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Claim of a Blu-ray BD+ Crack

Posted by kdawson on Tue Oct 30, 2007 03:52 PM
from the cat-meet-mouse dept.
Google85 writes in with a brief Enquirer piece reporting on an announcement on a German site that SlySoft claims to have cracked BD+, the extra copy-protection layer in Blu-ray. Here is the German original.
+ -
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  • by Silverlancer (786390) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @03:54PM (#21176395)
    The amount of time the MPAA claims it will take to crack something (in this case, 10 years) is inversely related to how long it will actually take (in this case, a few weeks).
    • If that's the line they used to get exclusive deals with studios they're gonna have some 'splaining to do.
    • I reckon that you are right. ;)
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      ...and the beat goes on...
      ...and the beat goes on...

      Drums keep poundin' a rhythm to the brain...

      Let me know when they've got a copy-protection method that doesn't get cracked in a few weeks or months of its debut. Otherwise it's just the regular pattern.

      Maybe if they want their precious movies to avoid this, they should consider using a media that physically has no computer-based player...

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        > Let me know when they've got a copy-protection method that doesn't get cracked in a few weeks or months of its debut.

        Anyone cracked MagicGate yet?

        Heck, even AACS is just weakened, not really permanently broken. Though I suspect as long as they're giving keys to software players, it's going to keep getting cracked.
          • This raises an interesting point... why don't the movie moguls just go to a smart card based system? All hardware players are shipped with a SIM that comes from the distributors, software players require a reader hooked up to the PC. If a key is cracked, the SIM range is blocked on future discs, and a person needs to get their SIM replaced but can keep the same hardware. As with Direct TV, there are multiple ways to beat the system, but the moving target is MUCH easier for the media moguls to keep up with. On the PC side, this SIM card could also be used to provide online content to people with a specific disc in their drive, which would tie the SIM into a service agreement that could be revoked when evidence of tampering is found. Not that I'm FOR any of this mind you (except for the online streaming content), but this system seems so much more obviously effective than what they're trying to do right now. Think about it: buy the box set to your favourite TV show and get access to bonus features, interviews, and a sampling of later shows not included in the set via an online service via keys stored on your SIM and on the disc. They wouldn't even need user-side DRM, but could use it as device verification for your free subscription account instead.
    • by AchiIIe (974900) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @04:45PM (#21177003)
      It's great news but keep in mind the entire procedure has not been cracked yet. There are three major layers of security in a Blu Ray Player
      1) AACS (currently we have ways to sniff the code out of software, cat and mouse game for now) (Cracked - sort of)
      2) BD+ (The virtual machine decrypting the AACS content) (Cracked)
      3) BD ROM MARK - A small key that has been stored on the cd using alternate technological means. This is an extra key that is read using only BLU RAY players using mysterious methods.

      Without the BD ROM Mark the disk can't be decrypted quite yet.
      The article makes no claim that this has been cracked.
      • by Jherek Carnelian (831679) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @06:08PM (#21177883)

        Without the BD ROM Mark the disk can't be decrypted quite yet.
        The article makes no claim that this has been cracked.
        No, it just means that without the BD ROM-Mark (and the magic equipment needed to write it to another BD-ROM disc), a bit-for-bit copy can't be made. However, a remastered copy should present no problem at all.

        In other words, the BD ROM-Mark is not intended to stop access to the encrypted movie, it is intended to stop someone from duplicating the original disc without decrypting it all.
    • by feepness (543479) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @05:43PM (#21177639) Homepage

      The amount of time the MPAA claims it will take to crack something (in this case, 10 years) is inversely related to how long it will actually take (in this case, a few weeks).
      As further proof of your theory, DRM-free media will never be cracked.
  • I reckon (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2007, @03:55PM (#21176415)
    I reckon that what Slysoft reckons and what Sony reckons don't reckoncile... Man, you reckon they used reckon enough in that article on the Inq?
  • doom9 (Score:5, Informative)

