French Hackers Break SDMI 112
jonathan_ingram writes: "Two French hackers have
reportedly
broken SDMI. Various other groups participating in the SDMI challenge have claimed to have accomplished this already. However, this group has decided to publish their results, available at
their site.
The site includes a detailed technical report, together with the history and background of SDMI, and the SDMI challenge." Ah, what a seemingly good idea SDMI was for the media companies - now I fully expect to see a story "Newborn infant cracks SDMI, burps up on RIAA".
Re:counterproductive (Score:3)
Duh. You forget rule number one of security through obscurity - IT ISN'T SECURE. Even using the strongest, least crackable encryption method, or most stealthy watermarking will fail, as the SDMI devices will need to reveal their secret key in their execution flow. The secret can't be hidden in software, decades of 16 year old crackers have shown companies that. Only tamper-proof hardware can hide it, and even then the electrical engineers will have a go at opening up the hardware.
It's only possible to be 'secret' by demanding that an SDMI device contact some more secure device via the 'net. But even then the messages sent back and forth can be logged and replayed to fool the SDMI device.
I purport that the next SDMI scheme will be broken. And the one after that. And the one after that, etc. The only secure way to do it is to actually keep a secret, and to do that is just not possible. Public key encryption works by never revealing the private key. Only a human with locks on the doors can do that, an automated device stands no chance of keeping a key private.
Re:American researchers run into DMCA trouble (Score:1)
I hope the legal problem will be settled and that they will publish their results soon.
I have reasons to believe that their results are excellent, especially on the algorithms that for which we haven't posted a technical report yet.
Julien Stern
Re:On more time... (Score:1)
On the other hand if the watermark is audible, people will be saying "This sucks, I can hear the watermark" (and even if it's only theoretically audible, the sort of music reviewers who can hear what colour felt tip was used on a CD rim and which way up the speaker cable was stored in the shop will be saying "This sucks, I can hear the watermark" just to show how good their hearing is).
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Gutter boy. (Score:3)
Re:One thing that most people don't realize (Score:2)
There will a a proliferation of indie bands. Tastes will no longer be so bland, and we will get better variety. There is absolutely nothing -- morally, ethically or commercially -- wrong with such a development.
It think it has been pointed out to death that it is the recording companies who are resistant to change who will have to suffer. On the whole, the rest of society will be better off.
Re:Won't this software be illegal in the US? (Score:2)
Copyright infringment, however, is stealing. It has a different name, but the idea is the same. I'm not going by webseter's dictonary, though, but I am using common sense. The copywrited works are not given to you, rather, you are simply given the privledge of using them, as long as you agree to do so in certain permitted ways. Violating this agreement and acting as if you own the work and all rights therein is, at the core, the same thing as stealing. You aren't depriving them of anything physical, but you are challenging the idea of their ownership of their creations.
In all, maybe slightly different at most, but certainly far similar than any inflammatory analogies that I've seen in the past.
Re:Won't this software be illegal in the US? (Score:1)
If people aren't compensated for their effort, then they'll wise up and stop making that effort. I myself like listening to music and watching movies. I'm sure the artists also enjoy making them, but if they can't support themselves from it, then they'll have to do something else. I sure wouldn't keep coming to work if I wasn't being paid. I like it here, but not that much. Besides, I'd have to find a job where I would get paid.
OTOH, if you ever do fnd such a magic ray, let me know, 'k?
Re:On more time... (Score:4)
Well, noone knows the answer, but there are a few points (among others) which makes the existence of robust watermarks in the near future rather improbable.
But well, it is also possible that there is a breakthrough in watermarking research in some time...
Julien Stern
Re:DMCA (Score:1)
Uh, yeah. The French would rather be trampled to death by crazed cows than let themselved be governed by American laws. Quite the contrary - it's more likely the hackers would receive a Charles de Gaulle medal (or whatever they have there) for their accomplishment.
Re:One thing that most people don't realize (Score:1)
I think you missed the point. The average consumer does not have "golden ears". This same argument was raised during the LP vs CD debates. Many audiophiles claim that LPs sound better than CDs, but it didn't stop CDs from becoming the audio medium of choice. Why? Because average consumers aren't oracles, and average stereo systems aren't of studio quality. MP3s or deSDMI songs may sound bad, but in the end, it has to bother the average consumer enough to where they'll buy the original. And, that's the whole issue. Napster has proven that for 51 million people, they either can't hear, don't have the equipment to hear, or flat out don't care about the muddiness of MP3s. These people probably won't care about deSDMI songs either, and that's what the record industry is worried about.
Re:It's not like it wasn't going to happen (Score:2)
The article in the above link tells us that the RIAA wanted something which is technologically impossible, but refused to listen to the techs. They needed a watermarking system, and they want it now.
