AACS is Unbreakable!

OK, that's pretty funny.

You knew it was coming, didn't think it'd come so fast tho!

well, that certainly was a good production. Hopefully they didn't spend too much time making the movie, and actually spent it doing what they say they are doing. I'm fairly unconvinced (but the theatrics of it was fun).

edit: dang, vsv you're right, it's a security hole (read keys from memory).

Unfortunately I'm not 371t3 so I don't know where/how to get the title key from memory.

I will say, this might be a good thing for people with The Hulk. PowerDVD goes into file mode and won't play this disc, because of a rogue text file on the root of the disc... it looks like if you had the title key for this disc, you could make a backup of the disc and play it back that way... that's the only disc that won't play on PowerDVD right now from what I gather.

mod

deleted post: it is not appropriate to post this on AVS...sorry

AACS is a joke!
We will have a HD-DVD Decryptor by the end of January. The movie was just the tip of the ice berg. Sorry Hollywood, there are too many smarter people on this earth that will circumvent anything and everything you throw at them!
So sad for you!

Ha, BD+ is next. The only way to beat the watermark is through the players though, I suspect. How long will it take for a PS3 app that defeats the watermark if implemented, I wonder...

I was actually upset to hear this news. Fox, George Lucas, Disney, Spielberg will take this into account if they consider (or reconsider) releasing on HD DVD.

I hope at least BD is broken as well to level the playing field.

Having done a lot of software security work, I cannot believe AACS designers would make such a dumb move as to make the decrypt key so readily available on the disk. It really blows my mind.

Ditto, I hope BD+ is broken as well.

That's gonna take longer, because a drive isn't cheap enough yet. I wanted to buy one when the latest PowerDVD was released last week, but they're still going for 600-700.

The liteon LH-2E1S can be had for $500 - if you can find it in stock anywhere.

That was my thought as well. Fox will certainly feel justified in their pressure for the need for the BD+ overlay, though I doubt it will hold up any better over time.


My guess is that the availability of the HD-DVD add-on drive is what spurred this one on. Are there any PC BD drives out yet? If not, then it will likely be some time before you see anything like this for BD.


I also work in the information security field, and if they're reading the a key from memory that gets them an unencrypted Title Key, then there's not much anyone can do. PC operating systems don't have the mechanisms in place to stop that sort of activity.

If we take a step back and think about this for a moment we will see that it is virtually impossible to create a method of encryption that cannot be broken.

Consider the following:

WMA encryption - Broken
WGA activation - Broken
DVD encryption - Broken
Vista Activation Protection - Broken
128bit SSL - Broken
MD5 - Broken

I can go on, but there will never be a method that will provide the protection they want. I have said it many times before and I'll say it again, "If a man can create it then a man can break it".

ahahah..oh boy, this is good stuff.

This guy should time his release to have it come out just prior to CES. It should be all over the internet and the studios should see it.

There's unbreakable encryption out there (I mean, unless you're NSA with alien qubit processors you're not breaking 4096-bit RSA) but it's not appropriate for this application. The only thing I can imagine giving the ??AA what they want for protection would be some form of quantum encryption that would destroy any data intercepted between the playback end and display end, which at the very least would require new hardware.

This is terrible news if true!

if this is really true. then it will be very intresting to see what the movie studios will do. they always complain about piracy. well then it is a a good time to see if they are hypocrytes or not.

if this is hacked and they keep on releasing, then they can never ever use the excuse anymore of piracy, because they simply could stop producing the discs at this moment and continue when the hack is fixed.

ah well intresting times ahead indeed. if true. it will be very intresting to see what happens.

It's just a matter of time. There was a thread recently where someone figured out how to dump the contents of a BD to the PS3's hard drive.

Oh, and there are PC BD burners available from Sony and Liteon. The high cost is probably preventing a lot of hackers from attempting it.

I change my comments. I no longer strongly doubt the veracity of Muslix84s' claims. Apparently no subtitles, no ff, no rewind but he has found some way.

