Hacker Cracks High-Def DVD Encryption System
David Garrett, newsfactor.com Sat Dec 30, 2:25 AM ET
The movie industry may rue the day it challenged hackers to break its new
encryption system for high-def DVDs, claiming it was bulletproof. The day
after Christmas, a hacker known only as Muslix64 posted a hack to a Doom 9
forum that appears to shoot holes in their claim.
The hack consists of a program, BackupHDDVD, and a set of encryption keys
that would allow users to decrypt, and thus copy, high-definition movies
protected by the Advanced Access Content System (AACS), such as Full Metal
Jacket, The Last Samurai, and The Fugitive.
AACS was designed to replace the aging Content Scrambling System (CSS) used
on older, non-high-def DVDs. Industry bigwigs such as Sony, Disney, and
Warner Brothers have adopted AACS to keep pirates from making and selling
illegal copies of their movies.
Past Present, Past Future
Where there's a will, there's a way. This week's news is not the first time
a hacker managed to break DVD encryption. CSS was itself famously cracked by
DVD Jon, whose real name is Jon Lech Johansen.
Johansen now lives in San Francisco but was tried -- and acquitted -- for
his work in his native Norway. That did little to stop him from training his
talents elsewhere, of course. DVD Jon has since announced a way to defeat
the protection systems that Apple employs in iTunes, the world's largest
online music store.
Hello, Pirates!
Muslix64's hack is reportedly designed to enable users to copy
high-definition films in Toshiba's HD-DVD and Sony's Blu-ray format. Whether
or not it works has yet to be confirmed, but Muslix64 supplied his own bit
of compelling proof: a brief YouTube movie in which he showed, in careful,
step-by-step sequence, exactly how a high-def DVD of Stanley Kubrick's Full
Metal Jacket could be decrypted, copied to a hard drive, then played.
That Muslix64 chose a homemade movie to market his movie-busting invention
is an irony lost on no one. But even more intriguing is his tiny movie
itself. True, it won't make a Spielberg, a Lucas, or a Fellini proud, but
it's surprisingly well made -- a trailer for a hacker/director about to hit
the limelight. The film has its own soundtrack (complete with ominous
music), careful edits, and goading titles interspersed throughout.
Indeed, his last two titles might give the movie industry pause. They read:
"Stay tuned for source code in January." And then: "Merry Christmas!"
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