I think the great thing about these French guys actually publishing their work is actually putting the genie out of the bottle. SDMI tried to prevent that in the agreement of the contest - one was not allowed to publish the hack methods or results and they'll likely enforce this by law [theregister.co.uk]. Fortunately, we here in Europe are concious of the fact that US does not apply here - forgetting this is a mistake which US corporates have made before (i.e. DeCSS).
Slashdot victim... (Score:1)
It looks like the site is currently being slashdotted. We don't know how it will hold. Sorry if it's very slow or down for a while.</em>
mp3s and "shit"-ness (Score:1)
Anyone remember the great CD vs vinyl argument? Yes, vinyl is warmer/nicer but CD got "good enough" pretty quickly and nobody gave a damn. So it is with mp3 vs CD: Yes, mp3 is worse, but not much worse and certainly good enough - and sooooo much more convenient, which is where mp3 really wins.
Your point about new mail notifications and the like is a reasonable one, but I wouldn't rank it above "slightly annoying"... If I download a "bad" mp3 from napster, there are usually plenty of other versions of the same track there - I just pick one with a different file size and try again!
And of course this isn't a problem with mp3s you've ripped yourself (which is what I mostly do anyway), but that's not really got anything to do with this discussion I guess... All the same, I suggest you have a go some time, you might be pleasantly suprised.
OK, just my rambling 2p on mp3s...
-Andy
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Re:Won't this software be illegal in the US? (Score:2)
The AC made a point in appealing to the evilness of stealing - that it deprives the rightful owner of something he has a natural right to. Clearly, for a wholly digital work, this does not apply.
Saying that the owner is free to impose arbitary restrictions on someone else's freedom is the crux of the issue. Do you think copyright owners can and should have such powers? As an example, may I ask for your first born son in return for using my software? I think common sense says you should not. So by your own common sense, you must admit that one has limits on the powers of copyright owners.
What is the limit? The limit of free use, for example?
Is SDMI the right way to fight this battle? (Score:1)
But I'm not sure where SDMI solves that. Compressed formats will always have less fidelity. It's the simple trade off for file size. What SDMI adds to the mix are watermarks that audibly degrade the sound of a recording regardless of audio compression.
SDMI penalizes the people who bought a legit copy, and still doesn't really solve the problem.
This is similar to a software problem I have. I purchased a package that uses a key. Now occasionally, the key doesn't work so I can't get any work done with the package. Oddly enough cracked versions of the same software are easily available and by virtue of having the unstable software key security "feature" removed, they are arguably more usable. So you have an expensive package that randomly locks you out, or a free package that works all the time. Now the vendor would say they give support and that's why you should be registered. Only the vendor is slow to respond to any problem and when you call with an issue, such as, "My key doesn't work," they give you the run around, claim user error and take 3-7 days for each round trip denial of any problem. You can imagine how happy I am with this company.
Now if the music industry wants to do the same thing to their paying customers, well, I think we know where this is going.
Re:DMCA (Score:2)
Dosnt the Byrne(sp?) Convention assure that Copyright & Patents from member countries must support the Copyright & Patents of other countries - would this be a 'copyright' law? Could the Byrne convention force the planet under US Corporate Rule? (just as it has Americans).
Re:counterproductive (Score:3)
That's the problem with intellectual property. You are claiming ownership on someone elses THOUGHTS. That's what intellectual means.
Rules only exist by an agreement between the "ruler" and the "follower". Governments exist based on the assumption that we somehow gave up our freewill by mutual agreement, in exchange for "protection". In reality, if we do not wish for this protection, we should be able to make a mutual agreement to forego leadership.
So really, you don't own anyone else's thoughts, regardless of whether you gave them the idea to think them. And the natural state of the world is freewill, not leadership that you choose not to follow.
But anyhow...
Re:It's not like it wasn't going to happen (Score:1)
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Re:counterproductive (Score:1)
They can't have both!
It can eather be viewed or kept secret, and they don't seem to understand that.
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Julien Boeuf works now for audio plugin company (Score:1)
Re:(OT)Unique serial number check (Score:1)
SDMI in French means (Score:2)
Heck, maybe that's why they hacked it - it practically shouted out "Salut, Dommage'-Moi, Intellectuels!"
Re:counterproductive (Score:2)
Or is it to gain the ability to play with movies.
My friends and I have parties. We bring turntables and a DJ mixer, and spin & scratch records. We have a lot of fun manipulating commercial audio works to make our own works in real time.
DeCSS is the underlying technology that will allow people to "play with" DVD video content in ways that are analogous to the way that DJs play with vinyl and CD audio content.
Just as many people in the recording industry would prefer that "sampling" be made illegal and physically impossible, the motion picture industry wants to make access to the bits on a DVD illegal and physically impossible.
That's what's important about DeCSS. It creates new possibilities that no one has even thought of yet.
The hell with "free movies." That's a bottom dweller argument. You don't need DeCSS to copy movies. You need DeCSS to manipulate movies and use them as raw material. 10 years from now, we'll look back and realize that that's what this was really about. The ability to interact with commercial video, as opposed to sit on the couch and passively watch it.
