's features/loopholes to be able to do this, i suspect. granted, the exemption for researchers might be inthere, but i also suspect that that can be twisted to fit if necessary (ie. to "let the researcher prove" his publishing of the Proof of Concept was necessary to prove the concept, rather than to just send it in to MS via mail.?
Is there any content actually on the market right now, that uses Vista's DRM?
If not, then this is perfectly legal. There's nobody to sue you. If there aren't any works that use Vista's "technological measure that limits access," then 1201 wasn't violated. Maybe later there will be, but a violation can't be retroactive. That's like firing a bullet into the ground, and an hour later someone comes over to your bullet sitting on the ground, kneels down, bangs their head on the bullet, and then claims you shot them.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
IANAL but this is interesting. It explains (at least to my mind) why companies like DRM, because there really needs to be a technical fence around their property since the plain old EULA is founded on legal quicksand. This also seems to me to explain why the DMCA was so sought after, because now if there is a lock then you can't break it to exercise your first sale rights. DMCA is, for the time being, a good counter to rights under first sale, but clearly conflicts with them. However, I do not think that the DMCA has come up in a Supreme Court challange where first sale, which is a strong principle, has been used as a defence.
Talk about a gray area! Can I sell you a suitcase with a locked compartment and tell you you can use the unlocked space, but that if you break the locked part and use it you go to jail? I don't think so. First sale is why you can resell your old software on Ebay (provided you have deleted it from your HDD since duplication to another person is a right held by the copyright holder.)
There is a lot of room for argument to be sure, and at least from the Wikipedia article the case law is all over the place, but it is pretty clear (at least to me) that you own your software to some degree. The publishers, however, would prefer that you think otherwise.
As for testing your right to test the lock. Well, legally you might be on solid ground. However you better have some deep pockets on your side to stave off the legal onslaught when you go public.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
*does a jig with two thumbs up*
*stabs self in eyes with thumbs*
JAZZ HANDS!
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Find a way to tie an onscreen display to a process.
Start up a few MS-Word docs and begin recursively copying and pasting text, start with an initial block at least 512 bytes long. Try to fill up at least one MS-Word document to the point where the error message indicates that one has reached the maximum number of pages for an MS-Word document. At this point the contents of the buffer should be sufficiently large to keep all future processes well occupied.
Open a few more MS-Word documents and keep pasting.
Open a few PP presentations and keep pasting the contents of the (eventually enormous) buffer anywhere possible.
Make liberal use of the Windows and alt-tab to switch between processes and check to see which ones are alive. Try to single out a Word or PP presentation which are locked and give them an alt-f4 while switching to a (technically) still good process and issuing a few ctrl+n strikes.
Eventually you'll be able to get an onscreen benchmark of how much memory a process currently has protected because, under heavy buffer (copy/paste) load, Windows doesn't draw onscreen all that well anymore.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
> Proudly signing your full legal name is what distinguishes researchers from hackers
Except, in today's world, that's also makes the person signing their full name a convenient target for knee-jerkers.
And there are some very wealthy, very bored, and very socially powerful knee-jerkers.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
This Canadian fellow "is now quite nervous" not "has had his freedom crushed".
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Alex will be speaking on the first day of the 5th annual Southern California Linux Expo which will be taking place February 9th and 10th. Alex will be speaking about how to bridge the gap between Windows and Open Source using ReactOS. If you use the promotional code SLASH, you will receive a 40% discount off a full priced ticket.
just shows you how Microsoft feels about software vendors, and the consumer. By giving them second class software, or no means to run their own software business high class to the consumers.
And... So sweet of someone to crack DRM open for the so called second class citizens everywhere.
*Weebit moons Microsoft*
Weebit curtsies Alex Ionescu
You did crack it right? (insert grin here)The guy should just do what muslix64 did. He should release this stuff a anonymosly on some forums and post his code on megaupload or some place like that. So screw the {MP|RI}AA and the messed up US legal system.
If you really cared about software quality, would you be using windows? After all It isn't man-rated, it isn't really thing-rated, and we don't claim that it's worth a good G*dDamn for anything at all, at all.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
Assuming GoDaddy had a set of pages, and ALL of them used Apache, that means they selected Apache on MERIT and that those numbers reflect HONEST Apache market share by WILLING CONSUMERS. If trivial (unused) pages were switched to IIS with no intention of them being ever used, then yeah, that's dishonest where the Apache use wasn't. Why the hell would they park with IIS and host with Apache? C'mon, now. It's garbage.
