I'm not talking about cracking the software key. You can do that by having a software decoder that licenses the key. I'm talking about cracking the hardware key that physical players use. If you crack one of those keys you have pretty much fucked the entire industry. How do you change a hardware key? You can't! What are you going to do, tell 10,000+ people who purchased a player that they can't watch new movies?Um, what are you talking about? There is one key. All movies are encrypted with the same key and all players, hardware and software, decrypt those movies with the same key. If they issue a new key, and you have a hardware player, then it either needs to update somehow or it can't play movies released with the newer key.
Also, even if there were no software players, it is not impossible to get the key out of a hardware player. It is definitely not as easy as getting the key from a software player. It requires special tools, knowledge, and time. I can guarantee you though, that it is definitely something that would be cracked in good time. Also, you would be surprised just how much "hardware" players do in software.
The AACS system can be used to revoke a key of a specific playback device, after it is known to have been compromised, as it has for WinDVD.[16] The compromised players can still be used to view old discs, but not newer releases without encryption keys for the compromised players. If other players are then cracked, further revocation would lead to legitimate users of compromised players being forced to upgrade or replace their player software or firmware in order to view new discs. Each playback device comes with a binary tree of secret device and processing keys. The processing key in this tree, a requirement to play the AACS encrypted discs, is selected based on the device key and the information on the disc to be played. As such, a processing key such as the "09 F9" key is not revoked, but newly produced discs cause the playback devices to select a different valid processing key to decrypt the discs.
Jason, as far as Gorillas in the Mist goes, I tried to give a very similar explanation of this a fewweels ago.
Very interesting and well-written paper, Pilitus.
BTW, I had to scrap that technology column because I went through six drafts with the editors constantly scratching their heads and not understanding. Finally, I told them I couldn't dumb it down and any more; at one point, they wanted me to define what the Internet was in the article and how it was used. I can't talk about how copyright meets encryption with someone to whom I must explain "Internet." There has to be some kind of common ground.
In a related note, it was interesting to hear Scrym's comments on the future of newspapers. They are on the right track -- every day I must write to a fifth-grade level for these morons. It gets old. Newspapers, however will never disappear; they will simply take on more specialized forms. The Internet news services will never tell you what's happening in your suburban city halls and police stations. They'll never tell you what they siren was last night, or provide features about local people. Google News and its successors are certain to take over the world news media, and maybe even metro, so newspapers will grow more and more focused on localized news to compensate. They just haven't figured out a lucrative business model for doing so, especially as paper costs climb through the roof.
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Also, even if there were no software players, it is not impossible to get the key out of a hardware player. It is definitely not as easy as getting the key from a software player. It requires special tools, knowledge, and time. I can guarantee you though, that it is definitely something that would be cracked in good time. Also, you would be surprised just how much "hardware" players do in software.
I thought there were numerous keys and each manufacturer got a different one. How else would they have known how this key got into the wild?
BTW, I had to scrap that technology column because I went through six drafts with the editors constantly scratching their heads and not understanding. Finally, I told them I couldn't dumb it down and any more; at one point, they wanted me to define what the Internet was in the article and how it was used. I can't talk about how copyright meets encryption with someone to whom I must explain "Internet." There has to be some kind of common ground.
In a related note, it was interesting to hear Scrym's comments on the future of newspapers. They are on the right track -- every day I must write to a fifth-grade level for these morons. It gets old. Newspapers, however will never disappear; they will simply take on more specialized forms. The Internet news services will never tell you what's happening in your suburban city halls and police stations. They'll never tell you what they siren was last night, or provide features about local people. Google News and its successors are certain to take over the world news media, and maybe even metro, so newspapers will grow more and more focused on localized news to compensate. They just haven't figured out a lucrative business model for doing so, especially as paper costs climb through the roof.