Building the AACS Next-Gen Copy Protection Scheme 491
Anonymous Slashdotter writes "The IEEE Spectrum has a piece that discusses the proposed encryption scheme for the upcoming HD-DVD standard. 'The key to the spirit of compromise is an agreement that the AACS specification will allow consumers to move the data on an optical disc to the various devices they own, including video servers and portable video players, either directly or via a home network.' AACS will use a so-called strong key, the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard approved by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology."
So compromised keys make for faulty hardware? (Score:5, Insightful)
Distribution control (Score:5, Insightful)
The movie business is going to hit the same wall as the audio business did, and the solution the audio business came up with (well, more accurately, were forced into) was to make the downloading of songs relatively cheap (under $1). As soon as it's not worth it to go through the hassle of copying the data, it is once again a viable product. At the moment, the movies are not viable products...
Simon.
Everyone re-encodes anyways. (Score:2, Insightful)
Realistically, this can't work. (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt that the industry is foolish enough to force consumers to upgrade their televisions to support some form of signal encryption, therefore this must fail.
Re:So compromised keys make for faulty hardware? (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. From TFA:
The basic idea in recovering from cracking is to make a compromised player key obsolete. Compromised players could continue to play old discs, but not new releases. And crackers would have to start all over again.
Consumers are really going to be interested in continuously buying new players or upgrading their current firmware to play new realeases because someone broke through their brand of player. Save for the fact that once someone breaks it once, it will just get easier to do it the second time.
I can see how this would solve the cracking problem entirely. Consumers have the money, thus, consumers have the power. The simple fact is, people won't buy a disc that won't play in their player -- At least I'm not about to new player to play their new disc every time this happens.
In case they think up some scheme that means I won't have to pay anything for the upgraded player: my time is as valuable to me as money, so I had also better not have to spend any of that on getting my machine to work again either.
Same old, same old. (Score:5, Insightful)
The authorized user and the attacker are one and the same. You can't protect against that, not with cryptography.
Re:How is this gonna stop large scale piracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
It won't. There is nothing you can do to stop a copy like that unless they figure out how to put data on the disk in an area that can't be burned to (say like the disks serial number or information type on a CDR/RW or DVDR/RW). Even then, the proffesional piraters will probably still figure out a way since they use the EXACT SAME EQUIPMENT that hollywood uses to make their own disks.
Re:So compromised keys make for faulty hardware? (Score:5, Insightful)
First indication was the word [well acronym] "DRM". Just because it uses AES doesn't mean it's secure. It's very easy to use AES insecurely [hint: constant key in ECB mode...]
Likely another 17 yr old from some europe'like nation will break this and "deacss" tools will appear on the net.
Why don't the media producers focus on more talent and less "blockbuster stars".
Instead of paying one star 20 million for a picture why not pay 200 actors 100,000 for several movies? Duh cuz that would make sense...[well not for the self-centered power-tripping millionaire fake people].
Tom
Re:One step forward... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about...
Such effort to prevent such an easy workaround... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently they just don't get that people - who seem willing to buy cheap videos recorded on consumer cameras in movie theaters - are going to be completely unable to see the difference in a re-recorded playback of what they see on T.V.
Folks - if you're too stupid to realize the network effect will swamp the casual copyright infringement, do something simple: don't release it. That's your only option.
This is a social issue (Score:4, Insightful)
We can throw all the technology and litigation we want at the problem, but it won't be solved until we come up with a social solution.
Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice article (Score:4, Insightful)
In any case, I am less worried about the crypto, which doesn't affect video quality. Fingerprinting of video and audio with watermarks can affect quality; in copy protection circles, you'll see iffy technologies proposed simply because they "can't hurt" to throw them in---but then some of them are detectable by golden eyes/ears. IMHO even that much quality loss is not worth whatever security a watermark offers.
