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Hulu Munging HTML With JS To Protect Content
N!NJA writes "Hulu has started encoding the html that they send to people's browsers, and then decoding it using javascript before rendering it. [...] They then run the character stream through a series of javascript functions to convert it back into plain text before pushing it into your browser using DHTML. That's quite a lot of effort just for fun, so I assume that is to stop screen scrapers from parsing content." I really can't understand all this effort. Boxee displayed the Hulu advertising perfectly. I suspect Alec Baldwin is to blame.
they're aliens. that's how they roll.
It sounds like there's something ROT-13 in the state of Hawaii.
...ended at midday yesterday. Though I have to admit that this is far funnier than the "stories" that Slashdot ran at the time.
The XBMC guys already made a plugin after the last hulu change. It'll take a few hours and a new one will be made.
Especially if you SEND the user all the info they need, how hard is it to decode functions? There are crackers out there that take decoded assembly to figure out how to bypass DRM, what makes Hulu think their implementation will be any more difficult?
Couldn't an enterprising screen-scraper also just run it through the same Javascript code? Hulu is forgetting what I like to call the Fundamental Law of DRM: if you make data possible for users to see /hear, it will be possible for a reasonably enterprising user to copy it.
I am officially gone from
TunerFreeMCE couldn't scrape the data. Mission accomplished. Oh, wait... Tada:
"Update- version 2.6.7 is now available to download to work round this new tactic."
And now, I supposed, there will be a DMCA attack as phase two.
I'm all for boxee, but if they wanted aggregates to link to their content I would think hulu would have provided an API to allow it. Maybe instead of trying to work around every change hulu makes they should work with them instead.
They *want* you to go back to watching regular TV, where the ad revenue is greatest.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
My father gave me some HTML that was decoded with Javascript. To get the raw HTML was pretty simple IIRC..
1) Load page in Firefox
2) Open DOM explorer/inspector
3) Export as HTML
4) ???
5) PROFIT!!
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
As long as Hulu continues to work with a Linux-based browser, I'm happy. This is unlike ABC, whose system doesn't support Linux at all.
Their loss (or perhaps I should say "They're Lost").
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
And to anyone complaining about having to dance through proxies to watch Hulu internationally, it's for the same reasons. What benefit does Charmin see from advertising toilet paper to people in the Netherlands?
All that aside, as someone who has a modded XBOX with XBMC and was living abroad,I can say with experience that all these shenanigans are tiring. Like any arms race where it's content producers vs. the internet, the internet will win in the end.
Maybe they are just doing this to sate the content providers. As long as they appear to be trying to solve the problem, they should get brownie points with the major companies. Considering how popular DRM seems to be with the execs, I'll bet they think this works just as "well".
My webcomic
Make the viewer fill it in every ~2 minutes to keep watching.
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
They *want* you to go back to watching regular TV, where the ad revenue is greatest.
As you probably know, that cat's not going back into the bag. I wonder whether the inability to admit this and work with it is a special trait of media companies or if it's just true of large organizations in general?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Hulu is owned by Fox/NBC, and they are trying to attract other content providers.
Simply put, the ad revenue on Hulu is much, much less than on TV. Sure, it beats piracy (a little money and control over how long your content is on there) but if people were to cancel cable or watch Hulu on their Xboxes more, both cable/satellite providers and the content providers themselves would be unhappy.
Just another game of cat & mouse: Hulu makes changes, and Boxee updates. The hope is that if you make the workarounds unreliable enough to the point where people are too irritated, most will switch back to TV, with a few using Hulu just online on their computers and a few turning back to piracy.
Why all the effort to apply DRM to free streaming content? Is it just because the networks think that everything needs to have DRM?
These guys do understand that nothing prevents me from plugging my laptop into a TV and running a browser on it? And nothing prevents me from plugging a tuner card into my computer and showing TV on the monitor? So regardless of what they do, they can't make something show on a computer but not on a TV?
Wait a minute, my assistant is handing me an envelope he says will explain everything.
