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AACS Revision Cracked A Week Before Release
stevedcc writes "Ars Technica is running a story about next week's release of AACS, which is intended to fix the currently compromised version. The only problem is, the patched version has already been cracked. From the article: 'AACS LA's attempts to stifle dissemination of AACS keys and prevent hackers from compromising new keys are obviously meeting with extremely limited success. The hacker collective continues to adapt to AACS revisions and is demonstrating a capacity to assimilate new volume keys at a rate which truly reveals the futility of resistance. If keys can be compromised before HD DVDs bearing those keys are even released into the wild, one has to question the viability of the entire key revocation model.'"
If they put this much effort into making crappy movies not suck instead, they'd save a lot more money than trying to control every customer's lives
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
...I'm sure someone will solve the problem by writing more laws.
That's always the solution, isn't it?
(oy.)
A cheerful little bird is sitting here singing.
Damn you long-haired smellies! Why can't you get with the program and just passively CONSUME!
you had me at #!
You mean "failure"?
Remember, kids: It's not torture, it's "enhanced interrogation techniques".
The article is missing the key, who's got it? I need to start a protest on digg!
The Farewell Tour II
This is quickly making DRM look less like rights management and more like digital restrictions mockery. Of course, we knew this from the start. Any security strategy that depends on giving the attacker both the key and lock is doomed to fail.
The guys who make this DRM know its flawed but they still get paid when it fails. They must be quietly laughing all the way to the bank. Yet like morons the record labels keep handing money over. It's no wonder CD sales are declining when you're *that* clue-proof.
EMI has the right idea. Shock horror, if you give the customer what they want, they'll pay you for it. I never would have guessed!
Simon
Sounds like the old days of the C64 boards. It started with 1day warez, soon there were 0day warez, before it was all done there were boards that only accepted -7day warez. That was warez (Cracked software) that were released no later than 7 days before the program was to hit the market!
Give up now and stop waisting money on something that will never work!
I just gave my dual 21" dell lcds a mountain dew bath after reading "damned-time-traveling-pirates dept". I salute you editors - you have given me my happy thought. Now quickly, fly! Second star to the right and straight on until morning!
That's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft.
...feel like this will be one of those anthropological head-scratchers to historians in 50-100 years? DRM? What an odd culture they had there....
u-bend
How is this economical for these companies? It should be simple:
ProfitA = $MEDIA_INCOME - DRM R&D - DRM content - lawsuits - alienated customers - recalls (i.e. rootkit)
ProfitB = $MEDIA_INCOME - piracy loss
I would bet that ProfitB is significantly larger then ProfitA.
about the great Consumer Revolt of 2007 in history classes.
....
The list of revolt-ish type actions lately is getting quite long. I think the Internet is really starting to make its true value known.
Companies who want to force DRM on the consumers are simply terrified that they have no product and must force consumers to pay for distribution. The sad part is that they are wasting so much time, money, effort, and lobbying to try to stop what they never could before, and have no hope of stopping in the future; the sneaker-net is still alive and apparently doing very well with 500GB USB drives selling for less than 2 seasons of the Sopranos.
Digg, AACS, XM radio, and all that came before it. Oh, also that deal with the King and feet, the actress having sex on the beach... who knows how many more it will take
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
"If keys can be compromised before HD DVDs bearing those keys are even released into the wild, one has to question the viability of the entire key revocation model.'" DRM won't be called into question. The real question to those with power and their minions is: what's the best punishment for offenders? Is it life imprisonment, the "solution" for such things as hacking the main page of a corporate website or committing "attempted piracy"?
To which they replied, "Foolish boy, that was just a vapid and insincere corporate slogan designed to sound vaguely cool to wannabe-rebellious (and utterly conformist) 13-year-olds..."
My mistake.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
you have folks designing a roadblock into the process of decoding media, that doesn't always work, that is not supported on any of the minority OS... and they wonder why other folks keep cracking it?
you think maybe somebody out there in MogulLand would look at the swirling Warez underground, and for once think maybe, "geez, the free market says we are bumbling goons?"
apparently it only happens in Britain, where somebody at Electric Music Industries Ltd. woke up sober and straight one morning...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
... which this internet is too narrow to contain.