Caj
Re:Distribution control (Score:2, Insightful)
You have the luxury of (usually) having the first cinema screenings of films and the first releases to DVD. You also don't get the shitty $1 = £1 currency conversion that the media companies think is perfectly acceptable.
I personally don't think I'm getting value for money (£30) every time I take my wife and three kids to a cinema filled with chavs and twats that don't know where the "off" button is on their mobile phone.
It's not just about cost, but certainly outside the US the cost of films (either at the cinema or DVD purchase) is extortionate.
So I vote with my feet. I rarely go to the cinema and I wait until it comes out on rental. Three days' rental for £3.50 without said chavs is a bargain!
Right, right... (Score:1, Insightful)
Then I'm sure you should be aware of the difference between a specification and a piece of legislation (as the original AC was pointing out).
They must be on crack... (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, understand that the encrypted content will be encrypted with a different key for each piece of content. This is just obvious and similar to how CSS works. The reason is so if you break one DVD, you don't break 'em all.
But this means that the key to decrypting the content must also be on the DVD itself. So that must be transferred to the portable device as well, in order for it to be playable.
So there's two ways this can work:
Method 1: Transfer the key along with the encrypted content in a plain form. In which case the attacker figures out where the key is, decrypts the content, creates an unencrypted version. Tada!
Method 2: The player key system whereby every company/player has a key and they are each used to encrypt a copy of the content key, which is placed on the disc. Thus this keyring must be transferred to the portable device and the portable device must itself have a player key to decrypt the content. I'm betting this is the method they're going for.
In which case the crack is simple: Compromise the player key. The player key must be embedded in the device somehow. In fact it'll have to be embedded in *every* device. All it takes is one hardware hacker to yank out a player key and voila, every disc up to that point can be decrypted.
So they invalidate the player key for future releases, breaking all existing hardware using that key. They could have done this with CSS, BTW, but they didn't for fairly obvious reasons.
In any case, this helps them not in the slightest. Because now you have a means by which to crack the rest of the player keys. Look, you get one player key. You have a disc with encrypted content for all player keys. You know the plaintext for what these are encrypting (the content key). Furthermore, every disc made that you can decrypt (probably a lot) gives you a new data set. How long do you think it'll take some bright boy to come up with a known plaintext attack on AES to retrieve these keys? It might be computationally intensive, but certainly it'll be less than a brute force attack.
And then what do they do when all keys are broken? They're straight fucked then.
The very idea itself is stupid. It's bound to fail in the same way CSS did. It'll just take a little more time, that's all.
Re:This is a social issue (Score:3, Insightful)
And therefore insolvable.
Re:Realistically, this can't work. (Score:3, Insightful)
And where can you buy an analog HD component capture card?
I doubt that the industry is foolish enough to force consumers to upgrade their televisions to support some form of signal encryption
They did; it's called HDCP. If your HDTV doesn't support HDCP, you'll only get an analog signal.
Re:Realistically, this can't work. (Score:2, Insightful)
At what point does it become (Score:2, Insightful)
You don't go after the hardware and software, you go after the criminals. The *AAs are treating the population the way the government treats us via the war on drugs: irresponsible and guilty.
The hard costs of a DVD and all its sexy packaging? A dollar. The value of the IP (how badly people want to see/own it) on the disk? Varies wildly. What are the options the studios have? 1) price according to IP value, 2) sell disks only to video rental places, who rent them out until the cost is recovered and then sell them used, 3) keep trying the crap with copy protection, 4) go after the IP thieves. I wonder how often they'll have to choose before they try something other than 3?
Re:Copy protection my butt (Score:3, Insightful)
Much like the challenge today of posting the highest quality captures of currently running movies, whomever has the best rig and knows an insider to grab a copy of the disc shortly before release will go to extrordinary lengths. Like today, and as it's been in "warez" since the 80's Apple ][ and C64 games on BBSs, they'll get to promote their silly handle/name/slogan. Their group gets a few minutes of underground fame for having an elite, pristine copy early. Of course, in a matter of days, lots and lots of these second tier folks without the fancy gear get their few minutes of fame, being part of such an elite group... by impressing their friends with high quality copies of the new flick. Soon it's on p2p networks and mundane.
