Slashdot Mirror
Intel Threatens DMCA Using HDCP Crack
mikesd81 writes "Intel is apparently threatening to use the DMCA against anyone using the HDCP crack under the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause. 'There are laws to protect both the intellectual property involved as well as the content that is created and owned by the content providers,' said Tom Waldrop, a spokesman for the company, which developed HDCP. 'Should a circumvention device be created using this information, we and others would avail ourselves, as appropriate, of those remedies.'"
You know hackers will win anyway.
After the horse has left the barn it's too late to close the door.
With DMCA hell I could protect something with 2 bit encryption. There is only two keys. 1 and 0. Pretty easy to crack right? It doesn't really matter. No matter how easy to crack doing so opens you up to the DMCA.
If they win expect more "paper tiger" encryption and content protection systems. The teeth isn't the weak flawed crypto. The teeth is in the lawsuit potential.
Maybe I won`t use Intel....
So good luck with that Intel...
Listen to my latest album here
You've found a foolproof way to protect your obsolescent DRM. After all, it worked so well for DVD/CSS.
What about those people in countries that don't have a DMCA, don't have software patents and have "interoperability" clauses in most things?
Can't I just buy my HDCP stripper from them, instead? Fortunately, that tends to be the same countries that make lots of cheap electronics. Surprising, that, isn't it?
(Not that I care - I don't own a single piece of HD equipment, and don't feel like I'm missing out either)
Who wrote the headline? Shouldn't it be "Intel Threatens HDCP Crack Using DMCA"?
I wonder if it's possible to make a hardware HDCP to DVI converter without having to make a custom ASIC. That way there wouldn't be the need to depend on a lone (probably chinese) supplier.
I'm sure more than a few people would be willing to donate for it to be developed.
So if the Library of Congress says jail-breaking is okay, and the DMCA says it's not, which one takes precedence in U.S. law?
(You do not need to point out that this is Slashdot, not a legal firm. I do not expect all responses to be from lawyers. I will not take any responses to be authoritative. Heretofore therefore nonesuch nevertheless notwithstanding and yadda yadda.)
I remenber there was once a ban in europe to read the bible, other by sanctioned sources. So a dude ( Lutero ) made a version in a language (german) that everyone can read.
I don't remenber how the DMCA back then worked. Did the pope stopped him?
-Woof woof woof!
My prediction:
Someone will leak the C code for a HDCP decryptor into pastebin (ala DeCSS) and everybody will be happy (except for intel and the copy providers).
Translating Intel press release: "So hmm yea, we really screwed when thinking that 40 keys would be enough for everybody, now that the world have seen how good a snake-oil we sold to the MMPAA guys, we will start litigation with all the world so that the MAFIAA does not sue our assess of the planet..."
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Does this mean the industry will rally around a replacement for HDCP? Will we all need to buy new TV's again? New blu-ray players? New video cards and laptops? Or do they think they can keep this genie bottled-up forever? This here could be exactly why DRM should be illegal and why the DMCA should be repealed. Imagine that every 5-10 years -- every protocol, every connector, every player -- has to be replaced because the industry won't back it unless it has a new unbreakable DRM system. This would be bad for everyone except the select few at the top of the industry who are collaborating to profit off of re-selling new devices to everyone. It half-way makes me suspect that they collude to release these systems, then crack them just as the get adoption to force everyone to buy new systems.
But this is a worst-case scenario. Time will tell...
See how DRM drives up prices for consumers? Strippers without HDCP cost much less than $400.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
If I understand this correctly, the BD encryption has NOT been cracked. THIS hack only opens the communication over the HDMI cable between the BD player and your TV. Cracking the encryption on the BD disks themselves is another matter that has not yet been fully cracked. However, this exploit should allow reading the digital data flowing out of the BD player to be captured and saved to disk. This might require some hardware hacking, I don't think there are any PCI video cards that have HDMI INPUTS available.
Even if China or someother NON-DMCA country builds such devices they will (eventually) be destroyed by customs and whoever smuggles them into this country will be treated the same as a drug dealer.
Just use an FPGA... problem solved.
