NOTE: This post has been modified (censored) in order to hide everything that may cause an NDA violation or harm my previous employer. Piracy will always be... Primarily, because no one is allowed to talk publicly (for normal legal reasons) and talking to vendors directly brings no result at all... The following is about as much as one can tell about piracy without a risk...
Achtung! This article may
contain unpleasant language. Read it at your own risk.
There is a lot of noise about piracy (both software and media)
in the past few years. The noise is at all levels, starting with the security
community and ending up with governments. In my (very) humble opinion, most of
this noise is a bit less then bullshit. File sharing services are a good
example. I mean no one being sane would attack car vendors because people are
getting killed in accidents. No one would blame hummer vendors for hummers
being used as a murder weapon in certain cases. Same applies to file sharing
services. Those are tools. Not more than that. All this sounds quite stupid to
me. If I have an option to download a fresh release of my favorite Linux distro
in a couple of minutes using torrent, instead of spending about an hour
downloading it from the official site, then, damned, I will use torrent and I
don't give a fuck about torrent being used by pirates. Fighting legitimate
tools instead of enforcing right coding policies is a good evidence of lack of
intelligence on the side of software vendors combined with ignorance of media
vendors and politicians. That pisses me off big time. And I am sure I am not
alone.
Enough swearing (for now), let's take a look at how things are
in reality on the example of BD+. I am not going to describe BD+ internals here
or give any information in addition to what is publicly available. Besides, I
do think that it could be a powerful media protection (…… …………… …………… ……………… …………………… …………… ……………………
………………… ……………… … …… … ……… …… ……..
………………… …………………. …………… …………….. …………..), unless...
Studios
Studios invest huge amounts of money into the fight against
piracy. I have to admit, that unlike governments, they are investing in
protection like AACS (which has been cracked long time ago and is all about
hiding the key these days) and BD+ (which is good, but is fully …….. ………. ……. ……..). Honestly, almost all
that money goes in vain mostly thanks to software "developers". For
some (unknown) reason, studios do not want to mess with that crap. Which is
quite pity due to the fact that BD media is ……… …………….. ……………. ………………… ………………….
…………………… ………………… ……. …………………. ………………….. ………………….. ………………… ………………….. …………..
…………. …………….. ……………….. …………………. .
BD+
If you have not heard about BD+ yet, then this article covers it quite well.
Basically saying, BD+ is a virtual machine implemented in BD players and an
executable code and data supplied on BD media. ………. ………….. …………… ………….. ………………… ……………… ……………… ……………… ………… ……………..
……………… ……………… ……………… ……………. ………… ………….. ……… ……….. ……….. …………….. ……………….
…………………… …………….. …………… …………… …….. …………. …………………….. …………. .
Software BD Players
There are four software BD players - PowerDVD by CyberLink,
WinDVD by Corel, TotalMedia Theatre by ArcSoft and Blu-Ray Player by Nero. Just
four. As vulnerable as a kitten on a busy hwy. Certain people have been
praising SlySoft team for reverse engineering software players and their
implementation of the BD+ VM. I am not trying to say that it is not a piece of
work. Just the amount of code that has to be reversed. But is it that hard to
reverse the code that is barely protected? Even a n00b malware researcher can
do it, especially given the fact that modern malware, sometimes, has heavier
protection t………. ……… ……… ……. .
Software players vendors may claim that they utilize the most
recent versions of protection software like Themida and others... Well, they
may keep claiming (in fact, I wrote to all four of them three months ago and
got a response from only one of them this far). The facts tell us that they do
not even know how to …….. ……………
…………… …………….. …………… ………………….. ……………… …………… …….. …………… …………… …………….. ……………
………………….. ……………… …………… …….. …………… …………… …………….. …………… ………………….. ………………
……………
Right now, about a year since BD players vendors …….. …….. …….. …….. …….. …….. …….. …….. in the way they
"protect" their products. Everything one has to do in order to get
unpacked code is …….. ……. ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ………
……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… Protection you say?..
AnyDVD HD
AnyDVD HD is one of the two most popular BD rippers. ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ………
……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ………
……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ………
……… ……… ……… ……… .
Hardware BD Players
"Our hardware BD player is impossible to hack!" C'mon!
Do you really think so? That's the most stupid saying I've ever heard. Or are
you trying to make a laugh of yourself? In this case it works perfectly.
It is right to say, that it is not always easy to get into a
hardware BD player ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ………
……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… your levels shifter to. This was the biggest
problem in my case (……………………………………… ...) but not in case of
Doom9. They've done that in a good way. Which is about the only extraordinary
thing they did while hacking hardware implementations of BD players. In fact,
there is no such thing as Hardware BD Player. There are devices that run Linux
inside (or, may be another embedded OS) and have a software player that plays
the media. Praising Doom9 for reversing hardware BD player is not that smart.
Oh, may be just the part of getting the AACS keys. All the rest is …….. ……..…….. …….. …….. …….. ……..
…….. …….. …….. …….. …….. …….. ……...
Code Protection? It seems like embedded "software
developers" have not heard about it at all. ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ………
……. ……… ……… is simply wide opened for hacking. The possibility to login ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ……… …….
……… ……… ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ………
……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ……… should NEVER be used in production. Quite
silly, if you ask me.
The best evidence of H/W BD players vendors' ignorance is the ……. ……… ……………. ……… ……………. ………
……………. ……… ……………. ……… ……………. ……… ……………. ……… ……………. ……… ……………. ……… ……………. ………
……….
Conclusion
Some of you may say that the article supposed to be about
piracy, not about the protection of BD players. Well, it is about piracy. From
my experience, BD player vendors, hardware and software as one, support piracy
by constantly refusing to protect their products better. ……. ……… ……………. ……… ……………. ………
……………. ……… ……………. ……… ……………. ……… ………. I tried to personally contact BD player
vendors several months ago offering them assistance in armoring their code.
Guess what was their reply? There was none... Well, there was one vendor that
did reply, but they are not ready to change a thing. All the rest keep silence
as if everything is good. One may say that BD+ is a pain in the ass for
vendors. Well, it is. But it's vendors who make it painful instead of writing
good secure code.
If I were one of the Studios, I would probably do my best to
revoke all four. Especially those ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ……… ……. ……… ………
The
fact that BD rippers are better protected then BD players simply pisses me off
big time.
The bottom line is, it would probably make more sense to require
vendors to actually protect sensitive code instead of openly supporting piracy,
rather then messing up with those downloading pirated content or using file
sharing services.
Stop being dumb, start acting.
very hard to read like that!
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem, that's about as much as one can publicly say on the issue...
ReplyDelete