Newborns cracking SDMI (Score:2)
Julien Stern is a PhD student in cryptology at the Laboratoire de recherche en informatique, Orsay
Julien Boeuf is a masters student in multimedia, images and sound at the Ecole nationale supérieure des télécommunications, Paris
Yeah, I fully expect to see toddlers cracking SDMI any minute now. And possibly some pissed off French hackers turning up at Hemos's house to have a word :)
not_cub
Re:American researchers run into DMCA trouble (Score:1)
You can't circumvent a device that doesn't exist.
However, IANAL. In particular IANAL in the US.
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Re:Won't this software be illegal in the US? (Score:1)
Fair enough. But the question is: Are you willing to get a criminal record for opposing an unjust law, and by opposing it ending it (think long-term)?
Re:counterproductive (Score:1)
Look at the DVD/DECSS fiasco. If the DVD ebcryption had been broken before all the hardware was on the market, then they would have made the encrytption *much* more difficult to decode. Maybe to the point that it couldn't be done for quite a few years. FOr those few years there would have been no player on Linux.
The cops will indeed come... (Score:1)
So download and save the cracking explanations right now, because their web site has a high probability of being taken down, and mirroring will be necessary.
Re:It's not like it wasn't going to happen (Score:1)
Re:One thing that most people don't realize (Score:5)
Not to mention, you can purchase a Phillips CD recorder, promoted in ads that encourage people to make copies of their CDs.
Lest we forget, VHS did not kill the movie industry, cassette tapes did not kill the music industry, and it appears CD-R, the upcoming DVD-R formats, and compression formats like MP3 still won't kill the music and movie industries. As you mention, MP3s don't sound as good as CDs. DivX-encoded movies don't look as good as DVDs. So the business about "perfect digital copies" being traded over the Internet will continue to be fantasyland until most people have cable/DSL or better (much better).
It seems out of paranoia, the media giants are willing to push overly cumbersome digital formats on people that do nothing to preserve an individual's ability to use their own legally-purchased bits as they wish, outside of making copies and selling or giving away those. Like the Divx pay-per-view DVD format before, these technologies will be soundly rejected by technophiles and early adopters as overbearing. Ultimately, so-called "anti-piracy" actions will prove counterproductive, as users will run into just as much trouble, if not more, using the digital "secure" formats, than the pirates these techs are supposed to stop. Stuff like "Why can't I have this song on both my computer and my portable MP3 player?" Stuff like (if CPRM is forced into the ATA spec) "Excuse me, but why can't I send these songs I produced to my friends?"
Big Business really needs to think about how many customers it is willing to inconvenience and turn away to knock out casual copying, instead of going after the hard-core pirates who make hundreds of copies of CDs. As the head of a Canadian media association once said to a class I was in, perhaps the industry will have to learn to live with casual copying, go after the full-blown mass pirates, and just encourage people to purchase full-quality, legal copies because it's the Right Thing To Do.
Re:One thing that most people don't realize (Score:1)
Do you really think that people will have the time and motivation to try and listen to those 10000 bands which will emerge out of this movement? I think the industry will do its marketing again, and make sure that only the best (or those they like) come to the surface. Lesser bands will never be listened to, just because the sheer mass of music out there.
Why do you think most people listen to radio? Because most people are lazy. The _want_ to have music preselected for them.
cu Lars
Re:Hemos... (Score:1)
Nous sommes désolé.
Re:One thing that most people don't realize (Score:1)
Everything, at one point or another, WILL be hacked, decoded etc. just because it is out there. The idea, as I understand it, is to make the entire process such an inconvience that it is easier to go out and spend the money on the real thing. Look at what it took to break it, the announcement came out in the begining of Sept. 2000 and it took till almost the end of January. And to pull it off took a grad student and a Phd canidate.
In the end those who make a living cracking and selling data/music/etc. will continue to make a living at it. The whole thing is to just make them work as hard if not harder than those who created the original work.
MP3, AC3 and AAC (Score:1)
RIAA reeks of elderberrys (Score:2)
We are french hackers, why do you think we have this outrageous accent?!
E.
www.randomdrivel.com [randomdrivel.com] -- All that is NOT fit to link to
Re:Won't this software be illegal in the US? (Score:1)
As for the licensing issue, I do not see how this is an arbitrary resrtiction on any freedom at all. If someone creates something and offers to let you use it under certain conditions, you can't complain that those conditions are restricting your personal freedoms. You have to freedom to say no, do not accept the conditions and do not use the work. If someone demanded my firstborn son as compensation for using their software, I would not use their software. The only power they have over me is that they can limit how I use something that they created. I don't think the ACLU would be too interested in fighting that battle.