But there's always some new, shiney thing to pirate.... some new thing, that if obtained at the highest quality during that brief, fleeting period of newness, is cool. It's fun. If copied in their tiny window of time, it's elite. It's a powerful motivation to a class of very talented folks who, saddly, don't want to or have the opportunity to direct their energy to more worthy goals.
Once these discs are out, and before the crypto is really broken (took 3 years before anyone hacked css), these HD discs will provide that hacker motivation. Most likely, they'll be recaptured and turned into 4.5 gig mpeg4 avi files suitable for burning to a dvdrw.... with a few minutes of fame for the elite hackers with HD capable recapture and early access, followed by lesser but still very enjoyable minutes of fame for armies of trickle down until they hit the p2p networks.
The more things change, the more they stay the same (but substitute ftp sites, websites, usenet binaries groups, or even BBSs for "p2p networks").
Economics isn't the problem for the movie industry (Score:5, Insightful)
It was only when DVDs came out that the industry's policy shifted to issuing new releases priced for sale. That's because there was a guy in the industry somewhere that convinced everybody that a durable media format (vs. shoddy VHS tapes) that contained a high-quality version of the movie was something a large number of people would be willing to own, rather than just rent. And he was right! People are buying DVDs in droves. DVD players were adopted by the mainstream public faster than any other electronic gadget in history, from what I've heard.
What I'm saying is, this theory that people download AVIs because DVDs cost too much just doesn't ring true. DVD sales have been phenomenal. If you think there's a DVD piracy problem in this country, think again -- check out the situation in Asia if you want to see a DVD piracy problem. I think people download AVIs because they're there. They can get the AVI before the actual movie comes out, and they can get the AVI for free for a movie that they probably wouldn't have bothered to buy, or even walk down to the video store to rent.
I mean, come on -- you can still rent DVDs. Are you honestly telling me that a price point of $3 for three nights (or whatever Blockbuster is doing right now) is more than most Americans are willing to pay to see some random shitty Hollywood movie? Of course it's not. But downloading AVIs, for many people, is just too easy.
Re:So compromised keys make for faulty hardware? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, you do that. And I'll pay 199 actors $101,000 for several movies. And then my competitor (and yours) will pay 198 actors $102,000 -- wash, rinse, repeat. Guess who is going to get the better actors over the long run? The guy who pays the most. Welcome to capitalism. Now go enroll in Econ 101 so you can follow this out yourself. It's important, trust me.
This Too Shall Pass (Score:3, Insightful)
"It is not a matter of if--it is a matter of when. As long as I have the technology in my living room to watch it for myself, I can modify the system to extract the video. They can make it hard, but they can't make it impossible."
How true. In other words, a lock only keeps an honest man honest, a thief will find a way to pick the lock and steal what you have.
Seemingly ever since there have been personal computers, there have been one form or another of copy protection. Usage such as backup copies (critical in the floppy days, nearly as much so with CDs and DVDs) have always been looked down upon by the content providers, and at the end of the day, all of the barricades that they have thrown at the user have eventually been thwarted and bypassed. Now comes HD-DVD and the same principle. I suppose some never learn from the past.
Working against the encryption is the simple fact that on the average, computers get more and more powerful (for a given price point), and that their encryption must remain a relative constant due to compatibility. That said, it is only a matter of time before the encryption is overwhelmed and utterly defeated. This will happen again, always has, and always will. One only has to look at the DirecTV versus the signal pirates to see that. Coupled with human nature, that is, to show and share a "dirty little secret" -- disaster for the encryption advocate. After all, are theyu going to disable dozens of models of players, and disable their own market in the process, not to mention alienating the hell out of their customers? No, no and no.
