6 ms·

> DVDs were regionally locked as well To be fair, those of us who tend to complain about these things also raised hell about DVDs back then. Geo-locking is suc

by the_af 4y ago

> DVDs were regionally locked as well To be fair, those of us who tend to complain about these things also raised hell about DVDs back then. Geo-locking is such an obviously bad idea for consumers. It was such a relief when the restrictions were hacked away (was it that an encryption key got leaked? I don't remember the details).

gjsman-1000 4y ago
DVD has an incredibly weak 40-bit encryption scheme due to US regulations on exporting cryptography when it was developed. As a result, it was broken very quickly after launch. It has no real key revocation system (just stop including keys for certain defeated devices in new releases), and nowadays a computer can brute-force every possible decryption key within seconds, rendering revoking stolen drive keys completely pointless. As the region lock is enforced by software only, an unofficial player like VLC does not need to pay the region lock any heed. Blu-ray on the other hand... well, where do I start? 128-bit AES, key revocation, host authentication, virtual machine fixup tables, digital signing, Media Key Block updating, Java applications... Let's just say Blu-ray is stuck in an odd place where the underlying technology isn't really that defeated, even though hackers have made keeping up with their stolen device keys from hacked players very impractical for the Blu-ray Disc Association. (Revoking a drive key requires a 90-day heads up for manufacturers to roll out new keys for the effected model, which means that if hackers manage to steal 4 device keys per year... from over a decade and a half of different players, many not receiving updates anymore...)
- josteink 4y ago
  > Blu-ray on the other hand... well, where do I start? 128-bit AES, key revocation, host authentication, virtual machine fixup tables, digital signing, Media Key Block updating, Java applications... It would almost seem like most of the engineering for the Blu-ray format went into things which very specifically doesn’t act in the interest of the buyer. Given the current state of things, I wouldn’t count Blurays as media you actually physically own. You’re permitted to watch them, for now, but there’s no guarantee that will remain true 20+ years in the future.
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    The same could be said though of DVD. Remember that DVD is completely proprietary - we've just done a fantastic job reverse-engineering it. Blu-ray, ironically, is still proprietary, but the specification on how the DRM is implemented is actually public information and you can just download that online. You won't get the required encryption key for your new device without a contract though for it to work, but if you want to read the details, that's fine. https://aacsla.com/aacs-specifications/ https://aacsla.com/aacs-specifications/ Ultimately, if all the manufacturers decide to stop sale, there's nothing you can do about that. I'm not too worried about Blu-ray yet, as it is still in the PS5 and Xbox Series X, and I don't think gamers will be excited about losing physical media as an option (considering PS5 with Disc has outsold the Disc-free version, like, 4-1).
    - happymellon 4y ago
      Steam is the only online games store that has given me any levels of comfort that I'll still be able to get access to my games after 10 years. Even then, I'm still not 100% confident that I'll be able to access everything in 25 years time. I have no reason the believe that Sony and Microsoft won't shut them down like they already have done with the PS3 store.
      - mattl 4y ago
        Do you think eventually Windows will drop 32-bit support like Mac OS X did? What will that mean for a lot of those games?
        account42 4y ago
        WoW is already an optional component that is not always installed in server editions.
        mattl 4y ago
        WoW is the name of the piece that runs 32 bit software? “Windows on Windows”?
- loufe 4y ago
  Thanks for taking the time to write this, it's fascinating.
- sbf501 4y ago
  DeCSS was "cracked" because Xing accidentally included an unencrypted key in their firmware. The encryption wasn't cracked, it was subverted by poor security practices. If Xing hadn't screwed up, it may have been another decade before it was possible to rip a DVD, waiting for some other manufacturer to screw up.
  - throwaway08642 4y ago
  - pdntspa 4y ago
    I had friends running timing attacks against the Xbox 360 encryption key around that time, they never publicly disclosed their work but I saw them playing games on a hacked firmware around mid 2000s. No reason to think this wouldn't be the same for the CSS encryption key.