    by legoman666 (1098377) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @03:57PM (#21176449)
    Some more info about it at http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=130527&page=5 [doom9.org] Knew it was only a matter of time...
  • by oahazmatt (868057) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @03:58PM (#21176467) Journal
    Dare we credit this blatant act of piracy to, yet again, a Sharpie?
  • by decken (883938) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @03:59PM (#21176477)
    TFA in English used the verb "reckon" four times in as many sentences. I reckon I ought to have struggled through the German.
  • by r_jensen11 (598210) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @03:59PM (#21176481)
    we can safely expect flood of new signatures on /.? Or is this unrelated to any encryption key?
  • Problems? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AlphaDrake (1104357) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @03:59PM (#21176485) Homepage
    Was it this extra layer of protection that was causing some players to have some ungodly load times that was mentioned on /. a little while ago? And if the companies spent half as much money on increasing space/fixing problems as they did useless protection schemes, we'd be on Terabyte sized dvd's by now :P
    • by tkrotchko (124118) * on Tuesday October 30 2007, @06:06PM (#21177859) Homepage
      I looked in my DVD collection the other day and I realized had purchased well over 300 DVD's. It just sorta happened. And I realized it's a tremendous waste of money and space for discs that, for the most part, are watched once and done. But the price point is low enough that they're an impulse buy every time we go to the warehouse club, and so everybody throws one in. I should probably sell them on ebay.

      Anyway, to my point. When I go to the store, new releases are $13-15, and 2-3 year old releases are typically under $10. I can't believe anybody copies for that price, particularly when you only watch once.

      So DVD piracy is effectively solved by lowering the price so it's just not worth it to the vast majority of people. If they get high definition disks down to under $15, this is really a moot point.

      The only reasons I can think spending this much time and effort by the record companies is either (a) They think that they'll eventually drive piracy out of the market allowing them to raise prices or (b) they're crazy control freaks who aren't completely rational. Or maybe both.
  • t-shirt (Score:5, Funny)

    by jibster (223164) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @04:00PM (#21176495)
    OK, now when will the T-Shirts be up on ThinkGeek?
    • Re:t-shirt (Score:4, Insightful)

      by legoman666 (1098377) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @04:04PM (#21176547)
      Slysoft is safeguarding their decryption method. So you won't see any t-shirts this time around. They worked hard to get here first, and they want to make their money off of it before others crack it also. Well deserved in my opinion.
  • Problems (Score:5, Insightful)

    by king-manic (409855) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @04:02PM (#21176517)
    Well DRM is a pretty hefty mountain to climb. How do you:

    1- Protect media with lock
    2- ensure customer can open lock with key to use
    3- ensure customer can't copy content with the same key

    Given enough time clever customers will always find your keys and always figure a way to copy your media. Isn't it better to stop trying and just offer products not licenses. The alternate route is to simply make copying hard enough to deter most people (console games + mod chips) or dial home to get some nifty extra features (MMORPG's).
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      The alternate route is to simply make copying hard enough to deter most people

      That's not an alternate route for the studios ... that is the route! From the early Macrovision anti-VHS-copying technique to Blu-Ray, the idea has never been to have an unbreakable protection system. They just want to eliminate casual copying, and to that end good old CSS does just fine, when you get right down to it..
      • Re:Problems (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Sneftel (15416) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @05:21PM (#21177423)
        That was a great idea when casual copying was the norm; that is, when sneakernet [wikipedia.org]'s bandwidth was several orders of magnitude greater than any other link. But now that P2P is a fact of life, "casual copying" is unimportant. What's important is "casual acquisition", and as long as even one guy can crack the protection there is no significant barrier possible to casual acquisition.
          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            True enough, at the current state of the art, network-wise. So ... if you were a big media company what would you do?

            Give up.

            No, seriously. All this copy protection is pissing off the paying customers who find that their TV, while quite capable of displaying HD signals, won't display this signal because Hollywood won't trust it. Or whose new PC is dedicating clock cycles every second of the day to enforcing a Hollywood-mandated lockdown on the whole system, and will crash the fuck out if anything's even

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            I would:

            * Cut it out with the byzantine copy protections.
            * Great special features, like deleted scenes and director's commentary-- content which is rarely maintained when ripping.
            * Ensure that there are insanely convenient, reasonably cost-effective legal distribution systems available.
            * Quit worrying so much. The industry's profits aren't falling off a cliff, and if they were going to they would have already.
          • Re:Problems (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Sloppy (14984) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @06:16PM (#21177963) Homepage Journal

            So ... if you were a big media company what would you do?

            Never fuck over a paying customer. Never do anything that causes my product to be inferior to a pirated copy. Never ever send the message, "We don't want your moneyl you might want to consider looking for a pirated copy instead." Ergo: no DRM. Don't try to prevent copying through technical means; don't do anything that prevents interoperability; don't do anything that restricts the availability of players, since that restricts my market.

