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MacBooks Enter a Golden Age of Anti-piracy Cruft: HDCP For All
- axod 18y agoThe irony is if you're geeky enough to connect your computer up to a big display to watch movies etc, you're certainly geeky enough to circumvent a little popup warning.
- nailer 18y agoHDCP is implemented in the video card. The output is encrypted and the HDCP certified device decrypts. However, ultimately the OS either enforces it or doesn't. And the OS has been pretty weak so far. Addenda: I'm not talking about iTunes, I'm talking about the OS, which iTunes uses to display video.
- m_eiman 18y agoNo need to hack iTunes, just download the movie in a DRM-free format. I've heard that there are places on the Net that has things like that, something with pirates and a bay? But sure, if the Blu-Ray replacement happens to have a working protection system they might finally pull it off. Too bad for them that the last part of the delivery chain will always be unprotected, unless they find a way to put HDCP in Eye 1.0 wetware.
- nailer 18y agoSure, but the pirated HD version had to remove the DRM in the first place (eg, some Blu Ray titles require HDCP, which you have to remove to rip it).
- m_eiman 18y agoYup. But figuring out how to do it will probably take longer than the download!
- nailer 18y agoAye, but someone's figured it out, hence making the download possible. It's might seem like a chicken and egg discussion, but it isn't: the crack needs to come first. But once one person cracks it, the content is available for everyone else.
- jbert 18y ago> Too bad for them that the last part of the delivery chain will always be unprotected, unless they find a way to put HDCP in Eye 1.0 wetware That won't help you record it if there is sufficient pressure on the small number of manafacturers of recording devices: I would imagine it would be possible to create something like a EURion for video and audio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation
- jcl 18y agoI think it would actually be a lot harder to apply something like EURion to video or audio, because of user expectations. Video and audio recorders are not expected to duplicate an existing artifact but to make a record, something you usually only get one chance to make. A EURion measure would be prone to abuse, breaking the user expectation that the given event had been correctly recorded. The obvious example: What if a guy robbed a bank wearing a EURion t-shirt? None of the security cameras would record him, unless you had some exception for security cameras. And once you have an exception for security cameras, do you have an exception for, say, home security cameras? If so, anyone will be able to get a circumventing camera; if not, a lot of people will be upset.
- jbert 18y agoI don't know how varied the possible DRM policies are, but it would seem possible to implement a 'generation counter' for DRM'd media which would restrict the number of copies. e.g. the output of a video camera could be tagged with "allow 3 copies only". Each DRM-aware copy produced would decrement the # of allowed copies. The copied file would have an allowed-count of 0. If a EURion-like image triggered this mode on the camera then that would probably be sufficient for manufacturers to avoid liability, but still serve to effectively close the "analog hole" (not really analog, but hey). Yes, it all does seem unlikely. But so does tagging of printer output with yellow dots and EURion, and DRM in general. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_steganography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_steganography
- marvin 18y ago
- newt0311 18y agoSwitch to linux and the OS stops caring entirely.
- tptacek 18y agoAnd so does everyone else, because Linux won't play the content we're talking about.
- nailer 18y agoYes it does. You could play HD-DVD media on Linux - I have personally done it. I'm relatively sure you may play Blu-Ray too. It's just like playing WMV or WMA - all you need is a codec - plus a tool to handle the DRM, which, as we're all aware, is inevitably created the day after the DRM is released.
- tptacek 18y agoThere's still no permanent break for Blu Ray BD+; there are still titles that Slysoft can't play, and no evidence that the next Macrovision refresh won't stall Slysoft for months. You are drastically oversimplifying.
- nailer 18y agoBD+ was broken last week, as I understand. The VM that implements both BD+ content and BD+ encryption schemes can be emulated. What's left?
- wmf 18y agoI think the VM is emulated only well enough to run existing bytecode samples. If a studio can discover a bytecode sequence that executes differently on the licensed and unlicensed VMs, they can use that code in future movies.
- tptacek 18y agoBochs can emulate X86 quite well. Does Bochs itself bypass X86 copy protection code? There's two obstacles: (1) The VM emulation has to be perfect, and the Slysoft and open source emulation is reverse engineered. Reactos is Win32 reversed from one of the easiest platforms in the industry to reverse, and it's not perfect; BD+ was designed to be hard to reverse. (2) Once the VM is perfect, so that the next 20 revs of Macrovision's protection code can't just go peek at some dark corner of the VM that Slysoft didn't know about, you still have to use that emulator to beat every successive program that Macrovision chooses to run on it. A major challenge for SPDC, the underlying technology behind BD+, was that it had to be implemented autonomously by numerous consumer electronics companies, most of whom have no expertise in the areas of CS (compilers, virtual machine runtimes, content protection) that BD+ plays in. I expect it to get better over time, not worse.
