CD Copy Stopper 643
CTho9305 writes "Technology Review has an article about a new CD and DVD copy protection system by Doc-Witness, where the disc itself has a smart card on it. The card checks if a request is valid, and then returns a key to decrypt the contents of the disc. It apparently works with standard drives."
so.... (Score:2, Funny)
ok, wheres the crack for this?
=)
Didn't you read!?!? (Score:5, Funny)
See! Uncrackable! Just like that CSS thingy!
Oh boy (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh boy:: me not worried, it won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
It is impracticable to crack since it is hardware based and is based on dynamic protection
Sorry to say, but hardware has been 'cracked' and hacked before, and will be done again.
At some point in your computer, the signal must be decoded for regular use. All someone has to do, is find this signal, and use that to copy a CD or DVD (DVD burners are getting out more and more...). I'm sorry, but i really don't think that this, or any technology in general, is going to work perfectly, to a consumer's satisfaction. Problems::
1. As has happened so many times, the media screws up on Average Joe consumer.
2. Those who want to copy/crack/hack it, will. They can't stop it.
Old hardware, like quad-speed CD-roms and the like, won't work. Hardware varies, from year to year, from manufacturer to manufacturer, from country to country, from pc to car audio. Things will not work for someone, and people don't like that. It's just bad karma man!
Re:Oh boy:: me not worried, it won't work (Score:3, Interesting)
2. Those who want to copy/crack/hack it, will. They can't stop it.
The sad thing is, when Average Joe Consumer starts having problems with the latest DMCA-compliant device, he is unable to fix it without spending a fortune to get a new player/decoder/etc, and often he is unwilling to pay. So, in reality, the only people who get to reliably use it are the hackers.
"Easy to use" and "hacker proof" devices are a lot like child-proof safety caps on medicine bottles. It's trying to make it easy to use for those with lesser abilities, and harder to use for those with greater abilities, which is impossible. That's like trying to come up with a math problem that an elementary student can answer, but a college math professor cannot.
It ends with alienating the target audience (my grandmother absolutely hates the childproof caps, and takes all the pills out first thing and puts them in a plastic bag...), and are unable to prevent its circumvention (...while every one of her grandchildren can open the bottles without a problem).
Re:Oh boy:: me not worried, it won't work (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this substantially different introducing bad ECC data on the disk and checking for that? I can see how this will stop no-brainer solutions that attempt to burn the same incorrect ECC signal to a disk when doing a raw disk copy (as I guess the laser needs to move around the disk in a predetermined manner), but it won't stop the "real hackers". Basically it'll be the same difficulty as current systems - just remove the section of the code that performs the check and the system is worthless. Are there any games on the market you can't get wares versions of if you look hard enough?
And it's always the legitimate users of the software that have to suffer. For instance, look at the no-cd hacks for pretty much any game you care to mention. People who paid money for the game have an added inconvenience when playing, people who pirated the game just load it straight from hard disk.
I think it's really about time that companies just started trusting their customers as their attempts at copy protection seem to achieve little except annoying genuine customers.
I bet $20... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I bet $20... (Score:5, Funny)
More like within 30 minutes. And it'll be a high school kid.
Re:I bet $20... (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't invest in this company.
Well the truth is (Score:5, Insightful)
It will NEVER work in any form for the music industry. For the software industry its just a matter of how popular your software is...
Re:I bet $20... (Score:5, Informative)
A few years ago I worked for a smart card company and we thought about doing this very thing. We realized very quickly, however, that the key securely stored on the smart card has to get passed out of the smart card and into software to be useable. Once the key is in software, it is vulnerable and can be hacked to decrypt the contents of the CD.
If everything were done in hardware and the key was transferred securely through hardware it would be much more difficult to hack the key, but who cares? After passing the key securely from the smart card to the decryption hardware, the hardware has to put out a stream of unencrypted data to make the content actually usable and the data can be recorded AFTER being unencrypted. What if the hardware outputs the data in analog format? Big deal. It's a high quality stream so we record it again and digitize it and we really haven't lost that much quality wise.
Adding a smart card to a CD or DVD doesn't really make it more secure. It just makes us jump through more hoops.
Of course, this whole post is probably illegal anyway due to the DMCA. I would post anonymously but the karma is worth time in prison and $1/2 million fine.
Re:I bet $20... (Score:3, Funny)
Well at least you have your priorities straight.
