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Adobe Flaw Allows Full Movie Downloads For Free
webax writes with this excerpt from Reuters:
"[An Adobe security hole] exposes online video content to the rampant piracy that plagued the music industry during the Napster era and is undermining efforts by retailers, movie studios and television networks to cash in on a huge Web audience. 'It's a fundamental flaw in the Adobe design. This was designed stupidly,' said Bruce Schneier ... The flaw rests in Adobe's Flash video servers that are connected to the company's players installed in nearly all of the world's Web-connected computers. The software doesn't encrypt online content, but only orders sent to a video player such as start and stop play. To boost download speeds, Adobe dropped a stringent security feature that protects the connection between the Adobe software and its players."
webax also notes that the article suggests DRM as a potential solution to the problem.
Schneier didn't write the article. He is only quoted briefly.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." - Bob Dylan
There are two separate issues mentioned in the article.
1. HTTP and RTMP are not encrypted and thus it's trivial to record any video sent over these protocols. This is well-documented and I'd hardly consider it a flaw. Flash 9u3 has DRM (RTMPE+verification), but most Web sites don't bother to use it.
2. Apparently Amazon's movie store server will send the whole video whether the customer has purchased it or not. This is a bug, but it's Amazon's fault not Adobe's and Amazon should be able to fix it easily enough. Also, they're apparently not using all the DRM features available in Flash so their videos aren't as protected as they could be.
AFAIK Flash DRM hasn't been cracked yet because no one uses it. I'm not an advocate of DRM, but as a practical matter I find it works better when you actually turn it on.