16 hex digits is 8 bytes. Good luck trying to post 2^64 16 byte sequences anywhere in your lifetime.
They are not just up against a determined people. They are up against SMART, determined people. These are the kind of people who will circumvent a problem before circle a petition.
The AACS LA is really fighting a losing battle on this one. The question I have to ask is where and when are they going to cut their losses.
Ill Start
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
Lameness filter encountered.
with 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 numbers and we'll say 8 Bytes per number, that would be a 128 Exabyte file - not the most reasonable file to host all over the place
I don't think hackers are always going to publically tell which software they found vulnerable, or if they went for the hardware, or exactly what. But it's quite clear they now understand where to look for the keys, so just changing them won't help anymore. And when you know the protection structure, I think this system is now pretty much as busted as the DVD protection became. GG
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It amazes me that the movie industry remains convinced that they save more money by developing and implementing DRM than they would lose to piracy. The cost for a system like AACS must have been well into the millions, and I hope they realize that with all DRM systems it takes orders of magnitude less money to bypass them then it does to create them (and once a crack is known, that's all it takes). At the very best, DRM only buys them some time until it is cracked, and at worst is frustrates consumers to the point that they boycott the product. While the number of pirates may increase a bit if all media was DRM free, I don't believe it would be a significant increase from the amount who pirate now. I do believe the amount lost to new piracy would be less than the amount spent developing DRM, and perhaps the increase in sales due to people who only pirate because they hate DRM will off set that even more.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
Funny. I just did it. Of course, my file is compressed -- the decompression program takes FOREVER, but it's pretty easy to tell it to skip to the Nth entry.
I never understood the MPAA/RIAA's approach to curbing piracy and increasing legitimate sales by imposing restrictions on those who pay for content. Think about it: a pirated album or movie comes with zero DRM and thus can be used for any purpose on any player an unlimited number of times. If I pay for that same album and purchase it through iTunes, I can only listen to it on my computer and my iPod. So here's my choice: pay for restricted content or download DRM-free content FOR free. Umm, who in their right mind would elect for the former?
A more proactive approach to curbing piracy would not restrict the rights of the consumer, but expand them. Instead of pouring millions of dollars into encryption schemes that are cracked before they're released, invest that money into innovations like exclusive or pre-release content for paying customers. I might feel better about buying an album online if a) I knew I could use that album any way I want and b) got a little extra in return, like an interview with the band, an exclusive track, preferential treatment for concert tickets, or whatever. I know these exclusive tracks and interviews could just as easily be pirated, but it's the thought that counts. If you (the RIAA/MPAA) respect my right and desire to use my movies and music how I want, I'll be more likely to respect your right to compensation for said goods. Either way, putting digital handcuffs on your paying customers is definitely *not* the right approach.
And then the utter fuckpuppets go on to say: "Buying pirated DVDs is stealing." This really gets my goat. Buying pirated DVDs is buying pirated DVDs. Stealing pirated DVDs would be stealing. Cnuts.
If it weren't for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no songs.
Any law that makes a criminal out of the majority is a bad law by definition.
But I liked your analogy too.
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
Sounds like a good time to start another distributed computing project like Seti or the Genome project...
Anyone?
There is simply too much glass..
"Up yours" came to my mind, but ymmv.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
People don't seem to get it... DRM has nothing to do with piracy. That's just a marketing friendly excuse.
The purpose of DRM is to make it less convenient for people to format-shift and time-shift content, thus increasing revenue from attempting to sell content multiple times.
The *IAA aren't idiots. They don't care about piracy, but they do use it as a tool to lobby for increased protection of their content. Any increase in piracy is used as an argument for increased restrictions, which in turn destroy fair use and allow for more restrictive business models.
These sorts of hacks get unprotected content on the file sharing sites, but they don't change the fact that Joe Consumer still faces an added barrier to watching his HD-DVD on his HD-iPod without buying a second copy on HD-iTunes. That barrier is more legal than technical -- there will never be a shrink wrapped software package on the shelves of Best Buy that does this for him.
I hate to say it, but for all but us nerds, these sort of hacks play right into the *PAA's hand. They lose nothing that they hadn't already lost, and they gain political leverage to impliment yet more DMCA-style legislation.
What we really need is a ten day waiting period and a background check before you can buy a congressman.