Re:I bet $20... (Score:3, Insightful)
"A few years ago I worked for a smart card company and we thought about doing this very thing. We realized very quickly, however, that the key securely stored on the smart card has to get passed out of the smart card and into software to be useable."
If you'd only patented it, you would now be in a
position to either quash the development of this
"technology" or else to collect royalties on all
media sold with your invention.
Re:I bet $20... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm just waiting for the day when someone tries to pass legislation that require chips in our heads where every time we think about a movie, our debit card is automatically charged.
Perfect control, protection of intellectual property rights. Surely economic interests are more important than the commons of ideas?
Read Lawrence Lessig: "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace" and "The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World." Be concerned.
Attractive? (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps, but that website sure isn't.
Re:Attractive? (Score:2)
It amazes me that some people still think that a bigger font makes it more believeable.
Re:Attractive? (Score:5, Funny)
I always wondered why /. was only tolerable with the largest possible font setting.
CD Costs (Score:3, Interesting)
Cost of media vs. "cost" of piracy (Score:4, Insightful)
If RIAA members still want to get $18 per CD and this hardware/media hybrid protects the ability to do that, then they will absorb the cost. On the other hand, if piracy "problem" is merely a smoke screen to attack low-cost/online/non-RIAA distribution, then this technology is dead-on-arrival. Time will tell.
Something smells here (Score:2, Insightful)
It's actually a good idea? (Score:2, Interesting)
put a patch in to collect and save the keys after the first request, and use save keys there after.
Distribute the patch, all your keys and a copy of the cd to anyone you want, you don't even need to store uncracked data.
no more copy protection.
The crack will probably be out less than a week after the protection software.
Most pirates run large plants and could burn off as many copys of unprotected cd's as they want.
Consumers will still be able to rip the CD's and mps/divx them.
The idea seems nothing more than a look at us mr venture capital man.
Re:It's actually a good idea? (Score:2)
If the software stores/sends un-encrypted data anywhere then it's easy to crack you can just sniff or intercept the data.
After you've patched the software then you only need to read the disk once to get the key back so although the smart-card only allows 3 plays you should be able to use the cached key.
I sometimes take a look at cracking licensing security in software (just for a laugh/because i'm board etc...) you can normally come up with an effective crack in a day or so, sometimes it only takes an hour to bypass security system
Flash 5 for example requires you overwrite some jumps with nops(no operations) and change the condition on another jump) about 5 bytes of machine code.
Could be tough to defeat (Score:2)
Fortunately for
Re:Could be tough to defeat (Score:2)
But cracking this will be easy enough, all you need is a patch cable and a sound card and a PC. Most MP3's are flawed with digital artifacts anyway, so people won't complain too much about the slight loss in quality from this kind of copy. All they will care is, "Does it work in my MP3 player?".
Re:Could be tough to defeat (Score:2)
Re:Could be tough to defeat (Score:2)
The way it's operation is described makes it something of a waste of time. You can just copy the data after decryption.
Re:Could be tough to defeat (Score:2)
Sell empty cases that have all the pretty cover art and lyric books. Can't rip that music.
Seriously, I remember my uncle telling me about some new, uncrackable, small satellite dish that the company he was working for was working on. You just attach it to the eave of your house, and point it north. That company was Hughes, and we all know this technology as DirecTV. Turns out it was far from uncrackable.....
It appears that if someone makes it, it is only a matter of time before someone cracks it. But aren't all William Gibson novels about a conflict between large data companies and a fringe digital underground?
I predict - maybe I'm wrong, who knows - that this BS with digital rights laws and stuff will bounce around for another 10 years until we actually get politicians in office that know anything about technology. It always seems strange that politicians are generally really old people that are ill-equipped to deal with new technologies. These people will die off or get pushed out of office, and people who are mid-20s to mid-30s now will start to take office. Hopefully, they will have had the chance to get an education in the digital age, and they will educate the remaining dinosaurs of the folly of trying to regulate this stuff. You can't make laws that apply a label of criminal to everyone in the world except for the luddites, it is just a waste of time.
Re:Could be tough to defeat (Score:2)
Am I the only one who sees this as a viscious cycle?
5 rem RIAA strategy as a BASIC program
6 rem written in BASIC to illustrate
7 rem how truly silly these people can be
10 print "Complain about piracy"
20 print "Purchase laws, scream for enforcement"
30 print "Spend money on protection technology"
40 print "Raise prices"
50 print "Oh no! protection is defeated!"
