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BD+ Resealed Once Again
IamTheRealMike writes "It's been a few months since we last checked in on how the Blu-Ray group was doing in their fight against piracy. In December 2008, a new generation of BD+ programs had stopped both SlySoft AnyDVD HD and the open source effort at Doom9. At the start of January, SlySoft released an update that could handle the new BD+ programs, meaning that Blu-Ray discs could not be decrypted for a period of time about the same length as SlySoft's worst case scenario. The BD+ retaliation was swift, but largely ineffective, consisting of a unique program for every Blu-Ray master. Users had to upload log files to SlySoft for every new movie/region. They would then support that unique variant in their next update, usually released a few days later. Despite that, the open source effort never did manage to progress beyond the Winter 2008 programs and is currently stalled completely; SlySoft is the only group remaining. This situation remained for several months, but starting around the same time as Paramount joined Fox in licensing BD+, a new set of programs came out which have once again made Blu-Ray discs unrippable. There are currently 19 movies that cannot be decrypted. It appears neither side is able to decisively gain the upper hand, but one thing seems clear — only full-time, for-profit professionals are able to consistently beat BD+."
It's important to remember that a lot of people aren't yet focused on bluray. DVD ripping was a must have and many different open-source and closed-source programs popped up over the years because DVD had critical mass. As a previous ex-blu-ray-early-adapter, it may be that people just don't care about blu-ray the same way.. yet. I think if blu-ray ever catches on like DVD did, the story would be different.
I stopped caring about blu-rays, they became too much hassle (and too expensive) for not enough of a quality boost. Maybe in the future when they really start to overtake DVDs (on price too) I'll reconsider. But at the moment, I highly doubt I'm the only one who has no more than one or two blu-ray movies and rented the rest. The big reason I'd have wanted to rip was to keep a digital copy of my collection. Since I don't even have a collection, that will hold off till I stop caring about DVDs.
Blu-ray may yet die a horrible death..
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
only full-time, for-profit professionals are able to consistently beat BD+
Maybe open source developers have better things to do than to do legally questionable things in order to circumvent copy protection on an overpriced, obsolete distribution format?
As someone who's still using DVDs, I see this from a slightly different angle. In my brain I'm thinking about the future and how difficult it's going to be for device manufacturers to support this format "consisting of a unique program for every Blu-Ray master." I mean, while the fight was HD DVD vs Blu-Ray, I was looking forward to "movie players" in the future being able to play anything under the sun and since the disc is standardized in size you'd be able to have players be backward compatible for multiple technologies ... maybe even leave open possibilities for up-converting old discs.
But after reading this story, I'm sure all this new anti-anti-anti-theft encryption technology requires you buy a license to use the per master programs and that these programs require a ton of chipset/memory on the device to decrypt these things. By the time you've foot the bill for the hardware and IP licenses on the technology, the universal player isn't going to be worth it.
It currently may spell annoyance/lawsuit but I predict the future techies will look back and frown upon what was done when future generations are left to be curators of digital media and wacky encryption schemes.
My work here is dung.
I win against blue ray every day because I don't own a blu ray player and have never bought a blu ray disc. I recommend you do the same. Don't buy the discs then get pissed and try to sue. Vote with your feet.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
All I know is, the first time I pop a blu-ray disc into my $300 player and it refuses to play because of one of your new little one-upmanship encryption schemes, I'm going to be plenty pissed.
Amen brother. I recently bought a $1200 HP Pavillion with blu-ray player and gf9600, 4gb ram yadda yadda. What interested me the most was 500gb HDD, blu-ray player, and hdmi out...
:(
I was pissed off the very first time I played a blu-ray. You see, HDCP shut me down before I even got to the blu-ray menu. I am still very pissed off because nowhere on the box, or in the press kit; was a notification saying that although this computer has a blu-ray player AND HDMI out, that you will not be able to play a single blu-ray disc through that port. The best I get is upscaled DVDs, which I'm not surprised they haven't put BD+ on dvd's now to prevent me from doing even this.
I tried to purchase AnyDVD-HD but my Visa is declined for "109 Euros too high, authorization declined" which my bank has no idea what that means. I refuse to buy a PS3 for many reasons and I refuse to pay out another $200+ for a standalone player. I feel a bit duped by the movie studios into buying a blu-ray player that is only good on the small 17" screen built into my laptop, which does not handle 1080p
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
The arms race with BD+ mirrors exactly what happened with sattv hacking 10 years ago. The encryption starts out simple and uses a minimal implementation of the BD spec. Once that is compromised the ip holders inevitably move to the more complex implementation of the spec. Currently this involves uploading a code package with each new release that performs the decryption, blacklist checking, and ultimately a system integrity check (the latter makes sure that BD+ API has not been patched to allow unconditional decryption which is the method slysoft uses). With every release, the IP holder looks at how the system has been hacked and writes a specific code package to detect those changes. The end result of this game is that the system will become totally compromised as hackers will simply rebuild the entire BD+ VM and API in emulation and allow for patching outside of the VM implementation (e.g. the system will respond as a valid unhacked system to any checks via VM code packages but will still perform unconditional decryption) Once that happens its over for BD+ as the only possible countermeasure is to attack flaws in the emulator implementation and those are easily fixed. Give it a year or so...
The power of BD+ is that they can do this without breaking existing players, because they can actually change the encryption on the new disks, while still supporting the existing players.
Everybody laughs that DRM can never succeed - but BD+ has taken DRM to an entirely new level. It is a shame so much brain power was devoted to hustling people - I like to think that if this same amount of intelligence were applied to legitimate problems, we might have a man on Mars, or a fusion power.