            Go ahead and prosecute copyright infringers when it's easy to do so, but don't fixate on them. Keep existing customers, try to gain customers, but don't worry too much about people who aren't customers, except in terms of luring them.

            In other words, try to think of revenue as a desirable thing, rather than as something to snicker about when the stockholders aren't watching me.

    • Re:Problems (Score:4, Insightful)

      by PCM2 (4486) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @04:39PM (#21176939) Homepage

      The alternate route is to simply make copying hard enough to deter most people (console games + mod chips) or dial home to get some nifty extra features (MMORPG's).

      Actually, the alternate route might be to make the blank media cost enough that people can't be bothered. Double layer DVD media are still too expensive (comparatively) for many people I know to bother with; they either use DVDShrink or, if they like the movie enough, buy it for $15. This is probably the reason why the MPAA lobbies for media taxes in Canada.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        You must my joking. Here in the UK I can get dual layer media for 82p each in a cake box of 25. I know my brother uses them to knock of Disney DVD's so that when my niece has scratched it to pieces he can just bang out another copy from the original. A lot cheaper than a new Disney DVD at upwards of 15GBP each.
  • translation (Score:4, Informative)

    by bvdbos (724595) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @04:04PM (#21176541)
  • by MachineShedFred (621896) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @04:06PM (#21176581) Journal
    ... Blu-ray player sales are up 4000%
  • Just cracked? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Splab (574204) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @04:40PM (#21176957)
    I'm a bit confused about what has been cracked and not, lately quite a lot of BlueRay and HDDVD movies have shown up in 1080p format on my favorite torrent site. Ok, they might not have "cracked it" whatever that means, but they sure as hell have started distributing the movies.
  • by logicassasin (318009) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @04:41PM (#21176961) Homepage
    This "War On Piracy" does nothing more than keep people in jobs, much like the "War On Drugs". Like the drug war, piracy cannot be stopped unless it's made legal, but to do that you would put those in charge of fighting said illegal activity out of a job.

    It's stupid...

    Any digital content that can be seen or heard can be duplicated with some form of analog technology. Copy protected CD's can be recorded with near perfect quality simply by flying the audio from a CD player into a PC equipped with a $100 pro-level audio card (like the Emu 0404 or M-Audio Audiophile 2496). DRM protected mp3/wma/etc files can be duplicated through two pc's in exactly the same fashion as a CD. Copy protected DVD's can be duplicated by recording it's content from a DVD player into a PC with a decent video capture card.

    And that's just the tip of it.

    Nothing they do keeps DVD's off the streets. Every trip to the grocery store I make, I get a guy or gal coming up to me selling the latest movie for $10 on DVD (3 for $25!) or the latest yet-to-be-released CD for $5.

    It's not going to stop. No amount of copy protection will help, no law passed will deter, it's a useless waste of money, but it keeps a few folks in a job.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Exactly why do people insist on comparing "Piracy" to "Controlled Substances". I don't remember the last time Piracy altered somebody's life, caused physical distress or even death, or even contributed to a fatal car accident. The "War on Drugs" exists for a reason. The war on Piracy is made up by the RIAA/MPAA because they think they can brainwash us enough to think that we can't make copies of our own content for backup or use.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        The "War on Drugs" exists for a reason.

        To fuel police corruption and organized crime?

          • "Even if all controlled substances were legal do you think people would just start paying taxes on their purchases of crack cocaine when they haven't had to for all this time?"

            Of course they would. Taxes aren't some ultimate evil that people would rather risk getting shot then buying at a legal source. Not to mention the taxed ones would be dosed, better quality controlled, and CHEAPER. Mass production and competition would drive the price down.

            "Do you really think Crack Cocaine belongs on the streets?"
            No, I think it belongs at a legal store, and that adults should be able to do it at home if they so choose. Cocaine has been used for a long time, and in fact it used to be cut by pharmacist for personal use by little old ladies.
            It's not evil, but by making it some shady dealing where people have to risk there lives, and are afraid of being an outcast is.

            "Do you think that Children will not be able to aquire Crack Cocaine once it's price has plummeted?"
            They get it all they want NOW you idiot. It is easier for them to get it now because they people selling it to them have nothing more to loose. Legalizing would drive those people out of business and dry up the only source available to 'children'. Not completely, but it would be harder to get drugs then now.

            "Really I could care less what people do in their personal time but if you think that legalizing drugs will not have an effect on society in general and even yourself then you are dillusional."