barelysapient 4y ago
And let's not forget, that if you brought your DVD player with you, you could still play your DVD's no matter what region you were physically in.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  And if you ordered a disc from abroad, you could completely legally import a disc player from, say, the UK and play your region-locked Blu-ray Discs and DVDs that way (and still can, eBay.co.uk works fine). It's inconvenient but it does work, and is 100% legal and hack-free.
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    Power, tv, and plugs different.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    Or buy a worldwide player like Philips offered in the day that would play all regions
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  Except if your player wasn't conpatible with your TV of course. At the time DVD started prolifering more and more player and TVs had full support for NTSC, PAL and SECAM, but you could still be stuck with some hardware only supporting standard and your DVDs would be black and white or scrambled on the display side.
  - arthurcolle 4y ago
  - tjoff 4y ago
    True in theory but in practice it wasn't much of an issue. Especially as late as when the DVD came. And the purpose of it wasn't geo-restrictions either.
brabel 4y ago
I havea few DVDs I bought in my previous country... I remember first time I tried to play them in a player from the new country, it asked me if I wanted to "move" it to the new region... I think there were 2 "moves" allowed. So, anyway, I was able to play it, no worries.
borski 4y ago
DeCSS: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> Geo-locking is such an obviously bad idea for consumers. It was such a relief when the restrictions were hacked away (was it that an encryption key got leaked? I don't remember the details). DVD region locking didn't need to be hacked away; it operates purely on the honor system. There are 8 regions, and a DVD contains a single byte specifying which regions it should be allowed to be played in. If the bit for your region is clear, you can play the DVD. Or, of course, you can just ignore that byte, and play the DVD.
- wpietri 4y ago
  Now you can, but back in the day of hardware-only players, those were also region locked. So it was much stronger than an honor system originally.
wpietri 4y ago
Overall I think geo-locking was bad, but I wouldn't go this far: > Geo-locking is such an obviously bad idea for consumers. Depends a little on the consumers, really. Region-locking enabled them to sell cheaper copies in lower-wealth areas, the same way that movie ticket prices were lower. Without geo-locking, pricing strategy gets much more complicated, but it's a fair guess that consumers in regions 3-6 (that is, the majority of humanity) would have either paid more or gotten movies later.
- account42 4y ago
  > Without geo-locking, pricing strategy gets much more complicated, but it's a fair guess that consumers in regions 3-6 (that is, the majority of humanity) would have either paid more or gotten movies later. You are missing the most likely option: they would have "pirated" those movies. So again, the geo-locking is not realy for the good of the consumer but to ensure every last bit of profit can be extracted. Meanwhile, the main thing selling things cheaper to designated poor reason does is keep those regions from demanding fair payment for their work thus making them no longer poor regions that can be exploited.
babypuncher 4y ago
People complained, but I can't imagine the user experience of playing an NTSC DVD on a PAL player and TV would have been very good, or vice-versa. There isn't a clean way to convert between 50 and 59.94 fields per second. You would have ended up with either jittery playback or incorrect playback speed. The field sizes are also mismatched, which would have required some pretty gross scaling given late-'90s DVD player technology. Region-locking on Blu-Ray is 100% unnecessary. Fortunately, it has become increasingly common for discs to ship with no region restrictions. Of course all of this is moot when you're just slapping that disc in an optical drive and ripping it to a NAS, instead of using an "official" player.
- account42 4y ago
  Even for DVDs, the region locking also applied to computer drives (which typically only had a limited number of region changes) where NTSC vs. PAL were not a concern. Also, a 1.2x playback speed for the video is not even that noticeable - certainly a much better experience than no video. I intentially watch a lot of video contents sped up like that, even movies sometimes. Audio needs processing though to not pitch shift.

