Post by thread:[OT]:: AACS HD DVD DRM system bypassed

The following report does not, as far as I can establish, describe an illegal or immoral activity and as such it is potentially suitable for publication on this list. There is no doubt that it does describe an activity that numerous people with large fortunes and the best lawyers that money can buy would rather people didn't talk about or know about. A person who would have qualified for a job in a hut at Bletchley Park in another era has worked out how to de-DRM all existing ASCS HD DVDs by the establishment of the existence and value of a single "processing key" common to all such material to date. Very importantly, in his (presumably) (women usually have better things to do with their time) own words: Nothing was hacked, cracked or even reverse engineered btw: I only had to watch the "show" in my own memory. No debugger was used, no binaries changed. Even if you have no interest in the de-DRMing of AACS HD DVD format material you may find the following account of how it was achieved interesting. I find it of interest that there are people with this degree of comfort with the arcane workings of such systems willing to spend the time and effort that this person has sifting through other people's flawed attempts to make material uncopiable. Turing would have been impressed. While this system reportedly works to de-DRM all existing material it can be defeated by changing the processing key in future releases. http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=952968#post952968 Also copied to here: http://www.others.servebeer.com/misc/aacsdrmprocessingkey.htm I'd be interested in knowing if the first of these stopped working at some stage. I imagine I'll know if the second one does :-). I do not support or encourage illegal and immoral activity and may even choose to work against such where it seems appropriate. However immoral and illegal are not the same (but often overlap) and then there's the whole other category "we don't want you to but have no moral or legal foundation for wanting this but we'll try hard to achieve it anyway". I have no problems at all with people attempting to protect their own "intellectual property rights". However, I am exceedingly annoyed at the manner in which DRM systems tend to trample all over the landscape and make what are or morally should be * attempts to do quite reasonable things hard or essentially impossible. I have little doubt that the major use that the above information will be put to will be illegal and immoral. It's use need not be either illegal or immoral. It is entirely possible that I will use this information in future and, if I do, it's use will be at least moral :-). I am about to de-DRM some music for a friend, confident in the knowledge that doing so is 'the right thing to do' [tm] and that it will not in any way disadvantage those who applied the DRMing initially, and that the ability to remove DRM will quite possibly lead to the person concerned buying more and not less DRM'd material in future. Russell * the meaning of terms and concepts "morally" and "should be" and related terms above are not liable to be able to be agreed to by all involved :-).

Russell McMahon wrote: {Quote hidden}> The following report does not, as far as I can establish, describe an > illegal or immoral activity and as such it is potentially suitable for > publication on this list. There is no doubt that it does describe an > activity that numerous people with large fortunes and the best lawyers > that money can buy would rather people didn't talk about or know > about. > > A person who would have qualified for a job in a hut at Bletchley Park > in another era has worked out how to de-DRM all existing ASCS HD DVDs > by the establishment of the existence and value of a single > "processing key" common to all such material to date. Very > importantly, in his (presumably) (women usually have better things to > do with their time) own words: > > Nothing was hacked, cracked or even reverse > engineered > btw: I only had to watch the "show" in my own > memory. > No debugger was used, no binaries changed. > > Even if you have no interest in the de-DRMing of AACS HD DVD format > material you may find the following account of how it was achieved > interesting. I find it of interest that there are people with this > degree of comfort with the arcane workings of such systems willing to > spend the time and effort that this person has sifting through other > people's flawed attempts to make material uncopiable. Turing would > have been impressed. > > While this system reportedly works to de-DRM all existing material it > can be defeated by changing the processing key in future releases. > > http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=952968#post952968 > > Also copied to here: > > http://www.others.servebeer.com/misc/aacsdrmprocessingkey.htm > > I'd be interested in knowing if the first of these stopped working at > some stage. I imagine I'll know if the second one does :-). > > I do not support or encourage illegal and immoral activity and may > even choose to work against such where it seems appropriate. However > immoral and illegal are not the same (but often overlap) and then > there's the whole other category "we don't want you to but have no > moral or legal foundation for wanting this but we'll try hard to > achieve it anyway". > > I have no problems at all with people attempting to protect their own > "intellectual property rights". > However, I am exceedingly annoyed at the manner in which DRM systems > tend to trample all over the landscape and make what are or morally > should be * attempts to do quite reasonable things hard or essentially > impossible. > > I have little doubt that the major use that the above information will > be put to will be illegal and immoral. It's use need not be either > illegal or immoral. It is entirely possible that I will use this > information in future and, if I do, it's use will be at least moral > :-). I am about to de-DRM some music for a friend, confident in the > knowledge that doing so is 'the right thing to do' [tm] and that it > will not in any way disadvantage those who applied the DRMing > initially, and that the ability to remove DRM will quite possibly lead > to the person concerned buying more and not less DRM'd material in > future. > > > > > > > Russell > > > > * the meaning of terms and concepts "morally" and "should be" and > related terms above are not liable to be able to be agreed to by all > involved :-). > > > > Good comments, Russell.