Courtesy o' Martini Boy, there's new DVD copy protection on the loose.
Macrovision announced new technology today that it hopes will stop users from illegally copying DVD movies. The technology is called RipGuard DVD and it's going to make its way into DVDs starting with the new High Definition DVD films later this year.The idea behind RipGuard is that it plugs the original security hole that was exposed by the DeCSS software back in 1999, which bypassed the CSS encryption program. This allowed even the average consumer to copy a complete DVD to their computer and distribute the DVD on file sharing networks.{...}
Now, this may seem like the logical choice for the Hollywood higher-ups, but it's not, particularly when there was a better encryption option out there. According to Forbes {registration required}, a gentleman by the name of Paul Kocher, who wrote part of the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), had a better and cheaper solution to the problem. One, I daresay, which might have actually worked. For a time, anyway.
{...}What Kocher is pushing is the concept of renewable security. Any attempt to erect a one-time, rigid barrier between thieves and content, he says, is useless, including the current method pushed through by the Japanese consumer electronics companies. "With very few exceptions, all the major security systems being used by the studios today are either broken and can't be fixed, or they're not deployed widely enough to be worth hacking," says Kocher.Under the existing Content Scrambling System, electronics makers install the exact same encryption code into nearly every DVD player. But that was broken by European hackers in 1999 and the trick disseminated widely on the Internet. Even the least sophisticated user can now download a program that easily copies protected movies.
Kocher's alternative is to allow for constant change. His system, called self-protecting digital content, places the security on the disc instead of in the player. A software "recipe" running into the millions of steps is burned onto every new movie disc. Each DVD player would contain a small chip costing only a few extra cents that would follow the recipe faithfully. If the DVD player decides the disc is secure, it will decode it and play the movie. But each film could have a different recipe. So if a pirate breaks the code on Spider-Man 2, he wouldn't necessarily be able to break the code on Elf. The studios would always be one step ahead of the thieves; at the very least it would take pirates more time to break each film. Not a big deal: Studios make most of their money from DVDs in the first three months, anyway. {...}
Well, Hollywood didn't go for that option, which actually makes sense and would provide a relatively small wall against hackers and ther P2P-using ilk. But they didn't go for it. They went for the exceedingly dumb option instead.
At some point in time Hollywood has to realize that technology isn't only good for producing the latest and greatest special effects or the newest blockbuster from Pixar. It's not like I want them to get with the program. {cough, cough} I also derive a great deal of amusement from their idiotic efforts. It would, however, be nice to not have to hear them whine anymore.
Maybe if they weren't all using Macs, they might get an idea.
Ya think?
Posted by Kathy at February 15, 2005 05:31 PM