The OpenGraphics project are building a graphics card with a big-ass FPGA on it. Seems like the right tool in the right place...
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
I don't mean to be a grammar nazi here, but "Intel Threatens DMCA Using HDCP Crack"? Really? The DMCA must feel so threatened because of Intel threatening it with the HDCP crack... More like "Intel Threatens HDCP Crack With DMCA".
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Unlike DRM which is present within media upon its receipt, HDCP does not exist on a BluRay or cable/satellite TV transmission. HDCP is something that is added by the user's machine. DMCA says:
And since we're talking about a process/treatment that occurs after access, it's not something that is needed to gain access.
Just an idea. (Probably won't work.)
Another tack here, is: how easily can you tell your equipment to use HDCP even when it's not playing DRMed media? Can you have your computer use a HDCP connection to its monitor all the time even when you're surfing Slashdot, typing your great novel, etc. Is this something that is happening all the time, anyway? (I just don't know.) If so -- if non-DRM-colluders can enable HDCP -- then 99.999999% of the time that someone uses a HDCP cracker, they would not be doing to circumvent a technological measure that controls access to a work without the authority of the copyright holder, since the user is the copyright holder. Likewise, the intended market and primary use of such a device, would not be to remove HDCP without the authority of the copyright holder. It would be legal to use and traffick.
(This is why there can never be a real standard for DRM, because you have to prevent non-colluding parties from being allowed to apply that DRM, lest they authorize access.) Cracking HDCP and distributing cracks, is only prohibited if HDCP is normally only used when a copyright holder demands it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Upload it to their completely legal hardware HDMI converter that doesn't decrypt HDCP and has a very easy to write firmware upgrade system.
Someone will leak the C code for a HDCP decryptor into pastebin (ala DeCSS) and everybody will be happy (except for intel and the copy providers).
It seems you haven't figured out yet what HDCP does. C code is useless. Someone could release the complete plans for a connector that accepts HDCP protected DVI or HDMI on one end and outputs unprotected DVI or HDMI on the other end.
bd is breakable (slysoft.com) and so who cares about BD anymore.
but for the mythtv guys who want to timeshift cable (non-clear qam) or sat-tv, you really only have hdmi now. the s-video is a joke and they won't give you component since its analog and is a 'hole' (lol).
if the hdmi sniffers/importers start hitting the shelves, that would enable us mythtv guys to FINALLY consider coming back to pay-tv again.
this could be a GOOD thing for the content guys. right? RIGHT??
of course they'll never see it that way. I currently don't have a pay-tv sub and have let mine lapse for a few years, now. my myth-tv setup only picks up OTA and what is tunable by my hdhomerun box. if, though, it was possible to easily import the hdmi/dvi streams from the cable boxes, that would actually put the pay-tv back into consideration again.
if I can't record it to MY system, I don't want it. but let me timeshift my way and I can open my wallet.
intel and the rest of the industry: hear me, please. I'm a revenue stream that you refuse to tap because of your silliness.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Remember that the only reason these devices have DRM is because the content producers want it and consumers will tolerate or in most cases not notice it. The electronics industry has no particular stake in this, other than to sell the most devices. They don't care what the devices do so long as people buy them.
So when HDMI was created, Intel put in copy protection because they knew it would help market the thing. If it was unprotected, the media industry might balk at putting content out on any device that had it. Status quo with old devices would be maintained, electronics industry doesn't make more money. They also knew it would be almost a total non-issue to most consumers. While there were some early adopters that got fucked, or people doing something fairly non-standard, most people aren't even aware of HDCP since more or less all HDMI devices have it. You switch to the new connector and that is it.
This also works because people are moving to a new format anyhow. They are replacing old NTSC TVs with new ATSC TVs. They want the new electronics for the features, they don't stop anything they already have from working, etc. Content producers are happy, consumers are happy, the electronics industry is happy.
Well the problem with something new, if you tried to mandate it, is that people wouldn't buy it. You roll out HDCPv2 on new Blu-ray players. They don't work with your HDCPv1 TV. People will not want these players. They'll buy one, it won't work, they'll take it back. Well stores aren't going to be interested in stocking something like that. Because of that, electronics companies won't make something like that. Also because of that, content producers will be forced to support older HDCPv1 devices to make any money.