60 goto 10
For those who want to see this on paper, feel free to change print to lprint. I am not responsible for printer damage or consumption of supplies (ribbons,toner,ink cartridge,paper,etc.)
what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Our dvd players read the optical stream from the disc, and then decode it video out. What is this chip supposed to do -- decrypt on the fly and send a new optical pattern to the read head? I don't think so.
I think someone is trying to push a new kind of dvd drive that requires the discs to have smart cards...
Re:what? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, yes apparently:
The technology works by turning an ordinary CD drive into a smart-card reader. A photodetector at the edge of the CD turns the drive's laser light into electrical pulses, which travel to the embedded smart card and request the key. If the card deems the request legitimate, it returns the key as an electronic signal that an onboard light-emitting diode converts into light and beams back to the drive.
Re:what? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think that the fancy CD is just -part- of a total programme here.
Gut feeling: It will be cracked in a week.
Sign me up! (Score:3, Funny)
Hell yes! Sign me up today!
I would be more than willing to pay an additional premium on the CDs I buy if it meant I could have the c00l technology.
Re:what? (Score:4, Insightful)
data CD's (and DVD's coming soon if you believe them).
There will be a piece of authentication code in the installer (or whatever). This will be responsible for interacting with the smartcard to send it that initial information pulse. It will then ask the drive to re-read the "smartcard area" of the disk until it gets a response (decryption key), and will use that to decrypt the rest of the disk. Since DVD drives can run code also they will be able to use this same scheme there.
'course all the Warez'ers will have to do is replace the initial installer code once they've accessed the drypt key, so I give new titles a week after they are released before there are cracked versions going about.
One worrying question - are they getting all the power for the smartcard from that laser pulse? Really? Probably means a battery, so your CD or DVD now has an even more limited lifetime. Tinker with the battery size and Hollywood now has a way to program in obsolescence into that new DVD, forcing you to buy a new copy!
Re:what? (Score:3, Insightful)
It all comes down to a scene in a demoscene demo of years ago. The demo is called "Eden". I can't remember the group that designed it..."Psychic Monks" or something like that. Anyhow...there was a scene where there was an oldskool anti-soviet poster stating "Big Brother is Watching". But instead of Lenin on the poster, it was Elvis. I always thought that was a funny paralelle, as the entertainment industry is always trying to find more ways to charge more for consumers.
I'm still on the fence about this one. Am I happy that Hollywood/RIAA wants to come up with some sort of encryption system built into their media? No. But I can sorta see where they're coming from. After all, if that were your business, you'd try to figure a way around it as well.
However, the gaming industry might have realized one minor fact that Hollywood and RIAA have overlooked -- spend all your money on research, and its likely going to get wasted. It doesn't matter what you do, someone will find a way around your "security". The goal of an entertainment industry is literally just to make more gains than losses (profit). I'd be curious to know (if there is a way to measure it) the difference between the net loss relative to piracy and the cost put into research for anti-piracy devices such as this. I wouldn't be surprised if it came close to balancing out.
The reality of the entertainment industry...with some exceptions, a movie, or a CD or a game or anything of the sort has a life span. It is popular for a certain amount of time, and then people loose interest. They get interested in the next new thing. The industry could take advantage of that.
It is compatible, but does not prevent copying (Score:2)
How can this possibly be claimed to work with standard drives?
It may be compatible with standard drives - meaning you can read data from them (and copy them as well). BUT in order to enforce the encryption you need either a new drive, new firmware, or a new driver. It cannot enforce it's "lock" on current standard drives. To claim to do so is a blatant lie. There would need to be a globally unique serial number on every CD/DVD drive on the planet - AND it would need to be transmitted to the last track of the disc every time it is inserted into a drive. Standard drives do not do this.
Comparison to WinXP copy protection (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Comparison to WinXP copy protection (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure. But remember that copy protection doesn't have to completely prevent copying to be effective. Instead, it merely has to make the legal purchase more attractive than the copyright infriged copy, at least to some consumers.
In this case, it sounds like each and every DVD would have to be cracked by someone with a good deal of skill and possibly some special equipment. Compare that to "cracking" CDs, where you can get pre-made tools that handle all the effort of ripping CDs, encoding them as mp3s, and even naming the files to match the CD info.
Re:Comparison to WinXP copy protection (Score:2)
exactly. (Score:2)
if this happened to an artist that i really liked, i would probably send them a letter explaining my position. i would then tell them that i will not purchase the cd in question or any future cd's which have this type of protection.
if they dont listen, then they dont listen. the cd would end up on irc, p2p networks, netnews, etc. before it's even released. this type of alienation of their fans hardly seems worth it.
