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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 quick

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”?
        account42 4y ago
        Yes, well more precisely WoW64 [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoW64 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoW64
      - squarefoot 4y ago
        Ironically, by then the best Windows 32bit compatibility layer might come from Linux with WINE and other tools using it. https://www.winehq.org/ https://www.winehq.org/ https://lutris.net/ https://lutris.net/ https://www.playonlinux.com/en/ https://www.playonlinux.com/en/
        4y ago
- 1980phipsi 4y ago
  You have to pay for an upgrade on Windows to even play a Bluray movie.
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    Which is a good thing, if you think about it. It means that the vast majority of people who have no desire to play Blu-ray movies on their PC don't have to foot the bill for licensing.
- taylodl 4y ago
  You purchased a license to view the media content. I don't agree with this philosophy, I see it as a variant of "right to repair" that we should call "right to own", but that's the way it is for now.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - nmeagent 4y ago
    That's the way it is just as long as we tolerate it, so don't.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  > 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. It doesn't seem like that. It is like that. Welcome to modern tech, where the management, perception, control and tactical destruction of real value is the only place left to eek out a profit margin. We build 8 core CPUs and blow e-fuses in the factory to make them 4 cores. As resources dwindle and the planet fills with e-waste this disgusting, unethical wanton destruction of value continues because we've normalised it.
  - kortilla 4y ago
    > We build 8 core CPUs and blow e-fuses in the factory to make them 4 cores. As resources dwindle and the planet fills with e-waste this disgusting, unethical wanton destruction of value continues because we've normalised it. This is a bad follow-on example because artificial price differentiation is sometimes what it takes to make a business viable. Making an actually worse model in the processor case has far more fixed costs than re-using the existing pipeline. The business wouldn’t be viable selling all of the processors at lower nor would it be as strong leaving out the lower income segment. The alternative world is you get no affordable processor at all and the 8-core version costs 200% more due to the volume lost. Finally, this ignores that processors selected for lower tiers can be chosen precisely because they didn’t meet the bar for the high performance batch. So if they had proceeded to treat it as an 8-core it would have had thermal issues and an 80% reduced life.
    - ambicapter 4y ago
      > artificial price differentiation is sometimes what it takes to make a business viable Sometimes wage theft is what it takes to make a business viable, so I don't really buy this as an argument. > processors selected for lower tiers can be chosen precisely because they didn’t meet the bar for the high performance batch This is a better argument > The alternative world is you get no affordable processor at all You probably do, just maybe their performance doesn't double every year. I would say that's probably an interesting tradeoff to make, depending on how catastrophic one thinks the state of the world is today.
- mikestew 4y ago
  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. Which is why some of us were rooting for the somewhat-more-consumer-friendly HD-DVD. In retrospect, given the choice, there was no way in hell the industry was going with a "more consumer-friendly" anything.
- kube-system 4y ago
  If the bar for “owning” something is that it is guaranteed to function unchanged 20+ years from now without exception, then I don’t own very much stuff.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    That bar include able to resell it and inability of company selling to have control over the product.
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.

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”?
        account42 4y ago
        Yes, well more precisely WoW64 [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoW64 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoW64
    - squarefoot 4y ago
      Ironically, by then the best Windows 32bit compatibility layer might come from Linux with WINE and other tools using it. https://www.winehq.org/ https://www.winehq.org/ https://lutris.net/ https://lutris.net/ https://www.playonlinux.com/en/ https://www.playonlinux.com/en/
      - 4y ago
1980phipsi 4y ago
You have to pay for an upgrade on Windows to even play a Bluray movie.
- jaywalk 4y ago
  Which is a good thing, if you think about it. It means that the vast majority of people who have no desire to play Blu-ray movies on their PC don't have to foot the bill for licensing.
taylodl 4y ago
You purchased a license to view the media content. I don't agree with this philosophy, I see it as a variant of "right to repair" that we should call "right to own", but that's the way it is for now.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nmeagent 4y ago
  That's the way it is just as long as we tolerate it, so don't.
nonrandomstring 4y ago
> 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. It doesn't seem like that. It is like that. Welcome to modern tech, where the management, perception, control and tactical destruction of real value is the only place left to eek out a profit margin. We build 8 core CPUs and blow e-fuses in the factory to make them 4 cores. As resources dwindle and the planet fills with e-waste this disgusting, unethical wanton destruction of value continues because we've normalised it.
- kortilla 4y ago
  > We build 8 core CPUs and blow e-fuses in the factory to make them 4 cores. As resources dwindle and the planet fills with e-waste this disgusting, unethical wanton destruction of value continues because we've normalised it. This is a bad follow-on example because artificial price differentiation is sometimes what it takes to make a business viable. Making an actually worse model in the processor case has far more fixed costs than re-using the existing pipeline. The business wouldn’t be viable selling all of the processors at lower nor would it be as strong leaving out the lower income segment. The alternative world is you get no affordable processor at all and the 8-core version costs 200% more due to the volume lost. Finally, this ignores that processors selected for lower tiers can be chosen precisely because they didn’t meet the bar for the high performance batch. So if they had proceeded to treat it as an 8-core it would have had thermal issues and an 80% reduced life.
  - ambicapter 4y ago
    > artificial price differentiation is sometimes what it takes to make a business viable Sometimes wage theft is what it takes to make a business viable, so I don't really buy this as an argument. > processors selected for lower tiers can be chosen precisely because they didn’t meet the bar for the high performance batch This is a better argument > The alternative world is you get no affordable processor at all You probably do, just maybe their performance doesn't double every year. I would say that's probably an interesting tradeoff to make, depending on how catastrophic one thinks the state of the world is today.
mikestew 4y ago
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. Which is why some of us were rooting for the somewhat-more-consumer-friendly HD-DVD. In retrospect, given the choice, there was no way in hell the industry was going with a "more consumer-friendly" anything.
kube-system 4y ago
If the bar for “owning” something is that it is guaranteed to function unchanged 20+ years from now without exception, then I don’t own very much stuff.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  That bar include able to resell it and inability of company selling to have control over the product.

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.