(envelope opening noises)
The note inside says "They're total idiots".
Yep, that does explain everything.
I used to wonder why you cannot mod a Slashdot editor's comment "Funny", but now I see that it would be an unused feature ;-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Hulu is a BRAND. It wants to live in its own world and be exclusive.
So their attitude is "Frak Boxie", as boxie is trying to DESTROY the brand of all the video sites to be replaced by the Boxee brand.
Why should Hulu play nice?
Test your net with Netalyzr
If you do decrypt it without authorization, they can claim you're in violation. It's not about the technical merits of their solution, it's about the legal aspect.
And to anyone complaining about having to dance through proxies to watch Hulu internationally, it's for the same reasons. What benefit does Charmin see from advertising toilet paper to people in the Netherlands?
This is where the MBA and Marketing guys are falling down on the job. They should be selling regional ads for international viewers... instead of Charmin, they could sell Nokia ads for Dutch viewers, Weetabix in the UK, and Nutella in Italy, etc...
This is not actually the worst web DRM. I once found a site where the top of the code had a comment that said "Source code not available" followed by a bunch of blank lines. In order to get the source, one just had to scroll down some.
Which, of course, would make the scroll bar an anti-circumvention device.
EUCD is the EU version, if DVD Jon would have been trialed in the EU it would have been interesting. Because I find it very hard to believe that anyone will ever get convicted for circumventing protection mechanisms, if it wasn't with malicious intent, or for monetary gain.
This is just more proof that the people who run the big media companies not only do not understand technology, but cannot be bothered to learn it either.
There is an old saying: "It is impossible to teach a man something, when his livelihood depends on him not understanding it."
They make their money the old way. If they learn this new way, they realize that their old way is doomed. Thereforefore, they cannot learn the new way.
This is probably to stop Lynx browsers from properly displaying content. I'm betting this move was backed by bribe money. Clearly this is aimed at reducing compatibility with Lynx. MS is just trying to steal away market share.
I wouldn't say I have a right by any stretch. I don't. These guys provide the content to me at their discretion.
I think what people are "upset" about is the fact that:
1) Companies (Hulu or otherwise) seriously think that they can control HOW someone access their content. Technology or not, you can't force me to listen to a song on the radio anymore than I can force you to play the song I want to hear. You can't force me to listen to that CD I bought in my car vice my house.
2) People were more than happy to access the content via legal means via Hulu. No one WANTS to pirate anything. It's a pain in the ass. A standard non-HD conversion of a tv show without the commercials over bittorrent still takes in the neighborhood of 30 minutes to download on a standard internet connection. God forbid I want something that is more than a few weeks old.
With Hulu I could sit down and watch the shows on my couch with my wife (when the kid was in bed). Now? Not so much.
The absolutely ASININE part is that users were screaming for this for years. For once, it seemed like the media companies actually GOT it. We were naive. Hulu was working on Boxee for the better part of a year if not longer. It wasn't until Boxee started gaining attention that someone said "You mean people aren't watching this stuff on a computer?"
Let's ignore for a minute how fucking stupid that question is. I *AM* (well was) watching it on a pc. It just happened to be hooked up to a television. What possible idiot doesn't have such a grasp of technology that they don't realize that you can hook a computer up to a television? Who, on the grandiose payroll of the media companies, didn't see this coming?
In the end, they DID hurt themselves. Ad revenues are already down. The company I was laid off from was in the business of television advertising. Between DVRs and P2P, you have a choice. Either provide the content and get at least a sliver of revenue or don't get any at all.
Sure, it may be costing you up front to build support for Hulu advertising among the advertisers but once the ball is rolling, it becomes a more viable outlet for advertising.
Here's the thing. Television advertising is a split bag. Local networks sell ads. National networks sell ads. There's a whole business around brokering advertising spots between buyers and the people with the air time. It's a complex machine. Hulu essentially cut out a few layers of that.
In the end, Hulu was a step in the right direction. Boxee was the "killer application" for Hulu. They really did screw themselves.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"