News AACS may be broken, but not BluRay

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/01/05/AACS_may_be_broken_but_not_bluray/

 

Why is that cool? We don't want copy protected and stuff!

 

I agree with Doug.
Everything can and will be cracked/hacked in time. The fact is thought that most users like to "get something for nothing". I know that's what lead to the uptake of PS1's and PS2's with a circle of my friends.
I'm personally still sided with HD-DVD on this "format war" because the players are far cheaper and its not made by Sony. And lets face it, as has been said many a time, the consumer votes with his/her wallet.

 

well that's the format war over

 

I dunno, I think LG will end the format war if its new dual-format player is reasonably affordable.

 

Well a Bluray Burner with integrated HD-DVD Reader is slated for $1200

 

With digital downloads likely to be huge in this and coming years, is a physical film format even worth discussing?

 

Fact is, all BD discs still need to be playable in all BD players without individual online authentication - I don't think the average consumer would take too kindly to a system which only allowed him to play his legally purchased HD content when it was connected to the internet, and it would completely screw the potential market for mobile players. As such, ALL the information needed to play any given BD must by definition be incorporated into either every piece of BD hardware or in the discs themselves. As such, since all the necessary information is available, all encryption on the Blu-Ray system, including BD+, will be broken in time.

 

Hi,

So hang on a sec. I can buy a player, someone else can use a similar player to create a crack, and the studio then stops -my- player working in order to prevent the crack being used on future titles?

Marvelous.

Phil

 

For people without a connection yes, also for people with a slow connection. And I dunno about you, but I don't wanna download loads of movies and lose them all to a hard disk failure or something and not having backed those hundreds of GB's up

I would personally buy a hard copy over digital downloads.

 

Sees doom scenarios of angry people throwing their players thru the windows of the manufacturers..

oooeeeeehh i only wish it would happen like this

 

There are roughly 60 million people living in the UK, and as of June 2006 over 11 million were using broadband, quite a jump from the 3 million in January 2003. Based on these growth figures, it's not unreasonable to assume this number could be over 30 million by 2010.

The UK broadband penetration rate overtook the US and Japan in Q1 2006, to become the second highest in the G7.

So yes while there is quite a few people with either no connection or have narrowband, it seems that there is at least a growing hunger for fast internet connections...

The method of storage and backup is an issue, however has this stopped people using iTunes for music and films?

 

it will be hacked soon enough... its like this guy defied the hackers to hack BR.

 

I don't think anyone here will question the possibility of BluRay movies being hacked.

If you do, speak up because when it happens i want to laugh at you .
Edit: Spelling

 

I think that means that if a single BluRay disk gets mass-pirated, and studio's find out about it, that disk (and it's copies) will have a unique BD+ key. At that point, any new Blu-Ray player that comes out, as well as any Blu-Ray player connected to the internet, may be upgraded to not play back that particular BD+ keyed disk. Other, legit (or less mass-pirated) versions of the same movie will still work...and all players will still work on other movies.

Basically, it sounds like it's going to work much like Windows XP did with the FCKW-___ keyed copy of XP that got so mass pirated... Microsoft found out about it and made it so that XP key could not get security updates and service packs.

So, long story short, if you've got a back-yard operation that just involves sharing movies between a few friends, you won't have a problem. If you download "ripped" versions of the movie that are re-encoded and not intended to work on a Blu-Ray player (just plain HD video), you won't have a problem. If you dl Blu-Ray ISO's from popular Torrent sites that the movie studio's can easily track down, and keep your Blu-Ray player connected to the internet (or buy a new Blu-Ray player), you may have trouble playing some of your bootlegs.

 

Which is all well and good, but how are they going to update the "blacklist" on the players? Unless they connect to the net or each new BR disk has an updated blacklist included on it which forces itself to update the firmware in your player (PSP updates anyone?) how are they going to do it?

THis is also dangerous territiry for player manufacturers since if people's pirated disks quit working they are going to be pissed at the player manufacturer and not the studio that sent out the "kill code" for that disk. The player manufacturer looses future sales and goodwill and the studio isn't hurt at all. Player manufacturers don't benefit at all from these anti-piracy measures and get blamed for the results, so why should they get too involved in making them work?

 

Good point about that, Cthippo.

I agree the blacklist would be difficult to implement...I was only thinking about net connections...but if they provide updates on new BR movie disks, that would be horrible for the reasons you pointed out (and might actually just push people into higher-tech piracy....my idea: isn't it going to be possible to author my own BR disks with home movies, as I can with DVD's now? How difficult could it possibly be to rip a BluRay movie to a standard video file, then burn it like a home movie in a way that a BR player could still understand? Since they can't possibly force me to stick DRM on my home movies, how could they stop that?)

To answer your question about player manufacturers being forced to implement the blacklist...I think they'd be "stuck" because they have to be licensed (by the BluRay group or whatever) to be allowed to produce the player. Maybe they won't be able to get the license if they don't implement the blacklist.

End result: Studios produce tons of movies on BluRay (instead of HD-DVD) because its harder to pirate. Hardware manufacturers find it annoying to make BluRay players (what with the consumer complaints about disks not working), and produce tons of HD-DVD players instead. The consumer is left with very few "legitimate" choices for actually watching movies since the common players don't play the common movies. Consumers stick to DVD, movie studios assume "piracy" is causing their lost HD sales...pay off congress to pass more DRM-promoting laws...process spirals out of control as usual.

 

sounds more like a challenge to me

 

When it comes to it, who would ever buy a media player that needs to be online? As far as the general public is concerned, that will never wash.

"But my ****** player doesn't need an internet connection - why should this?"
(Insert: VCR, DVD player, CD player, Hi-fi, TV set top box, ghetto-blaster, any other media device)

For the majority of users this would be a major PITA. For those that didn't have internet, they'd have to get it. Forget dial-up there - paying for a phone call every time you wanted to watch a movie Then for those that do have broadband - not everyone has a LAN at home. This would mean additional hardware costs (and the headache for some techno-cluesless) just to be able to use your fancy new player. I see a stampeed away from manufacturerers that will require this connection.

 

AACS was cracked… give BD+ some time and it will share that fate. As has been said so many times on so many forums, DRM's biggest weakness is its basic design. The consumer has to have the key in order to access the file. The only barrier to access is the key. Ergo, in order to crack the encryption, all one needs to do is grab that key.