AACS hacked to expose Volume ID: WinDVD patch irrelevant

The DRM "protecting" HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc films -- AACS -- continues to unravel at the seams. In parallel efforts, hackers in both the Xboxhacker and Doom9 forums have exposed the "Volume ID" for discs played on XBOX 360 HD DVD drives. Any inserted disc will play without first authenticating with AACS, even those with Volume IDs which have already been revoked by the AACS LA due to previous hacking efforts. Add the exposed processing keys and you can decrypt and backup your discs for playback on any device of your choosing. So yeah, it looks like last week's WinDVD update has been quickly and definitively made useless just as we expected it would be. Well, for XBOX 360 HD DVD drive owners anyway but you can see where this is heading, right? Now go ahead AACS LA, revoke the Toshiba-built XBOX 360 HD DVD player... we double-dog dare ya.

[paralipsis @ Apr 10th 2007 6:18AM]

Brilliant!

[alexsts @ Apr 11th 2007 3:42PM]

What this fuz all about?
I did not even feelt any DRM restrictions, EVER!
I buying DVDs, CDs and there was never any problem to rip when I want to...

[paralipsis @ Apr 11th 2007 5:02PM]

Then you obviously do not have a PMP that you wish to use your DVDs on.

There are many reasons that DRM is unreasonably restrictive. This is but one example.

[Phil Perman @ Apr 10th 2007 6:34AM]

Eventually, they'll realise that no matter what they do, the copy protection will be broken and that the money would be far better spent on publicity campaigns to stop people pirating.

[Kai @ Apr 10th 2007 2:02PM]

"Eventually, they'll realise that no matter what they do, the copy protection will be broken and that the money would be far better spent on publicity campaigns to stop people pirating."

Or, you know, making movies that don't suck so bad people aren't willing to pay for them?

[strider_mt2k @ Apr 10th 2007 7:09AM]

You hear that?

Sounds like chickens coming home to roost.

[7of7 @ Apr 10th 2007 7:15AM]

I wonder if the people breaking these copy protection schemes realize that every time they break a new copy protection scheme another will come along that is worse for the consumer. They just don't get it. They are ruining products for the rest of us.

[Dan @ Apr 10th 2007 7:23AM]

7of7, give me your lunch money, trekkie! stop hitting yourself! stop hitting yourself!

[Jeff @ Apr 10th 2007 7:28AM]

"I wonder if the people breaking these copy protection schemes realize that every time they break a new copy protection scheme another will come along that is worse for the consumer."

Tell it to EMI. That's the real fruit of this labor. And it's just starting.

[Justin @ Apr 11th 2007 9:10AM]

You can't be serious. DRM is what is ruining it for everyone. We're doing everyone a favor by breaking it. Fair use is were it's at. DRM can and always will be broken. It's broken by design. You can’t have a system where you give someone the lock AND the key and expect it not to be broken. The whole premise is faulty. It doesn’t prevent distribution of copyrighted material. It’s just a huge waste-of-time that causes tech support headaches for users and wastes the money of those making products.

[ghostgamer @ Apr 10th 2007 7:19AM]

7of7 : actually the industry ruins the product by using copy protections .. not the other way round ..

[Shaun Williams @ Apr 10th 2007 7:19AM]

Seeing that the music industry is finally going DRM free, maybe the Movie industry should follow suit and start offering DRM free HD-DVD and blueray disks.

DRM doesn't do anything but annoy everyone. Most people I'll admit don't care. These are the people that will play the disks on a DVD player of sorts. But there is also a large number of us that are tech savy and do allot of things cause we can. We want to play out movies of NAS storage devices and stream them from our broadband to our mobile devices and the sorts. DRM will always get broken so it has already failed its intended purpose of preventing sharing.

Only reason I have never bought music or any media online is the simple fact that if I buy a cd or a movie online I expect to be able to play it anywhere I want to. If they start offering movies online that are DRM free then I will certainly buy them, it will guarantees me the quality of the rip. If I want it on a disk, I will put it on one when I am god dam ready for it. Why should I pay for a DVD disk and case and packaging when all I am going to do is go home, rip it, and store it on the server...