You can offer up a completely new format with new restrictions to consumers, but it has to be something they like to bite. As an example of a failure look at DVD-Audio. The idea was to increase the fidelity of audio, but also to get some copyprotection. It features CPPM, which is better than CSS and of course way better than the nothing CDs feature. Problem is that they couldn't move it. Only audiophiles bought the hardware so even though the content industry liked it, they had to keep making CDs, and in fact very few DVD-As were made.
So a new DRM could potentially come out with a new connector and format, but it has to be something you can convince people they want to buy. Just trying to say "Nope, you need HDCPv2 now," would do nothing. Nobody would buy it, since it would work less well than the HDCPv1 stuff on the market.
I wonder if it's possible to make a hardware HDCP to DVI converter without having to make a custom ASIC. That way there wouldn't be the need to depend on a lone (probably chinese) supplier.
Hardware should be something like this: http://www.thisnext.com/item/C582EA3E/E0650FCC/2-Channel-Dual-Link-DVI-FPGA
(actually, that board's way over the top... the FPGA on it is higher spec than I imagine would be required, there'll be no need for the expansion RAM as most FPGAs these days have more than enough internal RAM for this kind of thing, and it won't need the expandability designed onto that board, but you get my point: the hardware you'll need already exists)
The design to load onto the FPGA should be relatively easy for anyone skilled in both crypto and digital electronic design. I'd expect to see one released within the next couple of weeks, judging by how many people I've seen complaining about not being able to use their non-HDCP-compatible monitors to watch stuff.
The DMCA allows for reverse-engineering for interoperability. So, eat a dick Intel.
No sig for you!!
As others have mentioned, an FPGA would be the way to go. This would also take care of the DMCA issue - some type of open digital video capture project could sell FPGA based capture cards to encode non-HDCP DVI/HDMI video sources, and thus not violate the DMCA. Since the FPGA is easily software upgradeable, the end-user could update it after purchase to also decode HDCP much like how libdvdcss is handled today.
The biggest benefit is not for piracy (99% of pirates wouldn't bother and would just download the content instead) but rather to allow one to capture and encode digital HD video from their cable box for a home media server setup. It's unfortunate that such a practice isn't protected by fair use since it is a perfectly legitimate use case.
There are already chips out there that can do HDMI with HDCP (e.g. Analog Devices AD9393) if you supply a key.
So it should be a matter of using one of these plus a key derived from this intel master key.
You obviously don't need them. All you have to do it say "it's illegal."
The first rule of libdvdcss2 is YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT LIBDVDCSS2!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
These are supposedly using "legitimate" HDCP keys to get access to the protected data (the input to your stripper). It is my understanding that these keys could be revoked, making that stripper (and probably all the others of the same model which use the same key) useless.
This new "crack" allows you to generate new and perfectly valid keys, making the device's "authorization" irrevocable.
Yes, right ... DMCA ... Lucky, we don't all live in a country with such bad laws. This is only a threat for people living in USA and UK, where you have a DMCA. In a country like France, it's perfectly legal to do anything you want with a blue-ray disk, or with any device. You can open it, decompile it, reverse-engineer what you want, do as many copy of any material as you like (as long as you don't give it to anyone), etc.
In other countries, like China, they absolutely don't care about copyright. Even more, in some web sites like pps.tv, you have access to absolutely all the films you can think of for free, with the benediction of the state (and I'd add a wild guess: that sees in it a way to reduce imports).
It's needed for interoperability. You know, you have a high definition TV from before the HCDP was available or fixed, so you need this info in order to make your Blu Ray player work with your high definition TV.
Or with Linux.
Or with BeOS.
Or with...
What ever the data rate is supposed to max out at I haven't seen anywhere close to that (I'm looking at you Rogers). I see more compression artifacts then detail, especially on sports broadcasts. The only content that would really use it to its potential would be BluRay media. YMMV
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.