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Hulu Munging HTML With JS To Protect Content

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the escalating-arms-race dept.

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.

19 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. what do you expect? by antibryce · · Score: 5, Funny

    they're aliens. that's how they roll.

    1. Re:what do you expect? by punkmanandy · · Score: 5, Funny

      They are doing this to confuse, to better mush our brains.

  2. With apologies to Shakespeare... by Bieeanda · · Score: 5, Funny

    It sounds like there's something ROT-13 in the state of Hawaii.

  3. April Fools Day... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...ended at midday yesterday. Though I have to admit that this is far funnier than the "stories" that Slashdot ran at the time.

  4. Cat & Mouse. by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?

    1. Re:Cat & Mouse. by C0vardeAn0nim0 · · Score: 5, Funny

      a marketing major or MBA course. that's what makes them think it'll be more dificult.

      --
      What ? Me, worry ?
    2. Re:Cat & Mouse. by schmidt349 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Shut up! That's why.

    3. Re:Cat & Mouse. by koterica · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is modded as funny, but it is rather insightful. The people who make business decisions (or what they think are business decisions) don't necessarily understand the things they are messing with. In this case, they obfuscate because they are worried about people pirating content.

      Honestly? Hulu is a great service (if you live in the US) but its not a high priority target for piracy. Why go to the effort of ripping a stream with ads in it when the torrent is already out?

    4. Re:Cat & Mouse. by Zebedeu · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Do you really believe that all of this content is going to get less available over time? Note that this would essentially contradict all of history.

      Yeah, don't bother making copies of those documents at the Great Library of Alexandria.

  5. Phase One is Over by wonkavader · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Phase One is Over by derGoldstein · · Score: 5, Funny

      I sure hope not.

      If it is, then what's the difference between obfuscated code and horribly written code thats difficult to understand? Or code thats been run through a minifier to make it smaller?

      So you mean all Perl!??

      --
      Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
  6. Re:Don't they want people to use Hulu? by NeoSkandranon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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)
  7. Re:Can you blame them? by FauxPasIII · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > if they wanted aggregates to link to their content I would think hulu would have provided an API to allow it.

    They did. It's called the hypertext transfer protocol.

    --
    25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
  8. Plan B: CAPTCHA by derGoldstein · · Score: 5, Funny

    Make the viewer fill it in every ~2 minutes to keep watching.

    --
    Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
  9. Re:Content Providers' Demands? by maxume · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hulu is a joint venture of NBC Universal and Fox Entertainment Group. The Hulu management might not precisely be content providers, but the folks holding the purse are.

    --
    Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  10. Re:Dumb question here by ynef · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, in fact, HtmlUnit is my preferred browser simulation library in Java for this very reason: it allows you to write very easy to understand Java code, and it uses Rhino as a JavaScript interpreter. Completely brilliant, and yet few people know about it.

  11. Re:Dumb question here by Applekid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    Sure. Except, crappy as the Javascript "encryption" is, now you're in violation of the DMCA by reverse engineering a copy protection mechanism.

    --
    More Twoson than Cupertino
  12. Re:Dumb question here by jnetsurfer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But you're not reverse engineering. They're sending you their code, you're just running it!

  13. Fail by Chlorine+Trifluoride · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.