"Artificially Inflated" implies here that the totals are being inflated by products not in use. Using the same product for ALL your pages is natural (see: not artificial). This IIS swapover payoff is as artificial as it gets.
Standard encryption is easy. Keep your keys safe from the bad guys and as long as you use a reasonable encryption, things are fine.
DRM is difficult: You have to give the end user the keys, and then trust that only the uses that you've prescribed are allowed. Giving the keys to the end user is stupid, so the keys are given ONLY to a trusted module inside the end users machine. That trusted module is supposed to A) keep the keys secret, and B) enforce the rules that accompany the key. (e.g. you rented this for a week and a week has gone by).
If you have a general purpose computer, it's very difficult to have a trusted software module that can't be cracked somewhere inside.
In the backup-hddvd case, examining the core of the userspace program revealed volume and title keys. But the "master keys" are still somewhere inside.
In this case the operating systems trusted platform that should prevent that kind of tricks has been broken. Now you can insert your own debugger into the trusted core, and examine other stuff inside the trusted platform. Or you can claim to be a trusted driver, who has to have access to the unencrypted HD content.
In any case, as long as there is no hardware trusted module, it is always possible to run a good enough simulation, and run the DRM software under the simulation in a virtual machine.
And even if you DO have a hardare DRM module, I don't think it's possible to get right if you have a passive element on one side. For example a HDDVD is passive. So it can't verify the other side, and only give up the keys if it has confirmed the other side to be a trusted DRM module.
Did ANYONE actually READ the article?
What he's said he's accomplished (with the use of a flag that disables PatchGuard) is to get code loaded into the operating system image that isn't associated with a driver.
That's it. From there, he extrapolates that he would be able to beat the protected media code in Windows.
But he's not actually done it. In fact, he's not played any hi-def content with his code loaded into the OS, neither has he used his code to pull the unencrypted samples from the video and audio drivers (this is NOT as easy as it sounds).
What he's saying is that IF the only thing that's done with PMP is to check the list of drivers, then it would be POSSIBLE to break the DRM system. But it relies on his technique to get code in the kernel, and that technique in turn relies on someone else breaking the PatchGuard system.
But it's a WAY better headline to say that DRM's been cracked, especially on the day of the Vista roll-out.
Personally, I'll wait until I see the proof-of-concept.
Imagine how pissed I would be if I couldn't watch them at native resolution because according to Microsoft I had the wrong connector.
Microsoft are not making that decision. The publisher of the movies and, possibly, the developer of the player application are.
It seems to me that Microsoft needs someone to publish this sort of exploit. Vista would appear to be going nowhere in the market with the DRM mill-stone around its neck.
What makes you say that ? Outside of hysterical, mostly ill-informed posters on Slashdot (and their ilk), the knowledge of - let alone concern about - DRM in Vista is vanishingly small.
So, could you (or anyone else) please point out what are such tools in Linux. I am really willing to know!
Starting off from a Linux LiveCD, as other people have suggested, would be the starting point.
Then you could send email using Mixmaster (only catch is you'd have to make sure it was installed on your Linux CD, and I'm not sure if it's there by default on Knoppix, so you might have to master a new image). You can also use it for anonymous Usenet posting, and in conjunction with nym servers, although I don't know if that's as secure as straightforward anonymous email. Here is a tutorial on using Mixmaster, though it's quite simple to use once you have it installed.
As a reply channel, rather than nym addresses, I'd suggest telling the recipient to post some sort of message to a public Usenet group, that you could read through a public interface (like Google Groups). This is basically the 21st century equivalent of telling someone to reply by posting a personal ad in the newspaper; you're making them publish it widely, and then reading it through channels available to anyone.
Then you could respond via mixmaster (with different remailers each time, keeping with ones located outside the U.S.).
It wouldn't be something you'd want to do for any great length of time; if you were taunting the NSA, they'd probably be able to compromise the mixmaster network eventually (by sending people with guns and rubber hoses to the operators of every remailer in the system, hijacking them, and performing traffic analysis), but it would certainly be beyond the resources of even a large corporation (unless you believe Microsoft has private death squads at its disposal, in which case maybe you're better just not publishing at all).
Quite a few very intelligent people have spent a lot of time and effort creating anonymity systems for just this sort of use; while nothing is foolproof against an adversary who can control the entire network and monitor every packet and every internet-connected system, all the time, modern systems exist that would probably provide a good challenge even to most government agencies.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Does anyone know, what, if any, implications does this have on CableCard functionality with Vista MCE? This question is on the forefront for myself; desperately want to build my own Vista HD CableCard ready machine!!!!!