Re:Comparison to WinXP copy protection (Score:2, Informative)
The glaringly obvious hole, that I see, anyway, is that you could stick it into a valid system, and then copy the contents. It would decrypt the files to give you, the authenticated user, access to the data. Then you could crack and burn. The only thing I see this preventing is 1-to-1 copies, like CloneCD does.
They're Destroying It (Score:5, Insightful)
All this stuff -- from half-assed watermarking, to government-sanctioned hack attacks on 14 year-old Kazaa users, threatening to throw them in federal high security lockups -- all this stuff is destroying what it's attempting to preserve.
Re:They're Destroying It (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember that the 14-year-old Kazaa users tend to still be significantly more intelligent than the average population.
Anyone below average scares the crap out of me and, by definition, that's 50% of everyone.
With Microsoft and Dell making computers that any idiot could buy and use (Jeez... just take a look at Dell's spokesperson!), we'll actually have at least half the population buying these copy-protected CDs without thinking twice about Fair Use.
So much for voting with out wallets. We're going to actually have to vote with our votes during every upcoming election. Our best course of action is to educate those that are educable and motivate them to cast their votes every time they have a chance.
It's society's own apathy that's going to wind up allowing
Dude, you gatta get a Dell. (Score:3, Insightful)
These things ARE coming to pass because the general population *is* voting with it's wallet. MOst people buying CD players and CDs have no clue what copy protection or digital rights management is. If you try to explain it to them they still don't get it. What they do get is that, I buy this great CD player and these CDs and I can listen to the latest cool tunes. Their not thrilled with the cost of the CDs but, "hey, what are you gonna do?". "Dude, you gotta get the latest Brittney Spears CD it is SO sweat and did you see that shot of here on the back of the cover?"
Like a dear in the headlights, most people don't even know that they are being screwed, much less care.
50% below average... not true (Score:2, Offtopic)
Anyone below average scares the crap out of me and, by definition, that's 50% of everyone.
Let's look at a few IQ's- 90, 90, 90, 95, 100, 180.
With these numbers, the average IQ comes out to be 107.5. This puts 83% of the population to be "Below Average".
It can also work out the other way.
20 (vegatable), 50 (retard), 120, 130, 125, 100, 115, 180.
The average of these numbers comes out to be 105. So that putss 75% of the population above average.
Now you say, "Well isn't 100 supposed to be the average IQ? Well, yes, but as you can see, it doesn't always work out to be the median number either. Truthfully the average is probably a little higher or lower. But then you have to ask yourself who you consider...
To make everyone take it you have to factor in language (which many IQ tests factor in), problem solving, etc.. which can all be somewhat screwed up. A dolphin has a pretty high IQ as things should go, but he can't tell me if Cat is to Kitten as Dog is to...
yea, and then we have to factor in those with mental problems, or mental gifts. Those people throw things off pretty well. Then some people are uncaring or unwilling, which would pull the scores down more. What about people who have a huge problem speaking and dealing with people, but can spit numbers out at you (hmm, Pi...)
Anyway, 50% of people are not below average, nor are 50% above, even if it all averages out to "average" IQ...
The game is over... they just don't know it (Score:2)
The recording industry (and through them, the movie industry) has already lost this fight. They lost it around 1995 or 1996. Everything since then is just a King Canute maneuver. They've lost for the following, single reason: For more than six years -- 1.5 student "lifetimes" -- college students have been getting music for free and getting used to playing it where, when, and how they want. And their younger siblings have been watching them. Game over.
You're right. Most of them probably don't know or care about "Fair Use" rights or copyright law or the DMCA. But they know MP3. They know timeshifting and spaceshifting. They know what they like to do with their music. And they are, statistically, going to be a demographic the RIAA/MPAA want: For no one is discretionary income so high a ratio to total income as for 20-somethings. The *AAs desparately, desparately want to sink their hooks into this demographic and extract all the cash they can. Yet these people expect free music.
And it won't get better. Maybe the culture machine will drive people to buy the protected CDs. At least as likely, the teen set will say, "Screw this -- I want my MP3".
The corpse hasn't stopped moving yet, but no technological fix is going to breathe life back into the old music distribution model. And Holllywood knows it's next... why do you think they combined a crappy protection scheme with the draconian DMCA? Because they know (a) people can draw the line from copying music to copying movies and (b) only a massive legal campaign will have any hope of stopping that, by stigmatizing movie copying before it becomes socially acceptable.