by the_af 4y ago

gjsman-1000 4y ago

DVD has an incredibly weak 40-bit encryption scheme due to US regulations on exporting cryptography when it was developed. As a result, it was broken very quickly after launch. It has no real key revocation system (just stop including keys for certain defeated devices in new releases), and nowadays a computer can brute-force every possible decryption key within seconds, rendering revoking stolen drive keys completely pointless. As the region lock is enforced by software only, an unofficial player like VLC does not need to pay the region lock any heed. Blu-ray on the other hand... well, where do I start? 128-bit AES, key revocation, host authentication, virtual machine fixup tables, digital signing, Media Key Block updating, Java applications... Let's just say Blu-ray is stuck in an odd place where the underlying technology isn't really that defeated, even though hackers have made keeping up with their stolen device keys from hacked players very impractical for the Blu-ray Disc Association. (Revoking a drive key requires a 90-day heads up for manufacturers to roll out new keys for the effected model, which means that if hackers manage to steal 4 device keys per year... from over a decade and a half of different players, many not receiving updates anymore...)

josteink 4y ago
> Blu-ray on the other hand... well, where do I start? 128-bit AES, key revocation, host authentication, virtual machine fixup tables, digital signing, Media Key Block updating, Java applications... It would almost seem like most of the engineering for the Blu-ray format went into things which very specifically doesn’t act in the interest of the buyer. Given the current state of things, I wouldn’t count Blurays as media you actually physically own. You’re permitted to watch them, for now, but there’s no guarantee that will remain true 20+ years in the future.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  The same could be said though of DVD. Remember that DVD is completely proprietary - we've just done a fantastic job reverse-engineering it. Blu-ray, ironically, is still proprietary, but the specification on how the DRM is implemented is actually public information and you can just download that online. You won't get the required encryption key for your new device without a contract though for it to work, but if you want to read the details, that's fine. https://aacsla.com/aacs-specifications/ https://aacsla.com/aacs-specifications/ Ultimately, if all the manufacturers decide to stop sale, there's nothing you can do about that. I'm not too worried about Blu-ray yet, as it is still in the PS5 and Xbox Series X, and I don't think gamers will be excited about losing physical media as an option (considering PS5 with Disc has outsold the Disc-free version, like, 4-1).
  - happymellon 4y ago
    Steam is the only online games store that has given me any levels of comfort that I'll still be able to get access to my games after 10 years. Even then, I'm still not 100% confident that I'll be able to access everything in 25 years time. I have no reason the believe that Sony and Microsoft won't shut them down like they already have done with the PS3 store.
    - mattl 4y ago
      Do you think eventually Windows will drop 32-bit support like Mac OS X did? What will that mean for a lot of those games?
      - account42 4y ago
        WoW is already an optional component that is not always installed in server editions.
        mattl 4y ago
        WoW is the name of the piece that runs 32 bit software? “Windows on Windows”?
loufe 4y ago
Thanks for taking the time to write this, it's fascinating.
sbf501 4y ago
DeCSS was "cracked" because Xing accidentally included an unencrypted key in their firmware. The encryption wasn't cracked, it was subverted by poor security practices. If Xing hadn't screwed up, it may have been another decade before it was possible to rip a DVD, waiting for some other manufacturer to screw up.
- throwaway08642 4y ago
- pdntspa 4y ago
  I had friends running timing attacks against the Xbox 360 encryption key around that time, they never publicly disclosed their work but I saw them playing games on a hacked firmware around mid 2000s. No reason to think this wouldn't be the same for the CSS encryption key.

barelysapient 4y ago

And let's not forget, that if you brought your DVD player with you, you could still play your DVD's no matter what region you were physically in.

gjsman-1000 4y ago
And if you ordered a disc from abroad, you could completely legally import a disc player from, say, the UK and play your region-locked Blu-ray Discs and DVDs that way (and still can, eBay.co.uk works fine). It's inconvenient but it does work, and is 100% legal and hack-free.
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  Power, tv, and plugs different.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  Or buy a worldwide player like Philips offered in the day that would play all regions
makeitdouble 4y ago
Except if your player wasn't conpatible with your TV of course. At the time DVD started prolifering more and more player and TVs had full support for NTSC, PAL and SECAM, but you could still be stuck with some hardware only supporting standard and your DVDs would be black and white or scrambled on the display side.
- arthurcolle 4y ago
- tjoff 4y ago
  True in theory but in practice it wasn't much of an issue. Especially as late as when the DVD came. And the purpose of it wasn't geo-restrictions either.

brabel 4y ago

I havea few DVDs I bought in my previous country... I remember first time I tried to play them in a player from the new country, it asked me if I wanted to "move" it to the new region... I think there were 2 "moves" allowed. So, anyway, I was able to play it, no worries.

borski 4y ago

DeCSS: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> Geo-locking is such an obviously bad idea for consumers. It was such a relief when the restrictions were hacked away (was it that an encryption key got leaked? I don't remember the details). DVD region locking didn't need to be hacked away; it operates purely on the honor system. There are 8 regions, and a DVD contains a single byte specifying which regions it should be allowed to be played in. If the bit for your region is clear, you can play the DVD. Or, of course, you can just ignore that byte, and play the DVD.

wpietri 4y ago
Now you can, but back in the day of hardware-only players, those were also region locked. So it was much stronger than an honor system originally.

wpietri 4y ago

Overall I think geo-locking was bad, but I wouldn't go this far: > Geo-locking is such an obviously bad idea for consumers. Depends a little on the consumers, really. Region-locking enabled them to sell cheaper copies in lower-wealth areas, the same way that movie ticket prices were lower. Without geo-locking, pricing strategy gets much more complicated, but it's a fair guess that consumers in regions 3-6 (that is, the majority of humanity) would have either paid more or gotten movies later.

account42 4y ago
> Without geo-locking, pricing strategy gets much more complicated, but it's a fair guess that consumers in regions 3-6 (that is, the majority of humanity) would have either paid more or gotten movies later. You are missing the most likely option: they would have "pirated" those movies. So again, the geo-locking is not realy for the good of the consumer but to ensure every last bit of profit can be extracted. Meanwhile, the main thing selling things cheaper to designated poor reason does is keep those regions from demanding fair payment for their work thus making them no longer poor regions that can be exploited.

babypuncher 4y ago

People complained, but I can't imagine the user experience of playing an NTSC DVD on a PAL player and TV would have been very good, or vice-versa. There isn't a clean way to convert between 50 and 59.94 fields per second. You would have ended up with either jittery playback or incorrect playback speed. The field sizes are also mismatched, which would have required some pretty gross scaling given late-'90s DVD player technology. Region-locking on Blu-Ray is 100% unnecessary. Fortunately, it has become increasingly common for discs to ship with no region restrictions. Of course all of this is moot when you're just slapping that disc in an optical drive and ripping it to a NAS, instead of using an "official" player.

account42 4y ago
Even for DVDs, the region locking also applied to computer drives (which typically only had a limited number of region changes) where NTSC vs. PAL were not a concern. Also, a 1.2x playback speed for the video is not even that noticeable - certainly a much better experience than no video. I intentially watch a lot of video contents sped up like that, even movies sometimes. Audio needs processing though to not pitch shift.