- tptacek 18y agoOS X is weaker in this regard than Vista; Vista won't play protected content if the kernel includes unsigned code. But OS X will get there.
- trezor 18y agoHDCP only matters to people who support DRM with their money. Disclaimer: Not me.
- timtrueman 18y agoMy thoughts exactly. I only purchase media that is DRM-free. Amazon's MP3 store for instance. If they want to make more money they can start by offering more content as DRM-free because otherwise I'm not buying…
- Tichy 18y agoIs Amazon DRM free? Doesn't it encode the name of the buyer in the MP3? (I honestly don't know, it just seems likely they do that).
- wvenable 18y agoEncoding the name of the buyer in the MP3 is not DRM. It doesn't restrict your usage of the media in any way. If they do that, I fully support it.
- Tichy 18y agoIt restricts your ability to sell the MP3. I can sell a CD, which to me factors into the price (assuming I could sell the CD for half of the new price eventually).
- noamsml 18y agoColor me unimpressed. Encoding a buyer's name is fair game. You still have full control of the info you got.
- Tichy 18y agoI didn't say that it is not fair, but I think it definitely is DRM. So maybe it is an example of fair use of DRM. I still prefer my MP3s name-free, but that only means that I would pay more for name-free than for named MP3s.
- maximilian 18y agoI would be sooo pissed if the movie i downloaded wouldn't play on my regular TV or projector I setup or something. I don't understand why they would require encryption for an analog out? Even a digital out. The movie-cracker people do everything in software anyway, so it seems like there's really no point in encrypting the transmission link.
- tptacek 18y agoMovie crackers won't necessarily be doing everything in software for long; several major software media components --- like iTunes, Windows Media Player and Windows protected media pathways --- remain effectively unbroken. DRM is steadily improving, to the point where the "analog gap" is becoming more important.
- pshc 18y agoDon't they remain unbroken only because there are currently paths of lesser resistance? And iTunes is already routinely hijacked to strip DRM from the iTunes Store.
- tptacek 18y agoiTunes is not "routinely hijacked". The current incarnation of iTunes DRM hasn't had a published break since iTunes 6, several years ago. The conventional wisdom maintains that all DRM schemes can be broken, and that's true, if you ignore cost. It is far from proven that all DRM schemes can be broken with costs proportional to the rewards.
- lutorm 18y agoDoes anyone else think that this is incredibly creepy? If this goes on unchecked, it's just a matter of time until you're not allowed to code unless you have a license from the RIAA...
- Tichy 18y agoWell you are not allowed to code for the iPhone unless you have a license from Apple. I wonder when they will do the same to their desktop computers. It is not as if companies haven't tried that scheme (see Microsoft "certified software" and stuff like that).
- Zev 18y agoYou can code without paying for the dev certificate. The SDK is a free download. You just can't put apps on the app store or your phone without having a cert. There's a slight difference.
- Tichy 18y agoWell I guess even in the future we will still be allowed to play air guitar, as long as we don't whistle along with the tune.
- asciilifeform 18y agoOpen any LCD monitor. The ribbon cable which connects the VGA/DVI/HDMI decoder board to the LCD panel itself (a separate product, of which there are only a few manufacturers) carries an entirely unencrypted and fairly well-documented signal. With an <$100 FPGA, any HDMI monitor can be turned into a decryptor.
- bestes 18y agoIs it really this easy? Has anyone done it? Are these for sale anywhere?
- wmf 18y agoNobody has done it because that's not the weakest link in the chain. It's easier to just decrypt the file in software.
- asciilifeform 18y agoThe purpose of doing this would be to create a proof-of-concept, a piece of "hacktivism" if you will: showing that the analog hole is forever un-pluggable. In this case, "analog hole" would be a misnomer - a fully decrypted digital signal must exist in order to drive the LCD glass.
- wmf 18y agoI suspect that would just motivate the MPAA to bog us down with more DRM.
- stcredzero 18y agoActually, they could just take legal action through the DMCA.
- asciilifeform 18y agoPost the schematics anonymously. Host in a neutral country. It's been done.
- cmars232 18y agoGreat. Now we have to get modchips for our laptops too?
- stanley 18y agoYou can find more MacBook hacking stories here - http://www.applemacbook.com/mods http://www.applemacbook.com/mods