[saico @ Apr 10th 2007 7:25AM]

@7of7:
no they don't, the DVDs protction was cracked as well, and as far as i know they just leave it at that when enough users have switched, because you can not make people "upgrade" after a certain amount of players is sold to non-enthusiasts. there are only a couple of choices, either quit patching the holes in the scheme, and let a couple of people use the media they bought like they want to use it (i.e. rip a dvd to put it on their PMP) or they update everything over and over, what means that people would have to understand that they can't play movies on their player anymore, since its key was revoced for security reasons. try explaining that to people that just bought a player.

[Nij @ Apr 10th 2007 8:30AM]

More piracy cheerleading from Thomas Ricker? Egads, I can hardly believe what I'm reading!

[Thomas Ricker @ Apr 10th 2007 8:44AM]

Nij,

This is the second time you've called out an Engadget editor for our anti-DRM, pro fair use position. What's your problem, son? If you fail to understand the difference between our position and "piracy cheerleading" then perhaps you'd be happier posting elsewhere... or not at all.

Your mini rant has added nothing to the conversation. Contribute or be gone.

Thomas

[iRobot @ Apr 16th 2007 10:36PM]

@Nij

Try learning about YOUR/OUR rights as a consumer! Stop name calling like a 3 year old and try reading. It's NOT against the law to make 1 copy of a Disc (Movie, Music, Video Game). Now, if I give a copy to a friend or family member... well ok that's a different story.

If you want to get pissed off -- try taking your ranting ass over to China -- where they are banging out DVD's copies for 10 cents and selling them for a dollar.

I have to agree the author of this article, Thomas Ricker, and say -- you're stupid. And you're not bring anything to conversation.

[BillyBob @ Apr 10th 2007 8:43AM]

I hate DRM. It is a useless, waste of money that does nothing but increase the cost of the disks. However, since those costs are all passed along to the consumer, and since the executives running the corporations have absolutely no clue about how the technology works - DRM is here to stay. IMHO, they are not trying to keep 100% of the disks from being copied - they are simply trying to make it difficult enough that the vast majority of people won't/can't copy them. If they can make DRM that prevents a pop-up window that says "Do you want to make a copy?" when the typical user puts it in the drive, they have accomplished 90%+ of their goals.

[Nij @ Apr 10th 2007 8:52AM]

Ricker,

It's a simple enough equation:

Your gleeful posts about stripping DRM from consumer media

+

Ryan and Peter constantly talking on the podcast about how they get all of their content over BitTorrent

+

Me not being a naive fool

=

You're promoting piracy. Again.

Go ahead and ban me for calling you on what you're doing; I can't stop you. But don't think we're stupid enough to believe that the only reason you want DRM off of online media is because of the principle of the thing.

[Peter @ Apr 10th 2007 8:47AM]

Every one of you who has been claiming they download pirated material only because the industry won't offer DRM-free material better be running to iTunes to load up on EMI songs.

You need to step up and show them you weren't lying about really wanting to pay DRM-free material. The moment the EMI material shows up on file shares or people don't buy it, every other media company will say "see people were lying, they are really willing to pay DRM-free material, they just wanted us to help them pirate our content."

You can't just make a blog post about how great DRM-free material is, now that it is available you MUST actually support it.

[Aaron @ Apr 10th 2007 1:23PM]

I see what you're saying about proving that we support DRM-free media, but I will not be running to iTunes. Ever. I thought $1 per song was too much anyway, and now the DRM-free versions are more. And I don't like how iTunes does things; you can't download stuff you bought more than once, and the whole authentication thing has screwed with me too much over the years. Apparently I can only authorize 2 more computers (out of 5) even though I've been on the same one all along.

I know a lot of people consider allofmp3.com to be a little shady, but... that's what it has to be for now.

[ebernet @ Apr 10th 2007 3:54PM]

Aaron, in reply to Peter....
You can authorize any of your machine multiple times, when you hit 5 you can then deauthorize all and then reauthorize them one by one. Apple makes it really easy to authorize machine.
Album prices are thee same for pretty good quality files.
allofmp3 is not just a "little" shady but completely illegal and pays not one penny to the artists. You are paying thieves for stolen goods.
It is because of people like you that DRM exists to begin with...