Not sure what you're asking in the last line, about "free use," but if you mean what can someone ask as compensation for using their work, then I would have to say that they could ask for anything they want. Of course, they wouldn't be guarenteed to get it, but that's simply up to the market.
Re:One thing that most people don't realize (Score:1)
Now, if what you claim is true: what are the record (and othe IP) companies waiting to change their business model?:
-Release for free full versions of a song digitized at low quality.
-Produce high quality CDs and DVDs of the same song. And let pirates copy them at free will.
-Laugh to the bank while people flock to buy the best product, avoiding the annoyance of copying a low quality product or the lack of service from pirates. Of course the price is the same one offered by the pirate, but a big corporation can offer support (your CD was broken, or does not play: they will exchange it), promotions, gifts, etc. to promote the product and at the same time can have a deal to present the artists all around the world singing that song live (so the lazy musicians get their asses out of the studio and make music the way it was meant to be), getting a cut of the money slice. In other words they can provide *services* around the IP that they initialy produced. They have all the infraestructure already in place!
They have stumbled accross the golden egg goose (like I would stumble with my cat in a room: by chance and not by my own doing), and as we know they do the only rational thing: they try to kill it.
Re:Won't this software be illegal in the US? (Score:1)
I work for a commercial, proprietary software company. Our product costs hundreds of dollars. We provide it on an unprotected CD, and have a 30(?) day money-back guarantee. You do not need to have the CD to run the program. Our sole anti-piracy measure is a network check for unique serial numbers. I have seen warez vendors with our product on their disks.
You know what? We actually still manage to sell our program and make decent money.
filigranes (frogtalk for watermarks, i think) (Score:1)
1. You only need to play back an encrypted/watermarked audio or video file once to produce an unencrypted and unmarked bit stream. Unless the decryption chip is the same as the D/A chip, there is no way of preventing someone from creating that bit stream.
2. Analog watermarks on audio files that survive transformations such as mp3 encoding/decoding are so limited as to render them useless, I don't think anyone actually needed to waste time on SDMI to find that out.
Site mirror. (Score:1)
Re:On more time... (Score:1)
The way I understand it, the problem is not so much with watermarking, but with the way SDMI is implementing watermarking.
Since each song (in this case) must contain the same watermark (or at least a small set of similar watermarks), Joan Hacker now has all the data she needs to eliminate said watermarks. In the technical document from the french hackers, they showed that by correlating the audio from the marked and unmarked songs it was easy (for interesting amounts of easy) to find the watermark and remove it.
This is the crux of the problem as I see it. As long as the same data is used to watermark each song, programmers will be able to pick out that data and remove it. Since SDMI compliant devices will need to support unmarked songs (legacy cds, independant records, etc), they have no way to stop this most trivial of attacks.
--Mando
Re:One thing that most people don't realize (Score:1)
Re:A Couple things about the standard (Score:1)
Re:RIAA reeks of elderberrys (Score:1)
If we build I giant digital badger.....
=tkk
Re:DMCA (Score:1)
Re:Won't this software be illegal in the US? (Score:1)
Everyone has a different outlook on their own property, and if you don't mind someone taking something you put time and effort into without compensation then I certainly don't mind as well. OTOH, though, some people do mind, and want to protect their right to compensation. Some companies cannot survive blatant piracy of their work, and even if they could, they still have the right to compensation for their work. Now the movie industry would definately survive if a few people made illegal copies of movies, but that doesn't make it right.
Re:One thing that most people don't realize (Score:1)
record companies currently profit off a set of distrobution models: distrobution of recorded music, distrobution of music videos and distrobution of voluntarily consumed self-programing materials (read music mags) serve as perhaps the major sources of recording industry income. they are want to ensure that any distrobution model used in the web maintanis the same format as that of physical distrobution (pay per record) or takes on an even more profitable guise (pay-per-use). screw that.
the artists want the profits, alternate distrobution methods made possible by electronic distrobution have the capacity to deliver them. (that is, unless the recording industries successfully dominate and centralize the market for distrobution technologies (read: ps3 delivereverythingbox) in which case we're all screwed.
Re:counterproductive (Score:2)
Huh..... (Score:1)
The random method... (Score:1)
Re:counterproductive (Score:1)
In other words, if you intend to produce a SOFTWARE PLAYER for your encrypted stuff, it WILL BE broken.
The only way to have securely encrypted music would be to use hardware-based encryption : the decryption key is hidden deeply inside a complex decoding chip engineered and taped out at great cost by some company. To produce a player you must incorporate that decoding chip into the MP3 player. To produce a SOFTWARE player, you need the customer to buy a special PCI card containing the decoding chip. That would be secure, because reverse engineering the chip is impossible.
It may sound like it would be overkill and would never work, because you'd never convince customers to buy special hardware just to listen to encrypted music. But frankly, i'm telling you i bet the next generation DVD encryption will be based on something like this. Besides, all it would take to push this for music would be an agreement with the sound card manufacturers to incorporate the chip directly into sound cards, in a way that makes tapping the digital signal very hard.
