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New AACS Crack Called "Undefeatable"
Tuoqui writes "With all the focus on the infamous hexadecimal number, people may be ignoring a bigger weakness in the AACS armor, which emerged two weeks ago. Some hackers have figured out how to crack AACS in a way that cannot be defeated, even by revoking all the keys in circulation."
Blu-ray will be effected too, since it uses AACS. Of course, Blu-ray has an added layer of protection which they've never actually used before. This will prompt Sony to tout Blu-ray to studios as a solution to the crack. It will also prompt Sony to cry when, exactly 5 minutes after it's first used, a hacker cracks it too.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Basically this crack relies on using a Microsoft HD-DVD drive for the XBox 360, with a special firmware patch (which requires you to remove the firmware chip, flash it, and then solder it back in). With a hacked drive, you can apparently get the Volume ID, which is one of the parameters used in the encryption, directly off of the disc. Normally the Volume ID isn't passed to the host computer, I think.
Anyway, in the bizarro-world that the people who write DRM systems inhabit, I think that this will probably just push them to make the drives harder to "tamper" with; I fully expect that they'll eventually just pot the circuit boards in epoxy or something, to keep you from desoldering the chips.
So if you're interested in this stuff, you might as well go out and get one of the MS drives or other first-gen drives, because I suspect the hacking possibilities may decrease over time; it's going to be these early drives which are the most hackable.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You're missing the point here. Everybody doesn't have to do this. One person does this and posts Volume Keys for each new release, allowing everyone else to simply decode with the volume key. If this truly can't be revoked, then it doesn't matter it they make it inaccessible tomorrow. Not until every existing modded player breaks beyond repair would it be secure again.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I own 2 legitimately, untampered-with DVD players, several computers with DVD drives, and an old XBox. When I rent or purchase a DVD that I am unable to play on any of these devices, nothing makes me more livid (especially when I'm already moody because I'm hungry and planned to eat while watching the DVD). It's actually to the point now where I look at the back of the DVD to see who the publisher is before renting or purchasing it, because I've found my devices especially have trouble with Sony DVDs, of course. I've never even made a copy of a DVD or pirated any DVDs, but I can honestly say that as it becomes more painful for me to legitimately watch my DVDs, I will eventually be driven to circumvent their DRM entirely as that would be less painful of a process. It just pisses me off, but there are some movies I would really enjoy watching and owning a legitimate copy of, but I simply won't spend a penny of mine if Sony's name is on it. Furthermore, Sony's BS about hardware manufacturers needing to keep up-to-date with their latest DRM mechanisms doesn't bode well either - I'm not replacing any of these devices which work perfectly fine with the exception of their purposely fouled media.