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AACS Vows to Fight Bloggers
Jonas Wisser writes "The BBC is carrying the story that AACS has promised to take action against those who have posted the AACS crack online. Michael Ayers, chairperson of AACS, noted that the cracked key has now been revoked, and went on to say, 'Some people clearly think it's a First Amendment issue. There is no intent from us to interfere with people's right to discuss copy protection. We respect free speech.' The AACS website tells consumers how they can 'continue to enjoy content protected by AACS' by 'refreshing the encryption keys associated with their HD DVD and Blu-ray software players.'"
Well, he certainly has that part right. What he fails to appreciate is that he will be on the losing end of every single one of those rounds. Even as he tries to downplay the key by saying it has been revoked, AACS has already lost the second round (as hackers have created a hack that CAN'T be revoked).
Always a step behind, buddy. But feel free to keep wasting your money and pissing people off.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The lameness filter is built on compression ratios and obvious problems with the post. (e.g. ALL CAPS!) Encrypted text rarely compresses well, so it passes with flying colors.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
For those of you having trouble reading that, there's a Javascript RC4 decrypter here:
http://shop-js.sourceforge.net/crypto.htm
Furthermore, the countries that recognize the US law are in minority. They might be able to silence a few American guys, but that doesn't help them much since they don't have any means to censor the code from sites that are hosted in other countries.
Here's the translation for the lazy:
While I can respect his point about the issue being a legal one rather than a free speech issue, I would argue that they took the matter too far. It's one thing to revoke the key, then prosecute the original crackers under the DMCA. (As distasteful as that is.) But once the information is in the public realm, it effectively becomes a lost "trade secret".
https://www.spreadshirt.com/shop.php?sid=114476I want a t-shirt....
Exactly, the scheme is not a 'copy protection device' at all and as such doesn't even fall under the DMCA.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Whoops. 4 hours of sleep does that to me. ;) I should've posted as AC too, but too late now.
;)
Here ya go:
While I can respect his point about the issue being a legal one rather than a free speech issue, I would argue that they took the matter too far. It's one thing to revoke the key, then prosecute the original crackers under the DMCA. (As distasteful as that is.) But once the information is in the public realm, it effectively becomes a lost "trade secret".
The DMCA may not recognize encryption keys as trade secrets, but that's all they are. Once the secret is lost, you cannot recover it. You simply have to move on and extract any damages from the party that disclosed the secret in the first place.
As Mr. Ayers stated, the key was already revoked. If they hadn't tried to put the genie back in the bottle, they wouldn't now have a several-million member strong community of talented and bright individuals trying to crack HD-DVD just to spite them.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
He said tracking down everyone who had published the keys was a "resource intensive exercise". A search on Google shows almost 700,000 pages have published the key.
;)
only 700k sites?
come on guys, get CRACKIN'.
if you want to really make their jobs harder, embed that number EVERYWHERE. keep their minions searching for this for YEARS.
afterall, they have nothing better (truely) to do with their time
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Try Philips instead of Sony, the difference is obvious when you look at their players. Philips have no labels, or movie making divisions, so they have nothing to lose with hardware that is lax about playing as many file types as possible. They already have DVD players with USB ports for Harddrives that play Divx, and media players that record video feed to MPEG-2, play back DivX, and don't have any DRM to speak of.
Also very easy to crack players, as far as region free goes.
I just wrote this:
/* start char */ /* byte # */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
unsigned char key[16] = {
0x09, 0xf9, 0x11, 0x02,
0x9d, 0x74, 0xe3, 0x5b,
0xd8, 0x41, 0x56, 0xc5,
0x63, 0x56, 0x88, 0xc0};
int main() {
int s;
int b;
for(s = 65 ; s <= 75 ; ++s) {
printf("Start = %c: ", s);
for(b = 0 ; b < 16 ; ++b) {
fputc(s + ((key[b] & 0xf0) >> 4), stdout);
fputc(s + (key[b] & 0x0f), stdout);
}
fputc('\n', stdout);
}
exit(0);
return 0;
}
And its output:
Start = A: AJPJBBACJNHEODFLNIEBFGMFGDFGIIMA
Start = B: BKQKCCBDKOIFPEGMOJFCGHNGHEGHJJNB
Start = C: CLRLDDCELPJGQFHNPKGDHIOHIFHIKKOC
Start = D: DMSMEEDFMQKHRGIOQLHEIJPIJGIJLLPD
Start = E: ENTNFFEGNRLISHJPRMIFJKQJKHJKMMQE
Start = F: FOUOGGFHOSMJTIKQSNJGKLRKLIKLNNRF
Start = G: GPVPHHGIPTNKUJLRTOKHLMSLMJLMOOSG
Start = H: HQWQIIHJQUOLVKMSUPLIMNTMNKMNPPTH
Start = I: IRXRJJIKRVPMWLNTVQMJNOUNOLNOQQUI
Start = J: JSYSKKJLSWQNXMOUWRNKOPVOPMOPRRVJ
Start = K: KTZTLLKMTXROYNPVXSOLPQWPQNPQSSWK
Let's just start making blog posts where the first letter of each word fits one of these patterns (and include the key via the subject line). Hell, you could write the README to a hddvd playing program so that each paragraph started with one letter, and the Makefile could generate the key from the README, so you wouldn't be distributing the key with the program...