            Of course it will have an effect, a positive one.
            You're neighbor can get it now, if he so chooses. So that's not really an issue. More to the point, your neighbor won't be screaming because he will get a correct dose at a regulated purity. Not to mention that rarely happens anyways.

            I used to spiel the same line you are, but I did about 3 years of research into legalization, the myths taught to young people, and actual studied effects of drug use.

            Right now, there are two benefactors of drug prohibition:
            1) The drug lords
            2) Law enforcement

  • Can't be Done (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bellum Aeternus (891584) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @05:13PM (#21177357)

    This just brings me back to my original hypothesis that it is impossible to encrypt something one time that you want to be easily distributed to the masses. There's just no way to say "here's the encrypted content and the key, but the key only works when we say so" unless you have some kind of root server doing the authentication in real-time and creates randomize keys for every download/view (think TSL). Even then, the user on the recieving end can (in theory) just record the incoming stream and redistribute.

    It's time for the media distributors of the world to wise up and realize that they just cannot protect their content through DRM. The best they can hope for is to make it tough on Joe Sixpack, and rely on legal means to tackle the large scale pirates. (think 1980's style).

    If BD+ is cracked, then the writing is pretty much on the wall for DVDs and we'll see a faster migration to online, streaming content. So let the "you cannot save this file" wars begin (ala Flash and QuickTime) - soon people (smarter than me) will spend time on fixing, er um... breaking that too.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      If BD+ is cracked, then the writing is pretty much on the wall for DVDs and we'll see a faster migration to online, streaming content.
      Apparently Slysoft wants it that way too for their "cracking service with a client".
  • by rsmith-mac (639075) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @05:53PM (#21177737)
    This is a bit off-topic, but on the subject of HD encryption, is it me or does it seem like HD-DVD/BR discs are getting harder to crack? There have been several big releases lately that have taken a while to crack the encryption on and rip; the HD-DVD version of Transformers for example wasn't broken until some two weeks after the disc was released. Obviously the MPAA's engineers can't completely fix AACS due to flaws in its design, but they seem to be getting better at using what they have and keeping groups from cracking their discs for a bit longer.

    On the whole this is still a loss for the MPAA, but none the less being able to stop people for even a couple of weeks would likely encourage anxious people to buy movies they'd otherwise pirate, so it would seem the MPAA hasn't completely lost yet.
    • by cromar (1103585) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @04:21PM (#21176753)
      I'd like to see Fox (or any other studio) sue the MPAA asking for arbitrarily large amounts of cash to compensate them for all the piracy this weak crypto causes. It would be really nice for the tables to turn a bit.
      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        Sure it will take a while for the new code to be released, but it will subsequently delay those who would pirate these films at least temporarily once the new codes are out.

        Hmm... I guess I must not be keeping up with the changing definition of Pirate -- my immediate thought was, "wait a minute, the people mass producing the discs with the old code can still do so; the old code doesn't cease to be valid...." Then I realized you were talking about people ripping a legally purchased video to a DRM-less forma

      • by devjj (956776) * on Tuesday October 30 2007, @06:47PM (#21178239)

        I honestly think the only reason people are cracking this stuff is the same reason that people climb Mt. Everest: Because it's there.

        Ah, no. People are cracking these because they enforce usage controls that many - myself included - believe go too far. Some of us like to use media centers that play video that's been ripped (not necessarily pirated). I've got a nice collection of video files that I've ripped from DVDs that I own that I stream to my living room media center. It's extremely convenient and the video quality is quite good. I'm not out there distributing the ripped versions of these films, and I'm not out there downloading pirated versions of them, either. I'm doing nothing more than utilizing an alternative method to view content I paid for in the privacy of my own home. At present, I cannot do this with Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.

        To be fair, commercial DVDs contain copy protections designed to thwart this kind of activity, but thanks to the diligent efforts by the very same kind of people (and likely the same people in many cases) who are working to crack the new schemes, the process is convenient and effectively one-click. Until I can do the same thing with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs, I won't be buying any of either, and I'll continue to recommend to the people who ask my opinion that they stay away.

        In short, people aren't just doing it because they can. They're doing it because there are legitimate reasons for doing so. Not everyone who rips discs is a pirate, but this DRM punishes all equally.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      Although their Windows version has a ways to go, HandBrake [m0k.org] is fantastic for ripping/encoding DVDs in one fell swoop. 99% of the time, 'it just works'.

      The more recent versions have made it a bit less "mac-like" (ie. they added a whole lot more configuration options), but it's still dead-on simple to use.