HD DVD goes another step : revealing 'remote networked control'

You forgot the first two paragraphs of the linked article:

its the second gen universal player. Waiting to see if there will be any 1.1 player this month

This is it. First one - The LG BH200.

First title comes out this year, huh? I'm looking forward to seeing what exactly it is and how this functionality enhances the end user's experience.

That sounds really cool. I'd love to see how it works.

Interesting tidbit, can't wait to see what they have cooked up.

Is this what Warner is calling "Live Community Screening - organize a virtual screening party" on Order of the Phoenix?...

Although, the article mentions the director offering a session...certainly not a whole lot different whether it's your uncle controlling the party or a director.

http://dvd.themanroom.com/dvd-cover.php?did=4032

Nice!!......I have to say it's nice to see HD DVD doesn't find it necessary to wait around for Blu-ray to catch up...

i feel like a 16yo again. How more cool can that be !!

I hope it's Timecop...

Me too. I can't believe people eat this gimmicky $h!t up.

i bet it will enhance user experience MUCH MORE than BD+

Yeah, I don't understand how that whole "internet" gimmick ever caught on either.

No kidding. People can downplay IME and U-control all they want but once you play around with a movie that has those features, every other release just feels like a pretty DVD. This is what next generation media is about.

how long before hackers can figure out how to take full control of ur HD DVD player over the Internet

and do what with it? what possible point would there be to remotely taking over an HD DVD player?

No ****.

Just cracking open my copies of Bandai Freedom I and II.

Already flabbergasted.

That is some cool stuff.

Some of the Heroes interactivity is very cool to me as well, and of course there is 300.

and for what reasons? PC yes but a dvd player?

Sony could **** with the machines so they don't work and we all have to go out and buy BD players. Not that I haven't already.

i cant guess a hacker's motivation.. maybe for fame or for fun or for challenge
i wasn't expecting the internet functionality of HD DVD to be two-way (running a Internet service that accepts outside connections vs only running as a client).
Is the benefit of such functionality outweigh the possible security concern?

I imagine this will be done by having the HD DVD software poll for events from the server, and the server does the heavy lifting. Any exploits would have to target a particular IP in that case, and spoof the address it came from, and manage to spoof the entire TCP session. Not impossible if you can stage a man in the middle attack but why would you do this? You're not going to be able to do much of anything permanent, at most send incorrect directions so the user isn't seeing the same scene or whatever. This is a non issue.

The ability of a 2nd or 3rd gen HD DVD player to do anything is very firmware controlled, a hacker could really only do something on the network that is a identifed function in the firmware, like look and seek to a specific network storage location, when that kind of feature is enabled.

I guess in theory the Linux operating system in the first gen HD A1s and HD XA1s could be hacked but there is no joy joy in that as they are two years old next year and limited in number.

Not a lot of mischief to be found versus the hacker joy in multifunction PCs.

This kind of interacticity is permission granted, probably from a optical disc's menu , so unless you had a hacker burn a HD DVD ROM and send it out, or get a backdoor into firmware , the website you connect to is going to be secure.

But a zombie HD DVD player is no fun, the only possible bad thing would be a hacker spoof or takeover of a linked server that would download naughty pictures or videos to the players persistent memory or network storage.

Any real bad thing like having a home networked HD DVD do bad things to other networked PCs or storage device is firmware limited, and would not be enabled unless the firmware was really screwed up to enable it.

But studios and the HD DVD PRG and Toshiba have already been thinking about stopping that.

and please god, let them be in hidef!!

So, is it possible to write a HDi application on a HD DVD that open a port on a player and accepts outside connections?
if yes, it opens a possible attack whereby a malformed packet can be sent to a player to crash it or run foreign code?

It would have to have access to the firmware update application, to basically start to be enabled as a protected firmware update session.

Then what it would do is mimic a legitimate firmware update but then end up corrupting the firmware and bricking the player, like what could theoretically happen if you powered down or pulled the power cord at a critical time in a legitimate firmware update.

But legitimate firmware that is enabled to run on a player is key and security protected, so the only way that could happen is a rogue insider corporate programmer with access to the legitimate firmware source code or encryption methods. Not likely from a hacker.

HDi does not get permission to modify the firmware, only do things the firmware already allows it to do. So a rogue HDi application would not be able to do bad things except for those things the firmware already allows, like maybe sharing your bookmarks or downloaded trailers, or other legitimate persistent storage items. No joy joy there.

Sounds like another gimmick.

I'd be very suprised if this catches on.

DEFINITION:

gimmick (gim-ik)- any feature that the HD DVD format has that the Blu-ray format doesn't.

So with this feature, I can hack into Lee's and xboxboi's HD-DVD players mid movie and press eject? Instant cup holder

Is there anything on a disc worth controlling remotely anyway? It might possibly scratch the bottom of the useful barrel if it was used in conjunction with a live video or audio feed from the internet, but by itself it's next to useless.

Hmmm. Sounds like the HD camp really, really, really does want a PS3 afterall.