But they are too late. People can draw the line. And people already accept movie copying... somewhat fringe now, but growing.
The buggy-whip makers hear the thunder of tomorrow and are scared. Rightfully so.
And they just don't learn - or do they? (Score:2)
With one exception. Those countermeasures I mentioned above probably won't work on Microsoft's new oh-so-secure upcoming OS (which shields ram and devices from such attacks, supposedly).
Re:They're Destroying It (Score:2)
I will not contribute towards technology that does nothing to even the playing field in this plutocracy.
Re:They're Destroying It (Score:5, Insightful)
Case in point... last weekend I was at Conglomeration (nice mid sized sci-fi con held near Lousiville) and attended a panel by the directors of the home made movie "Rock and Roll Starship". I brought up computer technology and he told me that since the advent of things like iMovie and companies like Adobe and Apple making what was once high end movie software cheap enough for the masses, that the number of people who are interested in starting their own independant movie making groups has skyrocketed. He said that anymore, movie making is going more and more independant and it is only a matter of time before Hollywood loses control to groups of kids who are able to make their own films and put them up on the internet or burn them to DVD and sell them at cons.
True, the flashiest looking stuff will always come from big budget Hollywood, but independant film makers are going to catch up enough to make some stuff which looks pretty nice on their own. That and some of the independant stuff is pretty damn good story wise, better so than a lot of Hollywood fluff.
In fact, I was able to see a rough cut of their second movie and comment on it, to influence the final version, which was very cool! Their first movie came out in 1997, had shaky camera work, Dr. Who like special effects and the sound was a bit buzzy.
This next one, though a rough cut, already looked a lot better. The sound hadn't been cleaned up yet and there were only a few "test" effects, but from what there was in there the new movie will look as professional as something that Hollywood might put out.
Times are changing and you will see more and more of this as time goes on. Hollywood had better prepare itself, because the computer is going to bring on the age of the independant film, and nothing they do is going to stop it.
CD-ROM drive recall announced (Score:3, Funny)
Impracticable?!! (Score:2)
It is impracticable to
crack since it is hardware based and is
based on dynamic protection. Unlike
competition it is not based on passive
protection (that is easily cracked)
or remote activation (that is both offensive
to customer's privacy and easily cracked).
Uhm. Okay guys. If I was a record producer who was living with (the very real) fear that my job was about to go away because of digital copying, the line above would make me think twice about using your technology.
Re:Impracticable?!! (Score:2)
And "dynamic" -- what does "dynamic" mean in this context? That the CD has a little ethernet connection and requires you to plug it into an internet connection before playing it?
This reminds me of the organic DVDs promised a couple years ago. Rip the special plastic off the DVD and it begins decaying. After 72 hours, the DVD is unplayable. It was touted as revolutionizing the DVD rental business model.
Yeah, what a revolution! Wait
and next month we'll see.... (Score:3, Funny)
new encryption scheme
baby oops i cracked it again
more britney copies!
siri
ugh. (Score:3, Informative)
I don't understand where my ability to make backups for myself has gone. That's part of my right as an OWNER of a piece of software. I am ALLOWED to make a backup for myself.
With this, if the disc goes to crap or the "smart card" goes to shit what am I going to do? Can I call up Doc-Witness and say, "hey, send me my money so I can get a new CD?"
Re:ugh. (Score:2)
Re:ugh. (Score:2)
Also, like most previous copy protection systems, I suspect this won't work on a subset of the hardware for some reason. I know it irritates me to no end to get a new game and discover that it doesn't work in my CD-ROM drive because the publisher used Safedisc.
Re:ugh. (Score:2)
-Peter
Re:ugh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit. Media damage happens, that's why backups are part of fair use.
I would gladly buy a new copy of the DVD, but I refuse to by a second license for the movie.
In other words, "they" want their cake and eat it to; when the media becomes dammaged I "own" it, but if I want to act like I own it I'm "just" licensing it.
Fuck that, I deserve either fair use backups OR at cost media replacement. But they have left me with the options of either buying a second license for no reason, or "pirating" it.
-Peter
Re:Can you Read? (was Re:ugh.) (Score:2)
So, the card is on the CD but it won't copy. Explain to me HOW I am going to be able to use this burned CD w/o the smartcard?
how about legitimate reinstalling? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:how about legitimate reinstalling? (Score:2)
How is it going to know if a hard disk has been cloned or if the software has been installed on a shared drive?
