MESSAGE
| DATE | 2006-12-30 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] DRM Shattered in 8 DAYS
|
Took Eight Days to Crack HD DVD! Techtree News Staff Dec 28 2006
Latest reports indicate that the much touted Gen-Next HD DVD format is
not invincible after all...
The story doing the rounds is that a hacker who goes under the name,
"Muslix64" was upset at not being able to view his HD movies on his
computer set-up, and as such, set himself a seemingly impossible goal -
that of cracking the AACS specification in four weeks. He ended up doing
so - in just eight days.
Apparently, the dude went about the ordained task quite meticulously. He
first bought himself a HD-DVD drive to plug onto his PC, plus a HD movie.
Somewhere down the line, the realization dawned upon him that he could not
play the HD flick simply because his video card was not HDCP compliant,
and he had a HD monitor plugged with a DVI interface.
What "Muslix64" did next was to complain to the doom9 forum about the
AACS specification, saying it was not at all fair for someone to own an HD
monitor and then not be able to watch an HD movie that had been paid for.
The result: in six days' time, the title key of the flick appeared in
Muslix64's memory, which meant that he had managed to decrypt the movie
in all but one afternoon. Not counting the one day that he spent fixing
problems such as frame skipping, etc, it took "Muslix64" but eight days
to crack code.
"Muslix64" even put together a small program titled "BackupHDDVD",
a Java-based command line utility to decrypt HD movies.
The chap went right ahead and made a small video called "AACS is
Unbreakeable" wherein one can see the output of 'BackupHDDVD' while
decrypting. One can also see the playback of a decrypted movie, and
upload it to YouTube.
So where does this leave the emerging HD DVD format? Possibly, at the
same place as before...
Yes, there could be a small consumer swing towards HD DVD players, egged
on by the availability of 'cheap backups' of original high definition
content. There could also be a temporary bias in favour of Blu-ray
amongst the mighty Hollywood Studios.
But, as industry observers observe, all of this, even if it should happen,
will only be temporary...
Which again brings us back to where we began: the mighty format war
between HD DVD and Blu ray -- http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Interesting
Stuff http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like
Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world -
RI Safir 1998
http://fairuse.nylxs.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS -
RI Safir 2002
"Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME"
"The tremendous problem we face is that we are becoming sharecroppers
to our own cultural heritage -- we need the ability to participate in
our own society."
"> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be
damned.< You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and
technology have been attacted at the hip since the 1st dynasty in
Ancient Egypt. I guess you missed that one."
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