Tag: DRM
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AACS: Game Theory of Blacklisting
[Posts in this series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.] This is the fourth post in our series on AACS, the encryption scheme used for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs. We’ve already discussed how it’s possible to reverse engineer an AACS-compatible player to extract its secret set of device keys. With these device keys you…
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AACS: Blacklisting, Oracles, and Traitor Tracing
[Posts in this series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.] This is the third post in our discussion of AACS, the encryption scheme used for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs. Yesterday Ed explained how it is possible to reverse-engineer a player to learn its secret device keys. With the device keys, you can extract the…
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AACS: Extracting and Using Keys
[Posts in this series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.] Let’s continue our discussion of AACS (the encryption scheme used on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs) and how it is starting to break down. In Monday’s post I gave some background on AACS and the newly released BackupHDDVD tool. Recall that AACS decryption goes in…
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AACS Decryption Code Released
[Posts in this series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.] Decryption software for AACS, the scheme used to encrypt content on both next-gen DVD systems (HD-DVD and Blu-ray), was released recently by an anonymous programmer called Muslix. His software, called BackupHDDVD, is now available online. As shipped, it can decrypt HD-DVDs (according to its…
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DMCA Exemptions Granted
Last Wednesday afternoon the U.S. Copyright Office released its list of DMCA exemptions for the next three years. The timing is interesting: releasing news in the afternoon of the day before Thanksgiving is a near-optimal strategy if you want that news to escape notice and coverage in the U.S. The purpose of these exemptions are…
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Next-Gen DVD Support Yanked from 32-Bit Vista
Microsoft has announced that the 32-bit version of its forthcoming Windows Vista operating system product won’t support playing commercially-produced next-generation DVDs (i.e., HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs), according to Dan Warne’s story at APC. 32-bit Vista will be able to access the discs, reading and writing ordinary content, but they won’t be allowed to access DRM-encoded…
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PRM Wars
Today I want to wrap up the recap of my invited talk at Usenix Security. Previously (1; 2) I explained how advocates of DRM-bolstering laws are starting to switch to arguments based on price discrimination and platform lock-in, and how technology is starting to enable the use of DRM-like technologies, which I dubbed Property Rights…
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DRM Wars: Property Rights Management
In the first part of my invited talk at Usenix Security, I argued that as the inability of DRM technology to stop peer-to-peer infringement becomes increasingly obvious to everybody, the rationale for DRM is shifting. The new argument for DRM-bolstering laws is that DRM enables price discrimination and platform lock-in, which are almost always good…
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DRM Wars: The Next Generation
Last week at the Usenix Security Symposium, I gave an invited talk, with the same title as this post. The gist of the talk was that the debate about DRM (copy protection) technologies, which has been stalemated for years now, will soon enter a new phase. I’ll spend this post, and one or two more,…
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The Freedom to Tinker with Freedom?
Doug Lay, commenting on my last post, pointed out that the Zune buyout would help make a world of DRM-enabled music services more attractive. “Where,” he asked, “does this leave the freedom to tinker?” Anti-DMCA activism has tended to focus on worst-case, scary scenarios that can spur people to action. It’s a standard move in…