It's not like it wasn't going to happen (Score:2)
I guess that the other question is: Is the city-state of Hollywood going to ask for them to be extradited?
`ø,,ø!
Re:Won't this software be illegal in the US? (Score:1)
BTW, my music collection consisted of SIX CD'S before Napster, now I have 30+.
Re:Won't this software be illegal in the US? (Score:1)
Actually, it more like Violating the Agreement. The "Thing" is being used in a way the owner of the copyright doesn't want. Hard to enforce on individuals, easy against big business.
Re:counterproductive (Score:1)
Isn't CSS based on good 'ol export-level 40-bit RSA with some obscurity thrown in? If so, everyone in the know knew that it would be crackable from day1.
Although putting the CSS decryptor in a software device (DVD softplayers) was a mistake they won't make again...
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Won't this software be illegal in the US? (Score:1)
Personally, I don't think I would would be willing to exchange getting criminal record for a little bit of free music....
counterproductive (Score:2)
If DeCSS had been written before any DVD players were on the market then they would have *serious* encryption & no one would be writing free decoding software. The guys who broke SDMI should have stayed quiet until the hardware had been around for a year or so, as it is they have shot themselves (and you) in the foot.
Re:It's not like it wasn't going to happen (Score:1)
You weren't supposed to tell them. Of course it's easy to crack, but now that the RIAA knows that, they won't use it to copy protect their content. Now how are we supposed to get our free music and WaR3z. Now you've went and ruined it for everyone.
Re:counterproductive (Score:1)
The immutable laws of complexity... (Score:3)
likey that:
1 - it will be implmented
2 - it will be implemented correctly
3 - it will work the satisfaction of those who
seek its' protection
Read what Bruce S. has to say in Secrets and Lies
about complex security systems that rely on crypto
And finally, remember this:
mp3 is out there... soon oge-vorbus...
the ripping will occure at the play back device
So, until shmuck intl. corps. start subsasizing
the masses by forcing some sort of weird-assed
copy-protected-enabled play back device to be
placed infront of every speaker in the world
(sorta' like Sony's brain-dead copy-protection-enabled LCD screen), the entire
exercise is one large corporate circle jerk.
...too bad corporate porn doesn't get me off.
Unfortuantly, it's just kinda' funny (in a sick
way) and awkward to watch... kinda' like a
rhinoceros attempting to mate with a porcupine.
Copy Protected Music:
Just another corporate auto-erotic fantacy that
will results in the fatality of the music
industry.
Hemos... (Score:2)
Beware of this ambiguously sounding sentence.
I am French but I feel smarter than an US baby.
And BTW Americans did invent SDMI so, please, either explain your idea a clear way or don't write it.
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On more time... (Score:4)
Watermarks and encryption are two very different things
Watermarks attempt to identify different copies by embedded sounds. I see no theoretical reasons these sounds can't be irrevocably embedded. I happen to believe that the hackers will continue to win, but not because they by definition must be able to eventually, as with software based encryption (DVD, and I believe CPRM). So does anyone have a reason that it will be broken, other than a belief that the hackers are sufficiently good and the RIAA/MPAA sufficiently not? Is there any "proof" that it can be done, as there is for the fact that you can "simply" copy/paste the software DVD player's code to read the MPEG2 stream? anyone? please?
I also think we need a better way for developers to communicate anonymously and securely so that this stuff can be broken without as much worry about the DMCA, etc.
It isn't an anti-stealing law though... (Score:4)
No more making copies of stuff to play in the car, keeping your originals safe at home- something you can do by law otherwise.
No more taping of shows to watch at a later time.
No more copying of pieces of the content for use within other things. You can't take a snippet or even a still from a movie to show in a review or a research paper- unless you've got permission from the content provider first.
No more control over the content that you produce- they're insisting on every recording device have anti-copy systems in place such that you can't copy even your own content that you've got rights to by law. No way to duplicate it either since the DMCA takes away all rights in that regard.
All of these things are rights that have been taken away by the DMCA and copy protection systems.
Stealing I've no problem with- unless it's something they're stealing from me...
Re:Won't this software be illegal in the US? (Score:1)
Would it be unjust to say that I can't have your car if I can demenstrate the skill needed to hotwire it? Or is it just unjust to say that we shouldn't pay for anything we can steal?
Just noticed I was ranting, but this is something that really bothers me. I agree that the MPAA/RIAA/etc are all making tons of money, but that's the idea. They wouldn't be in the business if it wasn't profitable. Basically what I see is that people think their pricing methods are unjust, and that they can change this practice by stealing.
Let me re-phrase one thing... (Score:2)
Re:One thing that most people don't realize (Score:1)
Unless the quality changes, the "rating" isn't going to cut it. How often do you hear "I don't want to buy that CD for one song cause all of the others suck."?
outtakes (Score:1)
SDMI: Run away! Run away!