Re:how about legitimate reinstalling? (Score:3, Interesting)
The communication process should be easy given any cdrom drive. The LED and phototransister are located in place of several tracks each. To send a message the program can tell the cdrom to read that track to send a one, read a different track to send a zero, etc. It'll likely be based on long time constants to slow drives work as well as fast. To receive a message it simply tells it to read the track with the led and decodes the data based on long time constants again.
Overall it'll be slow, but it'll work for what they're trying to do. It'll increase the cost of the disc only a little as the foil only needs two little holes, and the smart card can be laminated over the foil - no special presses or anything.
The great difficulty here is that the smart card is exactly that - smart. It won't dispense the encryption key unless the program reading it has presented some form of authentication, ie - Program sends a start auth message, cd sends back an encrypted message, software decrypts it and reencrypts it with another key, cd verifies encryption and message then sends the encrypted key to the software. Using the usual public key methods there is no practical way to override the program because you have to defeat both the smartcard and the program. Since every release is going to have a different set of keys then they would need to be cracked on a cd by cd basis, unlike dvd where you crack one you crack them all.
The good news is that this sort of long authentication would take 5 minutes or so (I'm guessing), unless they use shorter (weaker) keys, and therefore they will likely start off using dumb cards that require little or no authentication to get the key for the rest of the cd.
-Adam
Craziness! (Score:4, Insightful)
Then they come in for lunch, "play" computer, and muck up CDs. I'm not talking about my really important stuff that is snuggled away - I'm talking about the games they are alloyed to play...God forbid they get their hands on Warcraft 3!
I always make burnt copies of CDs for the kids to use, so that when they roll over it with the toy car and crack it I can just make a new one.
I know piracy is a problem for the industry, but it just sickens me at how legitimate fair use gets slaughtered for people like me!
And forget the "I won't be buying any of THESE CDs line" -- that only works until Toy Story 17 comes out on DVD....
Case
Re:Craziness! (Score:2, Insightful)
It does seem like soemthing that Mircosoft would put on a $279 CD of MS Office, to stop IT staff from making a few extra copies or to stop employees from making a personal copy at home. It might work too, as the support costs for high end packages might justify the cost of the smart card dohickey.
Hmm, but you'd have to insert a differt CD every time you'd want to start a different program, and if you want to store your Excel spread sheet on a CD-RW, it'd be a two step process, or you'd need two drives.
Kinda a wash if you ask me. Not suited to low end, and the high end would probably complain too much. Shrug. We'll see I guess.
key management (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are forced to distribute the secret in an insecure way, the game's over. Better yet. it only takes one read to copy the data.
I guess it's a nice idea that just misses the point.
Re:key management (Score:2)
You are right, technically. But legally, mentioning or employing this obvious fact turns you into an evil cyber terrorist, as they nowadays use to call us.
this is fantastic (Score:5, Insightful)
YES! This is great news!
Thanks to this new technology, the price of CD's should plummet, as it will be impossible to rip them!
Finally, they have solved the problem of piracy and can now lower the price of CD's since they will not be 'losing money' anymore (a slow economy doesn't count)
(/sarcasm)
Yeah, right. I bet those greedy pigs will raise the price of cd's even more citing the need to produce 'anti-theft technology'
Re:this is very limited in usability (Score:3, Insightful)
1. This is nothing more than a CD that carries its own dongle. This might be attractive to companies like Quark and Microsoft, but isn't applicable to music CDs.
2. The company hasn't said how much this costs. If the price is much higher than what it costs to mass-produce normal CDs/DVDs, then only a few software publishers will bite. Also, not every CD production facility will be willing to invest in new machines.
3. PR releases tend to hype (and even lie) about how many companies are "interested" in an attempt to lure the others in. We need to shine more light on this subject fast.
Not for music (Score:2, Informative)
The installer communicates with the smart card to get permission and the decryption key needed to finish the install. So, reverse engineer the installer and run one legitimate install to capture the decryption key and you can make as many installs as you want.
It's a little more secure if the disk has to be in a drive to run the final software, and it expects to communicate with the smart card to authenticate authorization to run.
Re:Not for music (Score:2)
Which User Agreement? (Score:3, Interesting)
This worries me. They even mention down below how static systems are easily cracked and how 'phone-home' is offensve to user privacy and still not solid. Which user agreement will they use? The one that inclides fair use or a new creation that disables any and all attempts to protect our investment?
