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HD-DVD & Blu-ray Cracked?

December 28, 2006 at 5:07 pm - by Dale Dietrich

Categories: DRM Arms Race • DRM Circumvention • HD-DVD/Blu-ray

Reports are coming in fast and furious that the AACS DRM system used by both HD-DVD and Blu-ray players has been cracked by someone with the codename muslix64. I had reported earlier on a possible brute-force print-screen method of cracking HD-DVD.

This new method seems to rely on a compromised HD-DVD player whereby muslix64 was first able to access the unique decryption keys for particular HD-DVDs. Then using those keys and his java-based BackupHDDVD program, muslix64 was able to implement the AACS decryption protocol as outlined at aacsla.com (the official AACS website) and play it back using standard HD-DVD play-back software (in this case PowerDVD 6.5 HD-DVD). 

Muslix64 says the tool works on his XBOX 360 external HD DVD player, but that the software would not be limited to just one specific player.

It is unlikely that this will become the HD-DVD/Blue-ray equivalent of DeCSS, however, because it does not provide a universal method of decrypting HD-DVD/Blu-ray disks. Nonetheless, even if this is only usable by the most dedicated of hackers, once a decrypted HD-DVD/Blu-ray title is out on the wild and wooly Internet, it would be freely copied by the P2P community.  As the recording industry knows too well, it only takes one decrypted copy for the file to spread around the Internet like wildfire.

Whatever its future, DVD Jon is smiling somewhere.

Sources: ars technica | New York Times | Doom9 Forum (original announcement) | Gizmodo | DailyTech | idm.net | ZDNet Blogs | bit-tech.net | Engadget | Hexus | Inquirer | EDN | PC World

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  • it is a vicious cycle. In the end it is the consumers that pay the price
  • cracker is always one step ahead
  • Nonetheless, even if this is only usable by the most dedicated of hackers, once a decrypted HD-DVD/Blu-ray title is out on the wild and wooly Internet, it would be freely copied by the P2P community.
  • This new method seems to rely on a compromised HD-DVD player whereby muslix64 was first able to access the unique decryption keys for particular HD-DVDs.
  • Old news, but a nice read, Blu-ray is here to stay.
  • This is just sad. I have been searching for more information about BluRay and HDDVD, but I came across your post and became a little depressed. I liked the information, but why are people always looking for an angle to make money the "easy" way. It's never easy! Anyway, I have an XBOX and Wii and now I am worried about it. Either way, nice post. I am going to RSS. I like your info.
  • Thanks for the kind words Dallis. If you want to RSS me, I suggest you do that in my www.daleisphere.com blog because I have, at least for now, abandoned this iMedia Law blog.

    Cheers.
  • Member of the Human Race
    Since the HD DVD Encryption is nothing to do with Fair Use Copyright &
    actually removes certain hard fought for rights under Copyright I am
    totally in favour of this insidious form of censorship being REMOVED!

    Full Implementation of this Policy would put back Computer & Software
    development in many areas by years if not decades.

    It interferes dramatically with IO ports on current computers & the cost of
    hardware updates would be prohibitive in many areas of development!


    ** So look at Software Players the HD Player Terchnology & THE VIDEO/AUDIO
    SUBSYSTEM. The Software Player HAS to RE-encrypted or forward the data in an
    Encrypted form to the VIDEO/AUDIO Subsystem AS WELL!!!***
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