Re:Won't this software be illegal in the US? (Score:1)
Murder is the same thing as larceny. If you deliberately run over a cat, you have committed bank fraud. Removing the mattress tag from your couch is the same as bigamy.
Why is it that some people just cannot understand that copyright infringement is different from stealing.
If you steal, you deprive someone of their property. If I steal your car, you don't have a car. That is stealing.
If I copy a copyrighted work, I am infringing on a government-enforced monopoly. No more, no less. This is completely different then stealing.
And it improves audio quality, too! (Score:2)
It should also be noted that our newly created song is much closer from the original than the marked version. Consequently, we cannot have any quality problems, and testing the quality of the final result is not required.
So removing the watermark improves the audio quality. High End audiophiles will thus want watermark-removers to clean up the signal. There's a legitimate use for this.
Re:On more time... (Score:1)
Offcourse you could just have someone read a copyrigth-statement over and over mixed in with the music, and there'd be no way to really remove it, but then it's no longer a "watermark".
Point is: if the watermarks don't noticeably degrade the music, then removing them won't noticeably degrade the music either.
Re:counterproductive (Score:1)
I'm not saying I don't like getting free stuff. I do. I love Napster. But I'm a little disturbed of using the hacking argument to facilitate the stealing one.
For example, I recently hacked my Wireless LAN base station. It needed a repair, I ripped it apart on my own, fixed some things, then put it back together. That's cool hacking.
Stealing movies -- I don't know. If you're going to do it, and hacking, I wouldn't be trying so eagerly to tie the two together.
(And again, it's their product that we are buying. I don't know if we have a right to argue that it doesn't meet up to our "standards" for personal rights. You know what others will say: if you don't like it, don't purchase it. Movies are entertainment. If the argument was for getting bread and water, I could see that the ferocity would be needed.
Re:One thing that most people don't realize (Score:1)
MP3s are shit? (Score:1)
You must be doing them wrong. CDex [n3.net] (with the Blade encoder), using VBR with 80-320kb/s, and the results are good for anything but audiophile reference purposes IMHO.
And Ogg Vorbis [vorbis.com] should turn out to be better in the end.
Re:One thing that most people don't realize (Score:1)
You obviously haven't used cdparanoia combined with LAME. At the highest-quality setting, LAME produces mp3 files that are completely indistinguishable to human ears from the original, while getting a compression ratio of 5 or 6 to 1, for industrial music (I've seen some ambient music [tangerine dream - alpha centauri, to be precise] compress at the highest-quality VBR setting to 11-to-one).
Saying that "mp3's sound like crap" makes you look like a fool with a record+play sync program (i.e. a bad ripper) and the worst version of the Xing mp3 encoder.
That dumb? (Score:2)
Re:One thing that most people don't realize (Score:2)
Because one comes attached to their car. Because it's free. Because they don't have to carry around anything to listen to the radio. Most people use radio as background noise, to alleviate boredom, not because they have a specific body of music that they want to listen to. That's not how radio works. That doesn't make radio listeners lazy though
The _want_ to have music preselected for them.
You'll note that the recording industry, when they provided congress with the draft legislation that became the webcasting laws, made it essentially impossible for a webcaster to allow listeners to select their own music. (You have to get permission from each individual copyright holder to do that.) The lack of an ability for a radio listener to preselect is where the industry's power to promote their music comes from. If users could select what music they wanted to hear on the radio, then the recording industry would be powerless to impose new music on the airwaves. People would listen to what they wanted to, instead of what the RIAA wanted them to.
What if you could type in your desired playlist into your radio, and hear it, along with commercials, news reports, and weather reports. You'd be happy, because you'd hear the songs you like. The radio station would be happy, because you'd be listening to their commercials. The record companies would be very unhappy, because they don't get to pound the new Brittany Spears song into your brain.
That's why they made it illegal. Not because people want to have music preselected for them, but because people put up with it because they have no choice, and the recording industry is hell bent on keeping things that way.
- John
Re:counterproductive (Score:1)
I reckon you meant this as a joke but consider: Open Source recognises the ultimate consequence of storing things digitally; namely, you can't police their distribution. When you think about it, copyleft is the only sane response to the digital revolution. Otherwise you spend millions of bucks trying to hunt down pirates and warez-d00dz or inventing burdensome licence agreements and obnoxious copy-protection mechanisms that only serve to annoy your paying customers.
Also, SDMI is totally bogus: it can never work. You want to put a watermark in your music? If your customers can hear it, they're going to be pissed off. If your customers can't hear it, perceptual coding schemes like MP3 will know it's inaudible and strip it out. Heads I win, tails you lose.
(OT)Unique serial number check (Score:1)
Our sole anti-piracy measure is a network check for unique serial numbers.
