Jose_R.A.M
12-28-2006, 12:02 PM
techtree.comTook Eight Days to Crack HD DVD!
Latest reports indicate that the much touted Gen-Next HD DVD format is not invincible after all...
The story doing the rounds is that a hacker who goes under the name, "Muslix64" was upset at not being able to view his HD movies on his computer set-up, and as such, set himself a seemingly impossible goal - that of cracking the AACS specification in four weeks. He ended up doing so - in just eight days.
Apparently, the dude went about the ordained task quite meticulously. He first bought himself a HD-DVD drive to plug onto his PC, plus a HD movie.
Somewhere down the line, the realization dawned upon him that he could not play the HD flick simply because his video card was not HDCP compliant, and he had a HD monitor plugged with a DVI interface.
What "Muslix64" did next was to complain to the doom9 forum about the AACS specification, saying it was not at all fair for someone to own an HD monitor and then not be able to watch an HD movie that had been paid for.
The result: in six days' time, the title key of the flick appeared in Muslix64's memory, which meant that he had managed to decrypt the movie in all but one afternoon. Not counting the one day that he spent fixing problems such as frame skipping, etc, it took "Muslix64" but eight days to crack code.
"Muslix64" even put together a small program titled "BackupHDDVD", a Java-based command line utility to decrypt HD movies.
The chap went right ahead and made a small video called "AACS is Unbreakeable" wherein one can see the output of 'BackupHDDVD' while decrypting. One can also see the playback of a decrypted movie, and upload it to YouTube.
So where does this leave the emerging HD DVD format? Possibly, at the same place as before...
Yes, there could be a small consumer swing towards HD DVD players, egged on by the availability of 'cheap backups' of original high definition content. There could also be a temporary bias in favour of Blu-ray amongst the mighty Hollywood Studios.
But, as industry observers observe, all of this, even if it should happen, will only be temporary...
Which again brings us back to where we began: the mighty format war between HD DVD and Blu ray...
Latest reports indicate that the much touted Gen-Next HD DVD format is not invincible after all...
The story doing the rounds is that a hacker who goes under the name, "Muslix64" was upset at not being able to view his HD movies on his computer set-up, and as such, set himself a seemingly impossible goal - that of cracking the AACS specification in four weeks. He ended up doing so - in just eight days.
Apparently, the dude went about the ordained task quite meticulously. He first bought himself a HD-DVD drive to plug onto his PC, plus a HD movie.
Somewhere down the line, the realization dawned upon him that he could not play the HD flick simply because his video card was not HDCP compliant, and he had a HD monitor plugged with a DVI interface.
What "Muslix64" did next was to complain to the doom9 forum about the AACS specification, saying it was not at all fair for someone to own an HD monitor and then not be able to watch an HD movie that had been paid for.
The result: in six days' time, the title key of the flick appeared in Muslix64's memory, which meant that he had managed to decrypt the movie in all but one afternoon. Not counting the one day that he spent fixing problems such as frame skipping, etc, it took "Muslix64" but eight days to crack code.
"Muslix64" even put together a small program titled "BackupHDDVD", a Java-based command line utility to decrypt HD movies.
The chap went right ahead and made a small video called "AACS is Unbreakeable" wherein one can see the output of 'BackupHDDVD' while decrypting. One can also see the playback of a decrypted movie, and upload it to YouTube.
So where does this leave the emerging HD DVD format? Possibly, at the same place as before...
Yes, there could be a small consumer swing towards HD DVD players, egged on by the availability of 'cheap backups' of original high definition content. There could also be a temporary bias in favour of Blu-ray amongst the mighty Hollywood Studios.
But, as industry observers observe, all of this, even if it should happen, will only be temporary...
Which again brings us back to where we began: the mighty format war between HD DVD and Blu ray...