The key to copy protection is to make the content affordable enough to make the inconvenience of counter-enryption not worth doing. They (the collective they) never seem to get that, and they always seem dumbfounded that their elaborate measures are made to look foolish. Perhaps with realistic pricing, enhanced value they would find that most people find it easier to be honest, and not bother with cloning over-priced half-rate films and music. After all, that's their only realistic choice, but the one that they dread making the most.
Re:So compromised keys make for faulty hardware? (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally what I look for in a movie is depth. Superficially weak dialog [re: 99% of TV shit] annoys the hell out of me, even if it's someone of super-star status like Keano, whoa.
So if you take some "no-name" talented actor and put them in a movie with some real depth to it [even if it's a comedy] then people should be able to enjoy the experience.
I mean, you can't honestly tell me you saw any of the Matrix movies for anything more than the special effects. The story is very weak about as a deep as a Crest toothpaste commercial.
Tom
Re:So compromised keys make for faulty hardware? (Score:3, Insightful)
If stupid 10x larger blockbusters didn't overshadow [in terms of mindspace via advertising] the indy films they wouldn't do as well.
Tom
Re:So compromised keys make for faulty hardware? (Score:4, Insightful)
If Jack Nicholson, Robin Williams and Nichole Kidman in a "verysexy" scene movie was $60 and the third remake of "I was a nut" by 5 poorly paid actors was $4, then, some people would spring for the talent, and the masses would go fo the $4 movie.
But if enough went to the $60, they would be able to pay JN, RW and NK 20 mil each. And I guess you'd really have a killer movie.
It happens in DVD sales. Really good movies with good actors never dip below the $20 mark. the crappy stuff falls to 7.99.
The movie theatres are at fault here. They should demand-price the movies.
hoodwinked - everything to do with royalties (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Copy protection my butt (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So compromised keys make for faulty hardware? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Same old, same old. (Score:1, Insightful)
I like the layman's explanation better:
You can't lock someone out who you also gave the key to.
Re:So compromised keys make for faulty hardware? (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is that the "key" is little more than a hardware serial number, that the decoder is a program on the disc that uses a fixed decryption key, also on the disc, and that the program includes a list of "keys" (serial numbers) on which it should refuse to play.
Even with such a scheme, though, it could be broken by:
- A. reversing the algorithm used to detect whether a s/n is valid (which isn't usually that hard once you figure out how the code that verifies it works), thus allowing Linux to randomly pick a different key for each playback if desired within the entire potential key space
- B. altering the program in-flight to remove the stolen key from the rejection list (also probably easy unless the list is encrypted, and even then, the key has to be on the disc somewhere unless it's based on a common hardware key, in which case you're back to the original DVD situation which still wasn't hard to break)
- C. simply reading the decryption key and using a standard AES algorithm to decrypt the contents instead of the program.
Any mechanism in which you refuse to play if your hardware matches a particular key must either involve the hardware being trusted to verify its unique key against a list or must require the hardware to "phone home" to the MPAA and get the real decryption key based on its serial number. I don't see the public accepting either of these. "What do you mean I have to wait two whole minutes to start playing the DVD and I can't be on the phone?"Long story short, the MPAA is being sold a lot of snake oil. It's too bad that they're too technologically clueless to realize it.
Re:Economics isn't the problem for the movie indus (Score:1, Insightful)
I'd argue that it's not only too easy. Downloading movies takes time, and in many cases can be frustrating for the avg person (grandma doesn't know how to use/install xvid,ogg,etc). As well as,many cases whare quality is lacking (cam shots with tilted perspective and people standing in the way).
Several factors play a role:
1) Theaters suck. Sound quality is attrocious (thin walls where you can hear explosions of the next theater over). People in #'s suck (screaming babies, cell phones, people spilling drinks on the floor behind you). Sticky floors, lines...you name it. Avg movie ticket is $8.5 here(Seattle) for the typical theater. There are better venues true - the cinerama comes to mind (http://www.cinerama.com/), but the average theater is a pain.