This is what Office 2000 does. After you have launched the program fifty times, it connects via a wide-area network to Microsoft's server to verify the authenticity of the software. And if you do not connect to the network, Office refuses to run as advertised.
The next step in unique serial numbers is associating each serial number with a name and password.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them? [pineight.com]
Loss of quality. Of this week's pop hit. Puh-leez. (Score:1)
Environment: Most music is listened to in a noisy social settings like bars and dives and juke joints (and elevators.)
Equipment: The speakers suck because not everybody can afford B&O, B&W, SAE. (the rest of the components are pretty much good enough from 20 to 20kHz.)
Listeners: The listener's ears suck because listening to NIN full blast damages the cilia in you cochlea. Hell, listening to Mantovanni full blast damages the cilia in you cochlea. Years of listening to your mother's nagging full blast damages the cilia in you cochlea.
Source: Then you have to consider that one man's music is another man's noise. Personally I loathe Mariachi music, polka and Thrash Metal. This week's pop goddess is next week's remainder bin and that's how the music industry makes its money, on churn. Quality? Puh-leeze.
Okay, the environment sucks, the speakers suck, the listeners degrade and the source sucks.
MP3 is plenty good enough and I'll keep my old drives and CD burner for my own use and the RIAA can KMA.
Re:One thing that most people don't realize (Score:1)
Yup, and it depends on what you are used to. I can listen to the analog noise of old scratched up LPs all day and it "sounds fine". On the other hand, the digital noise in most low quality MP3s drives me nuts. I can see how a college kid would see it the opposite way.
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Re:It's not like it wasn't going to happen (Score:1)
Re:(OT)Unique serial number check (Score:1)
Nope, our program doesn't "phone home", it just checks for clones locally. You don't have to be connected to the internet to run.
Re:(OT)Unique serial number check (Score:1)
Can you document this?
I refer you to Google [google.com]. In particular, if you do not have a TCP/IP connection to the full Internet, you cannot use Microsoft Office 2000.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them? [pineight.com]
Re:counterproductive (Score:1)
Thanks!
- Steeltoe
Re:counterproductive (Score:1)
You can watch any movie you can see and listen to any song you can hear - there is no law saying you have to block your ears when you hear a song you haven't purchased, that would be silly. You don't have to buy the song or the movie to see/hear them, morally or legally.
To paraphraise someone else on slashdot, when you buy a CD you are not buying a song, you not buying a license to listen to a song, or a license to own a song, you are buying a piece of plastic - nothing more.
I'll say it again because it's important - there is no contract. If you didn't sign it (physically or verbally), it's not a contract. There is no license either - if you had a license then you would be able to walk into the CD store with your broken or scratched CD and ask for a replacement (at the cost of about $1).
Congratulations, you have now purchased a piece of plastic. How is the artificial scarcity maintained? Copyright law says you are not allowed to copy the contents of the CD without the authors permission.
Copyright law is the only thing restricting what we do with the contents of the CD, and copyright law specifically says we can do things such as sell the CD. Because of this you have to wonder how we can end up in a situation where we can't duplicate a work, and we can't sell it either. Sounds like the media corps are trying to have their cake and eat it too.
This license that you think you sign when you buy a movie... what exactly does it say? How do you know - have you read it? Where is it? You should be careful about buying into contracts you haven't read. What if clause #23 said that you consented to having your children killed - 'but that would be against the law' I hear you say, not at all like breaking the First Sale copyright law (and others that copy protection is walking all over).
yeah yeah, criminal vs civil law, but you get the point I hope. What these companies are doing is not on. Movies are for making money, but that's not the issue here
Movies are culture. How would you feel if Titus was the only work of shakespear that existed today because 400 years ago he was signed onto a large media corporation and all of his other works are released on copyprotected mediums which can no longer be accessed or copied as the copyprotection scheme was hardware-timestamped so that when the works went out of copyright the media company could re-release the work and gain another 90 years of copyright over it safe in the knowledge that none of the versions that had entered the public domain could be acessed.
After 50 years said media company iether dissolved or changed direction and moved into the advertising market. The works were never re-released, and if any originals have survived the 4 centurys, nobody know's where they are.
Someone is floating around on
What these companies are doing is not on.
(What's even more annoying is they are pretending that piracy is the reason they are doing it)
Well, of course they did... (Score:1)
Re:counterproductive (Score:1)
I think what they are attempting is to change the way this kind of thing is handled in business. They have finally realized that now that mp3 is out there it's here to stay. And they want a piece of the action.
So I guess what I really want to know is, what is to come of the recording industry? And digital music formats?
Re:A Couple things about the standard (Score:2)
Quite simply you have to brute-force and try all possible keys (admittedly if u dont know the length of the key then it's trickier)
Quantum Cryptography does seem to be the solution but it's not exactly in a real usable form just now.