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Like http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=3218 : note the second URL in the takedown notice...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
AFAIK, AACS is just AES. So they key is just 128 bits of random data; it does not have to have any other special qualities.
HAND!
The source code to Windows Vista is "just a number" too. Alan Turing described all this decades ago. Although I think we can all agree that it is protected by copyright.
There's a large and obvious difference there. The source code to Vista is a number that is a numerical representation of a copyrightable work, much as an digital version of a song or an eBook. The number itself cannot be protected, but the copyrighted work can be---even if it is represented in the form of a number with a particular encoding. Any copyrightable work can be represented as a number (possibly in a lossy way), but when a number (decoded in a standard way) represents something else that can be protected, that number is protected implicitly.
The key, as you mention, is not copyrightable, and thus, its only protection lies in the DMCA (and even that is somewhat dubious).
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
If you are looking for a DVD player that will play those .avi files you download off the internet, you must try the Phillips DVP 5140. The thing is Phillips' gift to mankind. It plays DIVX & Ultra DIVX files. It plays both NTSC and PAL format videos (DVDs or VCDs). With a code you can get from the product page on amazon.com (look at the user reviews for the product on amazon.com) you can make it region free with a simple code.
:-)
I bought one for my dad and one for myself, and recommend it to many others.
Available for $50 at Walmart, by the way.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Almost forgot to mention: Base64 encoding also chops two bits of information off of each byte. So part of the compressibility of the message is right there in the encoding.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
All she has to do is something like this: (Typical update process with a consumer stand-alone Blu-Ray player)
Option A:
1. Go to website (Mom: Website, what's a website? I don't have a computer)
2. Download the appropriate file (Mom: Download a file? Which one? From where?)
3. Burn it onto a CD-R (Mom: Burn it? CD-R ??)
4. Put in player and wait for it to install, hopefully it works
5. Watch movie (finally!!!)
6. Get fed up with new Blu-Ray player, and stop buying movies, possibly taking player back to store for a refund.
Option B:
1. Go to website to get support phone #
2. Wait on hold for minutes / hours (YMMV)
3. Get asked what model you have (Mom: Where is the model? On the back/bottom? I gotta unplug the cables ?!?!?)
4. Start over at step 2 when you know the model
5. Give them your name, address, other personal info, along with the serial # (Mom: see #3) If no serial #, get it and start over at step 2, again!
6. Wait until they can ship it to you, could be days or weeks
7. Put in player and wait for it to install, hopefully it works
8. Watch movie (finally!!!)
9. Get fed up with new Blu-Ray player, and stop buying movies, possibly taking player back to store for a refund.
Option C:
1. Decide disk is defective (Mom: My other disks work, so it must be this disk)
2. Drive to store and get new copy
3. New copy fails, too. Store won't refund, until you raise a ruckus.
4. Get fed up with new Blu-Ray player, and stop buying movies, possibly taking player back to store for a refund.
You will note that all three cases lead to rejection of Blu-Ray by average consumer. Mom, or your average consumer, wants a player where they can:
1. Buy any Blu-Ray disk
2. Put it in the player
3. Push play
4. Movie plays!!!
Anything beyond that, and you alienate your customer. Simple.
V for Vendetta: People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
They (the AACS-LA) are playing games with words.
When they say they have "revoked the key", they mean they have revoked the device key for a specific software player. They have not done anything about the processing key that is floating around.
Actually, it isn't. What it actually says is:
(Emphasis mine.) I think the AACS LA could easily argue that the processing key is at the very least a "part thereof".
Google's intelisense auto complete thing now has it as the 2nd suggestiong after typing '09 F', lol.
I started laughing when I let the mouse hover on the third picture in this TheInq article : http://www.theinq.com/default.aspx?article=39411, the alt text says "And the magic number is: 09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0" . Good job , Kudos The Inquirer ! :D
Fuck-you RIAA and consorts. (see .sig)
France's highly regarded mainstream paper Le Monde also published the key, repeating it on purpose in their article. Now imagine how those AACS-LA lawyers will get laughed out of french courts should they try to curb Le Monde's freedom of press! C'est trop tard messieurs, get over it.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Maybe a more artistic person than me could make something more interesting with these colors? Remember, you'd have to make their ordering significant as well, not just the colors.