I'm not a 'consumer' with gigs and gigs of stolen MP3's, but I am someone with backups of my legitimately bought copies. I have two siberian huskies that seem to love chewing on CD and DVD cases (I'll stop leaving them at the door, I promise) so these backups become invaluable.
Sadly, people who've read their benefits [doc-witness.com] section will realize that our right (yes, it is a right) to have legitimate back ups are tossed out the window...
Just keep the key (Score:2)
If no special hardware is needed to make it work, then it probably rely on software to do decrypt the disk.
The key used to descrypt the disk is sent to the computer when a legitimate request is made. Once you have the key, who is going to prevent you from keeping it and reuse it later.
How can they have dynamic keys if the CD-ROM is encrypted once?
It would also be probably easy to pose a reading request as legitimate and then decrypt the whole disk and store the cleartext ready to be burn on a new CD.
This kind of scheme may prevent M Smith from copying the disk, but M Cracker will find a way arround the protection in no time.
All copy protection scheme inveted as of yet were defeated. This one will go the same way.
Ok, but once I have the key... (Score:2)
If you are trying to protect an application (say a game), then I could see it require the use of the smart card, but it doesn't seem like it would be to hard to write a device driver wrapper around the CD-ROM driver that exists that will emulate this.
Overall, very cool technology. In this instance it seems like it will do little more then keep honest people honest. Is that really of value to any publisher?
In Tech Review (Score:2)
Re:In Tech Review (Score:2, Funny)
Obviously, they wanted to keep you from copying it...
Contradictions (Score:2)
Okay...
Later: You can copy the CD
Sounds effective. Then: without the card the software won't run.
Hmm...okay. So we've copied it to another CD. There isn't a card anymore. Why's the card needed?
Earlier: A "smart card" embedded in the CD unlocks the disc's encrypted content.
Oh. So we rip an ISO off the CD, crack the encryption to form an unencrypted ISO, and burn it back to another CD.
Gee, like that's not gonna happen.
Is this the copy-proofing technology........ (Score:5, Funny)
No hardware changes needed? Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
At least I can't see any way to trust a client once it has been transferred to the general purpose computing platform; at that point the software is open to inspection and its secrets won't remain hidden very long.
Insufficient. (Score:2, Insightful)
Until it's impossible to copy all the information on a CD this is the way illegal games and applications are distributed. This innovation, however ingenious wont make a dent in the pirate industry.
I don't buy it. (Score:5, Interesting)
I suppose it's conceivable that this might be possible with a CD-RW drive. But with a regular CD-ROM drive? I think that's bullshit, plain and simple. It's not like there is any command for sending data to the laser of a read-only drive. Do they send the request in morse code by turning the drive off and on again?
I think this is just more snake oil being peddled by folks who know the can make an easy buck off of nervous media executives. My guess is, it'll work fine during the dog and pony sales presentation, it'll cause endless support headaches for paying customers, and be trivially bypassed by the warez folks.
I swear, I don't know where they finds the folks who sign on to these deals. Have a problem with piracy? Make your product less attractive than the warez version by saddling it with a bunch of flakey 'copy protection' technology. That'll help your market share!
that reminds me.. (Score:5, Insightful)
i had friends who used a program, 3d studio i believe, which used to rquire a hardware dongle. this wasnt really a problem, except they had about 2 or 3 other software packages which required the dongle. finally they started installing the warez versions-even though they had legally purchased the software. it was just easier to deal with the warez version than the big tumor of dongles hanging off the back of their computers.
That it deems appropriate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose we presume that this magic card really, really works.
Assume it is the fly, cats-pajamas, Golly-Gee-Whiz-Neato, super deluxe, smokin', king of the hill, rad copy protection of all time.
So perfect it gets canonized in Rome.
So ---
It determines what it considers to be legitimate requests?
How does it tell the difference between a completely legal archive copy and an illegal copy?
How does it know the difference between a completely legal archive copy (a right protected by federal law, BTW) of an archive copy made because the original disk was destroyed?
How does it know the difference between an illegal installation on another computer and a legal installation on an upgraded computer? A legal installation on another computer that replaces the first one?
Is this smart card also a legal scholar, familiar with fair use exceptions?
Unlike many here, I believe in intellectual property rights and have no problem protecting them.
I have a big problem, however, with protecting intellectual property rights by taking away my rights and those of everybody else.
