HDCP Master Key Is Legitimate; Blu-ray Is Cracked

adeelarshad82 writes "Intel has confirmed that the leaked HDCP master key protecting millions of Blu-ray discs and devices that was posted to the Web this week is legitimate. The disclosure means, in effect, that all Blu-ray discs can now be unlocked and copied. HDCP (High Definition Content Protection), which was created by Intel and is administered by Digital Content Protection LLP, is the content encryption scheme that protects data, typically movies, as they pass across a DVI or an HDMI cable. According to an Intel official, the most likely scenario for a hacker would be to create a computer chip with the master key embedded it, that could be used to decode Blu-ray discs."

Comments

Re:challenge

[tdelaney]

Or maybe implement a "virtual display" driver that claims to support HDCP ...

Re:not protects

[hairyfeet]

Uhhhh...I hate to break the new to you dude, but this "cracking" stuff? Damned useful to those of us who AREN'T pirates. Want an example? I have a lovely complete collection of Joss Whedon's series right in front of me on a shelf, with a cool Buffy and Spike collectible figure on each side for bookends given to me by my late sister. Now here I am, with frankly an assload of HDD space at nearly 1Tb, yet thanks to their DMCA bullshit I can't just walk into Walmart and buy software that'll let me rip these discs, which I fricking paid nearly a grand for, to my HDD. Instead I'm supposed to break them open and go through the hassle of loading them each time I want to watch an episode of Buffy or firefly. That sucks! WTF is the point of having all this space if I'm not allowed to put my fricking media on it??

So until some sanity comes to the media and game companies I'm ALL FOR the pirates. It is the pirates that made the older games I PAID FOR work on my new windows 7 X64, thanks to their No-CD/DVDs making it so the non x64 DRM crap isn't called. It is the pirates that come up with the software that lets me rip my movies and convert them into formats that makes them easy and convenient FOR ME, the customer!

I personally could give a flying crap about what content producers, who frankly thanks to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting are often screwing the artists as bad if not worse than they screw us consumers, want anymore. I fricking paid for it, its mine, and if I want it in Xvid or H.264 or whatever then that is none of their business. Remember these very same content producers who you are championing say ripping YOUR CD to your iPod is NOT fair use because you didn't cut the greedy pigs a check for the privilege. After bribing our congress and trying to force 150+ year copyrights on the planet I personally hope the whole lot DIAF myself.

Use how you want to

[microbox]

There is not a chance in hell that I'd buy a blu-ray unless I could store and back-up the contents on a regular media server. I hate all those little plastic boxes, and I also hate the anti-piracy messages and studio branding.

Net result: I've found better things to do with my time.

Chinese Player

[aepervius]

Chinese player will care, and will be able to CHURN out *CHEAP* Blue ray player and undercu5t the big boy which paid their license. Some country might restrict the import, but you know as well as me that they will fight a losing battle as people will find way to buy those in neighbor lands and import them illegally.

So. Yeah. Putting the code in a chip is what is the immediate danger for the big player, not the oft cited "copyer" which bit torrent stuff.

Re:This is the universal hack.

[Impeesa]

All digital content ultimately ends up as an HDMI stream protected by HDCP.

With HDCP compromised that stream can eventually be captured. All that needs to happens is for a company to make a NON-HDCP compliant capture card which just happens to be easily flashable. Think they might end up selling a lot of those? Think some companies in asia would be willing to make that "mistake".

Kind of funny, when you think about it. Used to be that the shady Chinese knockoffs were the less useful hardware, because they wouldn't go to the extra effort to make them work right. Now, it's easy to conceive a scenario in which the cheap stuff is the most functional, because they won't go to the extra effort to properly break them.

Re:Weve seen that argument before

[xtracto]

I think that in a world without Copyright (and the like) the only think we would not have is the crap copyrightable stuff (e.g., Britney Spears, Eminem, etc...) mainly because such media is only famous due to its heavy marketing and not its quality.

For example (borrowing from your analogy) how many really bad recipes do you know that are famous? I know none (except the ones for food I don't like) and I have lived in 3 countries, traveled to more than 12 and I like gastronomy.

The interesting thing is, I am sure in 200 years people we look back at our time and will see efforts like PirateBay, RlsLog, Gigapedia, the Scene, etc as the "good guys" who made a very strong effort to share our culture. In the same way we see Kings,Queens and Fathers of ancient empires who either wanted to have control of information or encouraged its dissemination.

Re:Weve seen that argument before

[spazzmo]

This quotes sums up the morals of the entertainment "industry": If Coca-Cola accidentally created 100 million cans of faulty Coke, you know for sure the entire 100 million cans would be dropped in the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, without a second thought and irrespective of what that did to the year's profits. What do we do with a crappy movie? We double its advertising budget and hope for a big opening weekend. What have we done for the audience as they walk out of the cinema? We've alienated them. We've sold audiences a piece of junk; we just took twelve dollars away from a couple and we think we've done ourselves no long-term damage. — David Puttnam, movie producer; GQ magazine, April 1987