I have no HD DVD drive to test it out on and I don't feel like testing it period. I'm happy just renting/buying movies and staying out of legal barriers but the author is correct. The issue of getting the keys is still up in the air as the RAM should be protected during transfer, but if he doesn't actually circumvent any protections of AACS, he may be doing this somewhat less illegally...

Higher density discs mean more incentive to backup the disc rather than lose it to a scratch or defect. His reasoning is somewhat solid (like deCSS was for linux users). Also, there is a strong argument for fair use in the ability to make copies of titles you own for backups.

That is a strong claim for this ability and without managed copy, the consumer is left to fend for themselves...

If studios get out managed copy though, then this software will easily be shown as piracy software as there will be more legit avenues of obtaining copies of your own legally purchased software.

if aacs on HD-DVD does turn out to be this easy to crack, i see a massive surge in the uptake of HD-DVD players pretty soon, if Blue-ray remains uncracked, then HD-DVD will have the advantage - wider installed user base. This is a huge advancement for HD-DVD, wether the studios like it or not. Look at DVD's and the widespread piracy, its so easy to copy a dvd these days, and yet unpirated discs continue to sell phenominal amounts. same as playstation 2 games, xbox games etc...

I'm not sure who said "AACS is unbreakable" ... but surely anyone in IT shouldn't say that.

Looks like it is the powerdvd implementation that is the problem ... has keys in memory.

BTW, on the question of unbreakability .... there is a primary problem with encryption. Consumers need to have the decrypting key - legally - to be able to play the content. So, it is just a question of hiding that key from them ....

You don't need to be the NSA to break that type of encryption.

Consider distributed computing projects such the world community grid for a moment and the type of processing power technology like that can start to muster.

Would 1000 people be willing to help break an encryption scheme such as AACS if processor power was needed? How about 10,000? 100,000?

How much in computing resources is needed? I'll say you could have anywhere from between 1500GHz to 300,000GHz available to the right project.

Another consideration is that the type of encryption you're referring to is typically used to encrypt communications over an insecure connection between two secure locations. Since we (hardware owners) control both locations that are communicating and the connection between them it will only be a matter of time no matter what happens.

Am I the only one worried that studios might not announce any new titles for a while?

MS is on it! When's the new version of powerdvd coming?

Yeah sure, that's why they don't do DVD anymore.. don't they?

Nice!

You know what the best protection is? reasonable prices, good quality encoding, a comprehensive collectible manual and good artwork on the disc, and any other extra that would make owning an original disc worthwhile. Combo discs are certainly not helping, nor are poor encodes, dirty source prints, and a history of double dippping.

I have thought since the beginning though. The format that makes duplication the easiest will be the one to gain the most support of comsumers. I for one wouldn't mind being able to back up my discs, especially since HD discs are more susceptible to red errors due to minor scratches.

??

I disagree. DVD had critical mass going for it. I don't know if this is really a way around AACS here, but if it is then I expect Warner to have some internal meetings to talk about this. Possibly along with the subject of Microsoft effectively blocking them from using ICT anytime soon by releasing a player with no digital output (the XBOX360 plus add-on). People can dislike this as much as they want, but if a company like Warner decides that BD+ might make them a little safer and decides to release on Blu-ray only, then the majority of those who care about getting their movies in nice HD will still buy them. I'm not saying that they will, but if there is anything besides bad sales that could get Warner or Paramount to switch to Blu-ray only, AACS getting cracked would be what I would put at the top of the list. If HD DVD got compromised more than Blu-ray a year or two from now it would likely be a much different story than when today when Toshiba claims to have just 100,000 players worldwide and there might be around 200,000 XBOX360 add-ons in use (and the might even be on the high side).

I bet AACS getting cracked would also make Disney less likely to go neutral. Not sure about Lions Gate, who I had been expecting to go neutral at CES.

--Darin

So is this going to bring on the ICT flags? I have a 360 addon, should I return it for a standalone player? Just in case?

I don't see why this would bring on ICT... this was done completely in the digital domain. I'm still a bit skeptical, based on the discontinuity in the film, but I will say I wouldn't be surprised.