2) Bandwidth goes to waste. If you don't use it you lose it. I pay for monthly service, not per gigabyte, so my line downloads all day, every day.
3) Downloading opens your experience up to try something new that you haven't before. It doesn't cost anything extra so why not download a foreign film that you wouldn't be able to see in local theaters.
3) Home theater equipment has surpassed theater's in the last 5-10yrs by leaps and bounds. Even a low-end home theater ($1k-2k $US) would be able to acheive what theaters have now in the comfort of your home. To be honest even if I couldn't download a movie I would wait for the dvd.
4) Crappy movies. Ever since the writer's guild went on strike the # of quality films has deteriorated. Hollywood has gone back to re-makes and comic books for it's ideas. Take a look at the big hits of the last 3-5yrs and you'll see that very little new ideas have come out. Maybe I'm getting old though (29 too old for movies?).
5) Cost. Theaters don't make money off the tickets anymore - the studio gets all that. So they have to make it off the popcorn/soda. $8.5 per ticket plus food for 2 people is usually $30.
6) Time. Last time I went to the theater, I had to wait in line for 30min to get a ticket (opening weekend for a movie I was able to download the next day). Waited for 15min after getting my seat, to watch 15min of commercials, before watching 15min of previews, before the 90min film.
I honestly don't know why people go to the movies anymore, but really in the end it's what you get for your money, so economics really is part of it.
Re:Copy protection my butt (Score:3, Insightful)
If most else fails, I will film my own TV screen with my camcorder, the line from headphone-out plugged into it. Plain old cinema-piracy-style. And *then* put it on the internet or make a million copies and sell it cheap through illegal thrift stores. How do you prevent this? Mandatory watermark detection for all camcorders? What if I import them directly from China, Mexico, Russia or else? Arrest me for using illegal media equipment? Need to register typewriters and camcorders then like sometimes ago in Soviet Russia?
Have an Orwellian society or movie studios bitching about unlicensed movie copies. Can't have both. You decide, today.
If *all* else fails, we can still vote from the rooftops, tomorrow.
mpeg4 (Score:4, Insightful)
What's going to happen is simple: the HD-DVD thing isn't going to take off; not if you have to keep upgrading keys all the time. Joe and Jane Average are probably going to stick with the regular DVD from Netflix, Blockbuster, or whomever, knowing that it will work every time.
If the new formats can be gotten to "work every time", perhaps by having the keys downloaded from the internet or something like that, then they might do better. Anytime you make something too complicated, though, it's bound to fail. Look at 3D movies with those uncomfortable cardboard 3D glasses. Where have they gone? Look at DVD-Audio or the SACD? Going nowhere fast. Lossless compression formats from iTunes or other services? We're not really there yet - if people are willing to settle for mp3 or aac quality sound, why would they want to spend extra money on a DVD-audio quality sound?
The movie industry risks entering a situation not unlike the music industry finds itself in today. Many of the same symptoms are there; the same attempt to control is there; the same low-quality, high-budget, intellectually lacking content is being pumped out. A new format that is harder and more expensive to use just isn't going to cut it. It would not be surprising to see mpeg4 take the place of mp3 files, with people cramming movie after mpeg4 movie onto a DVD5 or perhaps a DVD9 that they either downloaded from a legitimate service, or if no such legitimate services happen to spring up in the near future, a p2p network.
The popularity of iTunes and other legitimate music download services goes to show that consumers don't care so much about the absolute highest sound quality, but that they care more about convenience, selection, ease of use, accessibility, and things like that. These new formats are probably more or less doomed to not do as well as they could.
These new disks, though, the Blu-Ray especially, these are going to be GREAT for backing up systems, documents, and also for businesses to do backups and things like that. The technology is awesome; what Hollywood is trying to do with it is the part that isn't going to work very well.
Try before you buy (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't sit in front of your computer monitor along with your wife and kids to watch a divx movie on your media player. Generally divx users are 20-30 yo's, or even kids who downloaded the latest anime episode.
