AACS Cracked Again 306
EmTeedee sends us to a blog post for a summary of the latest results in cracking AACS, from the Doom9 forums (as the earlier cracks have been) — after the DVD Security Group said it had patched the previous flaws. From the DLTV blog: "This time the target was the Xbox 360 HD DVD add on. Geremia on Doom9 forums has started a thread on how he has obtained the Volume ID without AACS authentication. With the aid of others like Arnezami they have managed to patch the Xbox 360 HD DVD add on... It appears that XT5 has released [an] application that allows the Volume ID to be read without the need to rewrite the firmware. This would mean that anyone could simply plug in the HD DVD drive and obtain the Volume ID from any HD DVD without the hassle of flashing it."
Re:That does it! (Score:2, Informative)
Score:
HD-DVD DRM: 0
Crackers: 2
Re:I were one of the cracking groups... (Score:5, Informative)
From my understanding, the AACS system is already a very well understood system. It is actually documented and available for public viewing. The way these people are obtaining keys is by finding design flaws in the way different devices implement the system. For WinDVD, it was found that one of the keys is available in system memory at a given point while loading the disc content, and could be captured by reading the right memory address. I'm sure something similar is happening with the XBox360 keys.
The WinDVD key was revoked by AACS, and future movies will not be playable on the cracked version of WinDVD, but a free upgrade to WinDVD will use a new key that cannot be obtained the same way. Revoking the XBox key for future movies will be more problematic, since it would presumably require a firmware upgrade, and making the HD-DVD's most popular playback device unable to play the newest blockbuster movie won't be good for HD-DVD sales.
Brute-force cracking all, or even a small number, of the AACS device keys would take years, probably tens or hundreds of years (I'm not sure exactly what the device key length is). Finding ways to make a playback device give up that information is much faster and easier. Further more, once you crack a single device key, you can get the encryption key for the content of any movie, then anybody can decrypt that movie based on that key, without need of the device or device key. Going back to the WinDVD keys, any movie encrypted with the old WinDVD key can now be decrypted, making a whole generation of HD movies available DRM-free.
Re:Fine by me. (Score:5, Informative)
This assertion: caught my eye. Actually I would say it's an untested hypothesis that movies are expensive. Currently movie production is basically a monopoly (actually a cartel). By definition monopolies have no competition, hence there is no incentive to try and make things cheaper. This gives rise to the massive salaries and creative accounting that Hollywood engages in. (Somehow, on paper, they actually have razor-thin profits even when the movie made 10-times as much money as the supposed budget.)
If Hollywood were replaced with something new, that was actually a competitive marketplace to make decent movies at the lowest price, I bet they would cost only a fraction of what they cost now. I imagine a movie that nowadays costs $30 million could actually be made for $600,000 once salaries became more reasonable, advertising were less extensive, and studios were forced to optimize their workflow to keep the budget down. The quality/budget ratio of independent films lends credence to this theory.
Current movie prices are massively inflated because they are a monopoly. If that monopoly were removed, I bet the new price of movies would be low enough that people wouldn't bother with unauthorized duplication... because the genuine article would be cheap enough already.
Re:Fine by me. (Score:3, Informative)