American researchers run into DMCA trouble (Score:5)
Re:One thing that most people don't realize (Score:1)
Re:counterproductive (Score:1)
They never intended for it to be used (Score:1)
Re:counterproductive (Score:4)
It's also a fight against the content providers who wish to dictate when, where and on what their content can be playered.
It's a fight to preserve fair use rights -
the right to quote from the work,
the right to resell the work,
the right to review the content,
the right to fast forward through the adverts, the right to buy a film from a different country,
the right not to have to purchase one copy per player,
the right to build your own player,
the right to play and duplicate your own content,
the right to watch without informing the company.
Re:On more time... (Score:1)
Mind you, the math to do this is above my head..
Cheers
Chris
One thing that most people don't realize (Score:2)
Yes I am a pawn for big business. I am controlled by the man like a puppet. Just wanted to get that out of the way.
Anyways the thing is this : The goal that the media industries have isn't eliminating ALL piracy, it's eliminating mainstream piracy. For instance there are cassette decks everywhere but most of us still dutifully pay $12 for a CD when we could dupe it off a friend. Why? Convenience, added to the fact that quality is degraded on a tape. Going back to even when the industry was primarily cassette tapes though the same thing held true in that most people would rather buy the real cassette as dubbing a copy of worthwhile quality meant buying a Chromium Oxide cassette tape (itself like $4) then using a high end cassette desk that you've kept very clean and calibrated...it was hardly worth the effort unless you had far too much time on your hands. Again there were lots of people busily duping everything they can find with their custom label collection, but they remained small enough to not be a considerable threat.
But then along comes CDs : Now suddenly you can stick a CD in your drive and a $0.60 CD-R in your burner, hit dupe and you have a 100% copy. Put that with some good transparency labels and you can actually have a professional looking copy that doesn't make you look like a cheap thief. The same thing is a concern for the movie industry with DVD's : What happens when people can make digital copies of DVDs? Back in the day you COULD hook two VCRs together and dupe a copy but again what you'd end up with would be of lesser quality. The majority of consumers think : "Bah it's only $17...I'll just buy the fuggin' thing.". If on the other hand they could easily make a 100% copy and they knew all their friends were...that would bother them. The majority of consumer piracy isn't so much pure theft rather than people not wanting to feel like a sucker (which of course they aren't, but when all their friends are busy duping everything it's hard not to get caught up in it).
I've babbled quite a bit there but the point is this : If you have to degrade the quality of an SDMI song (i.e. a "brute force" attack) then that will keep it on the fringe as most consumers would rather pay the chump change and get the "Real thing" than have reduced quality. It is obvious that there are ways to get around SDMI (i.e. take an audio out and redigitize), but the point of the SDMI is that if it's perceptable then their mission has been accomplished.
On a similar note MP3s are shit. They sound like crap. On top of that the majority of people ripping seem to have absolutely no idea what they're doing and somehow manage to record in the sound of a new mail notification, or suddenly the tone will change abruptly mid-song, etc. If I was the music industry I would be pushing this sort of thing out like CRAZY. i.e. I'd have hundreds of Napster "servers" out there serving up slightly munged songs. People tend to give up and just go buy it. Just like in Warez channels where mysteriously that game you spent 3 days downloading has one ZIP missing, or one's corrupt, etc. They're doing their jobs perfectly.
Totally irrelevant : For all the kiddies writing their whitepapers proclaiming that we're at the dawn of a new world where IP and copyrights are invalid because they can copied : As I mentioned we had cassette tapes in the early 80s. This isn't new. This is the same old shit history just keeps repeating itself. I had Commodore 64 friends who had walls of pirated software. I had buddies who had the big briefcases full of duped cassettes. I had friends who had walls of VHS copies. For anyone who's foolish to proclaim that this is a profound new world, you're obviously too young to realize it's the same battle taking different forms.
Re:Won't this software be illegal in the US? (Score:3)
'If you steal my car then you go to prison'
but
'If you know how to steal my car then you go to prison'
Possessing a device that can do an illegal thing become a crime in itself, even if the device may have a legal and useful purpose - e.g. a cracked DVD player that allows you to fast forward through the copyright notice - IANAL but I believe that's still legal.
Re:One thing that most people don't realize (Score:5)
But the funny thing is, they end up eliminating casual piracy and barring exercise of Home Recording Act rights, and meanwhile the professional pirates keep selling piles of counterfeit DVDs.
I don't know what the media industries think they're trying to do, but they damn sure aren't eliminating "mainstream" piracy.
--
Re:counterproductive (Score:3)
If I create something (a poem for example) and I don't want you to have it, how is this "freely shareable"? It's within the definition of intellectual property.
Let's say I sell you that poem, but tell you I don't want it copied all over the place. That's part of the deal. What right do you have to tell me you can? It's my poem!
The problem is there's these rules that noone wants to follow. If you don't like them, TOUGH.
Re:counterproductive (Score:2)
...or is it just to get free movies?
Pretty sad if all it is for is to get free movies.
DMCA (Score:3)