So who gets the benefit of a downloaded movie? ONE person per family. If the movie wasn't good, the guy wouldn't watch it along with his g/f, wife, kids/friends/etc.
So what does this mean: "Try before you buy". Simple. Here I'd be questioned: "Oh come on, what person watches a movie TWICE"? Ask the starwars fans who watched "Star wars: A new hope" the day it came out in theaters. They watched it once. Twice. Even 20 times.
So, if a movie is REALLY WORTH it, I'm sure people would actually purchase the DVD or go to the theaters, even if they already watched the downloaded thing. Why? Because the movie DESERVES IT.
The real enemy here is not piracy... but freaking poor quality overhyped movies with pre-paid (as opposed to impartial) reviews.
The movie producers are committing FRAUD by telling us the movies ARE WORTH seeing, when they're not. Same with videogames. I remember playing FFX-2... and I could compare my feelings with a girl who didn't achieve climax on her most expected date. "What? This is it? WTF?" Same with Robotech: Invasion (79 bucks thrown to the trash, man!) and Spider Man for the PS2.
So, MPAA and associates: Want more profit? Make better products, and stop complaining.
Addendum: Maybe the MPAA is actually whining because they CAN'T FOOL the public with hype (Pearl Harbor, anyone? [imdb.com]), and people won't purchase bad movies DVD's or go to the theaters if the "evil pirates" already review the movie and say it SUCKS. And _HERE_ is the profit loss. In any case, this reinforces my opinion:
Make better products. Period.
Open Source players (Score:3, Insightful)
The big question for the Linux/FOSS community isn't how hard is it to crack: it's can we be included without being forced to crack it.
I'm sure I'm not alone in not wanting to make pirate copies of DVDs, but just wanting to be able to watch my discs on the equipment of choice, including open source players.
This boild down to: i) will the algorithm be well known (ie rely on secrecy of keys not the algorithm) and ii) how do you get allocated a key
CSS sucked because it used weak keys and tried to keep the algorithm secret. The first rule of cryptography is to assume the algorithm is known, and thanks to DVD Jon we got it reverse engineered. And it sucked for the FOSS crowd because you couldn't make a player without paying a huge sum of money and signing all sorts of agreements.
If the new system removes these barriers to entry, then it at least it won't be as evil as the original CSS. It'll still be useless, but not actually evil.
Re:Hardware crypto (Score:3, Insightful)
Bulletproof Method (Score:2, Insightful)
Use a non-standard optical encoding method.
Don't allow PC's to play disks.
Players refuse to play unencrypted content.
Use a smartcard to do all authorization.
Require an internet connection or phone line
to authorize playback each time a disk is loaded.
Don't store any keys on the disk.
Build the display into the player.
Pot the inside of the player with a potting compound which when compromized, causes the player to burst into flames.
Re:Bah (Score:3, Insightful)
Then explain why Divx failed [edn.com].
Re:Steam type DVD system. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:So compromised keys make for faulty hardware? (Score:5, Insightful)
Slight correction:
Long story short, the MPAA is being sold a lot of snake oil. We are very fortunate that they're too technologically clueless to realize it.
This is *playback* protection, not copy protection (Score:4, Insightful)
No form of encryption will not make it harder to copy the original disk. Constructing a bit for bit copy of a digital stream in no way requires you to be able to understand the data being copied.
Rather, this is a playback protection system.
It's to stop you from watching the media when the distributors don't want you to be able to. Such as, for example, should you try to play a movie released in the US which is only just being shown in movie theatres in Western Europe. Or Asia. Or anywhere other than Region 1.
Encryption of the media is only there to force DVD player manufacturers to obtain a key -- which will only be provided if they also sign a contract to adhere to certain terms and conditions that, in essence, states that they're not allowed to undermine the distributors' business model.
Re:So compromised keys make for faulty hardware? (Score:1, Insightful)