Store owners aren't allowed to protect against robbery by shooting everyone who looks like they might steal something. IP owners shouldn't be able to protect against theft by infringing on the legitimate rights of their potential customers.
Re:That it deems appropriate? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or worse yet, REFUSES to provide replacement media, and instead requires that you PURCHASE an upgrade? (I've actually seen this happen with copy-protected software. My client purchased a competing product instead.)
"Valid" Request? (Score:3, Interesting)
'I want to read this bit, and the next bit, and the one after that..'
After all, I always thought it was what you did with the bits once they were off the CD and in your 'puter that was the problem.
Battery? (Score:2)
OS X? (Score:2)
Use virtual machines (Score:2, Insightful)
install the CD into a virtual machine
and then just copy the entire virtual machine.
I hate it when companies go out of their way
to make something not work.
Silly, silly, silly. (Score:4, Insightful)
Has anybody ever heard of cracks for dongle-protected software? (insert roaring laughter here).
Silly fools. Marketing anything as "uncrackable" is going to shoot you in the foot. This is no more secure than SafeDisc, it just requires a patch to the binaries (don't check that disc) and you're good to go.
If a computer can read it, it can be cracked.
The idea is a paradox, always were, always will be (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as the end-user, i.e. the viewer, cannot be trusted in all circumstances, there is no way on earth to protect it, because at some point along the line from the DVD to the TV electron cannon or LCD crystals the signal must be deciphered.
There will always be people that will capture that and put it out as an mp3 or DivX.
Re:Spoofed? (Score:2)
Re:We've been over this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider this the logical evolution of the hardware dongle that 3DS Max once did, and possibly still does.
Quite right, and possibly a Good Thing (Score:5, Insightful)
I think something like OpSecure could prove to have a positive effect on Free software. Consider that, as publishers find more effective ways to prevent license violation and unfettered copying/distribution of their wares, many PC users will be forced to make a decision that they have not in the past: 1) Pay for a legitimate copy of a given title, or 2) Use a Free (or free) alternative. Consider how many people today buy one copy of MS Office and install it on several machines or share it with friends and family. If the license enforcement becomes difficult to circumvent, a three-machine Office purchase will suddenly skyrocket from a few hundred to over a thousand dollars--more than the cost of a new PC! This opens the door for low-cost (StarOffice) and no-cost (OpenOffice, KOffice, Gnome Office) alternatives to establish a foothold in the market.
The end result? I guess that depends on the big guys' response. MS, for instance, might dramtically reduce prices for its Office suite, which also has short-term benefits for the public. This may not be sustainable, though. The funny part is this: unlike Wal-Mart, which moves into town and sells (concrete) goods at cut-rate prices until the competition disappears, there is no way to run the competitors out of business when they give their (intangible) goods away for free. How long can MS' Office division remain profitable in this scenario?
To sum up my rambling, improved software license enforcement could, in a delicious display of irony, promote Free software adoption.
Re:We've been over this... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is great for verifying media. However, the dongle comment put a scary thought in my head. I'm not sure if you intended to imply that the media could be used as a dongle, but let's pretend you did mean that:
There are a couple of problems: 1.) The dongle becomes very delicate and 2.) I've only got one CD drive, what happens when I want to run Lightwave and 3DS Max at the same time? (I.e. translating a model...)
If they can solve that, no worries. But I do hope they don't use it (protection/restriction-wise) for more than just verifying the media is original.
...and the dongle crack (Score:3, Informative)
Re:We've been over this... (Score:2)
Re:We've been over this... (Score:3, Funny)
In fact, you don't see too many slashdot articles on the rights of those poor girls getting the copyright infringed on their beaver shots, do you?
Re:Company claims unbreakable copy protection. (Score:2)
Re:Company claims unbreakable copy protection. (Score:5, Funny)
>Film at 11.
Crack at 10:30.
Re:This is great .. (Score:2)
Re:Fine (Score:2, Funny)
This coming from the moron that compared a compact disc to a puppy?
not the same (Score:3)
actually when you listen to an audio cd on your computer the data is transferred through the audio cable. it's a 4 pin cable about 1/2 an inch wide. the rippers transfer data through the data cable. it's normally a 40 pin ide or 50 pin scsi data cable about 2 inches wide.
using the data cable allows for a bit for bit copy of the data. i dont believe you can get that out of the 4 pin audio cable. not that everyone would be able to notice the difference in the audio by using the two different methods, but they are not the same.