Hacker cracks HD copy protection
Years to develop; days to break
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco
Published Wednesday 14th February 2007 00:38 GMT
A lone hacker has unlocked the master key preventing the copying of
high-definition DVDs in a development that is sure to get the
entertainment industry's knickers wrapped tighter than a magnet's
coil. What's more, the individual was able to defeat the technology
with no cracking tools or reverse engineering, despite the millions
of dollars and many years engineers put into developing the AACS
(Advanced Access Content System) for locking down high-definition
video.
A hacker going by the name arnezami on the Doom9 discussion boards,
has been hard at work for at least the past eight days, when he
first claimed to have discovered how to read the volume ID of the
movie King Kong. Over the coming days, he documented his progress,
with the Eureka moment occurring on Sunday, when he was able to
confirm the validity of his method for identifying the processing
key. Combining the two allowed him to unlock the copy
protection.
After getting some much-needed sleep, arnezami was back to explain
how he accomplished his feat. While his player loaded the Kong
disc, he closely looked for changes being made to a certain part of
his computer memory. Making a memdump with the WinHex file editor,
he was about to find the key fairly easily.
Forum participants continue to debate the implications of
arnezami's handiwork. What's known for sure is that his hack
unlocks the encryption used to protect content on every Blu-ray and
HD DVD disc released to date. Several participants have downplayed
the significance of the discovery, reasoning that it could be
undermined in the future if the keys are changed or revoked.
But arnezami and others argue it will not be possible for copyright
holders to squeeze the toothpaste back into the tube. If a
processing key is revoked, hackers can use a player compatible with
the new one, insert a disc that's already been cracked, and sniff
around in memory for the new processing key.
This week's hack is only the latest sign that the plan to prevent
the copying of digital content is less straightforward as Hollywood
hoped. Over the past two months, a hacker on the same discussion
board who goes by the nick muslix64 disclosed other ways to
circumvent copy protections in Blu-ray and HD DVD. Unlike
arnezami's method, however, the earlier approach relies on
obtaining the unique key for a particular title, making the hack
more cumbersome.
Yay!!!! Now have pirated HD movies, softwares!!!
