Re: need confirmation of DVD/CSS crack in China ...

Ernest Hua (hua@chromatic.com) wrote:
>> Third, the entertainment industry giants will have to improve and agree on
>> an encryption technology. The current 40-bit encryption standard used on
>DVD
>> discs, which is supposed to stop copyright pirates, has already been
>cracked
>> in China. Stronger encryption, however, forces PCs and players to run at a
>> crawl. Partially as a result, Fox, Paramount, and Disney have not
>committed
>> to producing materials on DVD, Burdon noted.

  DVD encryption is described on the Web at:

    http://www.kipinet.com/tdb/tdb_oct96/feat_protection.html

  There's a very simple way to 'break' it - you just copy the entire disk.
Key-size is irrelevant. As the article itself says:

 "While copy protection for DVD is often mistakenly referred to as
  "anti-piracy," it does not in fact provide much of a deterrent to
  those who would produce illegal discs on a mass scale."

  Or in other words, it will do nothing to stop the Chinese, it's simply
intended to prevent you and me from copying disks and giving them to
our friends. This is, of course, inevitable from the nature of the
technology. As has been discussed many times in the past, this kind of
scheme just can't work.

  Since that article is a few months old and talks about the big movie 
company's desire for a mandatory standard and laws against the sale of
any machine which allows access to unencrypted data, I'd guess that this
new article is FUD to persuade Congress to pass the laws.

  (Now explain to me why I'd want to buy yet another video format which
can't even record?)

CopyMonger

At 07:30 AM 8/28/97 DST, Jenaer Mixmaster Anonserver wrote:
>  DVD encryption is described on the Web at:
>
>    http://www.kipinet.com/tdb/tdb_oct96/feat_protection.html
>
>  There's a very simple way to 'break' it - you just copy the entire disk.
>Key-size is irrelevant. 

I fail to see how you can prevent copying an entire disk. If the controller
can access the data, I can copy it. Unless of course it will be made
illegal to sell DVD controllers that output the raw data stream.

Come to think of it, that must be coming.


--Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.com>
  PGP encrypted mail preferred.
  DES is dead! Please join in breaking RC5-56.
  http://rc5.distributed.net/

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At 12:40 AM 8/29/97 -0700, Tim May wrote:

>The way it was done with DAT (Digital Audio Tape), the product similar to
>DVD in so many ways, was to restrict the availability of DAT recorders
>which could faithfully record the output of other DAT machines. The SCMS
>system, or "Serial Copy Management System," has been in all consumer-grade
>DAT machines.

The DVD folks have also divided the world up into regions that use a 
different DVD standard (China is one all by itself) and they hope to minimize 
international copying.

DCF

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At 10:44 PM -0700 8/28/97, Lucky Green wrote:
>At 07:30 AM 8/28/97 DST, Jenaer Mixmaster Anonserver wrote:
>>  DVD encryption is described on the Web at:
>>
>>    http://www.kipinet.com/tdb/tdb_oct96/feat_protection.html
>>
>>  There's a very simple way to 'break' it - you just copy the entire disk.
>>Key-size is irrelevant.
>
>I fail to see how you can prevent copying an entire disk. If the controller
>can access the data, I can copy it. Unless of course it will be made
>illegal to sell DVD controllers that output the raw data stream.
>
>Come to think of it, that must be coming.

The way it was done with DAT (Digital Audio Tape), the product similar to
DVD in so many ways, was to restrict the availability of DAT recorders
which could faithfully record the output of other DAT machines. The SCMS
system, or "Serial Copy Management System," has been in all consumer-grade
DAT machines.

Pro-grade DAT machines have no SCMS, or  SCMS-defeat switch. And there are
various SCMS defeaters widely available.

--Tim May

There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."