[Peter @ Apr 10th 2007 8:49AM]

they areN'T really willing to pay DRM-free material

[Thomas Ricker @ Apr 10th 2007 9:00AM]

A summary of our favorite comments from Nij,

"Sorry, but anyone who has read Engadget for at least a month knows how much they hate the iPod and hate the iTunes Music Store; so seeing yet another pointless Apple-bashing story is not surprising, even considering that it's not even attempting to be newsworthy or address anything relevant. That's par for the course at this site."

"At least Engadget is willing to admit, through the way it covers stories like these, that it does not support content creators being compensated for the content they create."

"it never ceases to amaze me how much time Engadget spends promoting piracy with posts like this one. I guess that's the unique thing about blogs-- they don't have to pretend they have any integrity."

"Yes, let's completely rush an extremely important technological standard so that Engadget can add more useless complaining to every story they post. Great reporting, as usual."

Now he can hate us from a distance. Banned. Thanks for playing Nij,

Thomas

[David Kaspar @ Apr 10th 2007 8:58AM]

DRM has nothing to do with the prevention of piracy.

It's all about limiting fair use, locking out competition and increasing profits.

[Peter @ Apr 10th 2007 10:07AM]

Banning someone simply for disagreeing with you is a far worse form of information control that any DRM.

Now it's clear; we can rag on each other all we want, but the moment we start to rag on the author, we get banned.

I think you need to lighten up a bit. People like Nij are better ignored than banned. If the group thinks they are completely off base, other commenters will let them know.

[adrock6678 @ Apr 10th 2007 11:49AM]

I have to completely agree with Peter...it's pretty lame to ban someone just for having a different opinion. While Nij's one line rant didn't contribute anything to the conversation, neither did the comments from paralipsis, strider_mt2k, or dan. I can ignore his comment the same as theirs, and he is certainly not an idiot fanboy.

Nij does bring up an interesting point though... Where do the Engadget editors stand on content creators being fairly compensated for their work? Are you anti-DRM simply for 'fair use' or are you really getting all of your content/software over BitTorrent? Ricker never responded to this.

[Alex @ Apr 10th 2007 2:48PM]

Nij did seem pretty annoying, but I think banning him was kind of lame.

[artifex @ Apr 10th 2007 10:18AM]

Peter:
Signal to noise ratio. You can only ignore so much. Look at the forums of Ars Technica and see trolls and fanboys ruin most discussions. Want that here?

[Peter @ Apr 10th 2007 10:52AM]

artifex, I don't think we are anywhere close to that. A large number of posts get almost no comments and most of the posts that are made are completely relevant. You can't say that even a majority of the posts here are useful and add to the conversation. (I've made my share of "robotic overload" posts).

It does seem that the authors here and at Download Squad are particularly thin-skinned about comments directed at them. They gladly let the group rip into each other with as many insults, lies and distorted facts as they want, but the moment someone makes a negative comment (true or not) about the post itself or the author they are all over him.

[saboola @ Apr 10th 2007 1:24PM]

"I disagree with what you have to say but will fight to the death to protect your right to say it." -Voltaire

Don't you think banning the guy is a little harsh?

[tekdroid @ Apr 10th 2007 10:38AM]

DRM schemes and formats do wonders for the patent holders who set up licensing bodies to collect all the royalties on their systems. So in that sense, they have succeeded even with the schemes broken. Everyone is paying through the nose to simply get on a 'common format'. No surprises who that benefits. Independent content always suffers when Hollywood itself is controlling the standards, no?

http://www.vorbis.com
http://flac.sourceforge.net

[Chicksta @ Apr 10th 2007 11:02AM]

Seriously? I have to admit I am severely disappointed in the lack of maturity w/the reactionary bs on this one. While nij's comments are quite negative, they're far from the trolling types of comments that are all over this site already. If an author can't take a bit of criticism and has to resort to calling people names like 'son' and to over-react by calling a minor, sarcastic quibble a 'mini-rant', then get so overly defensive as to have to find a bunch of their comments and post them in a severly passive-aggressive fashion... jeez. I'm not sure what the point of having a comments section is if people aren't allow to make them, or to disagree with you or not like what you're doing. You can't have thin skin and take it personally, because you've just seriously undermined the value this site has to offer. I'm really disgusted by that. As far as signal to noise goes, I'd rather someone make a negative comment that relates to the topic (that could add to the discussion) than a bunch of 'buy gold for wow' and name-calling 'you suck because you like products made by some company I don't like' posts. I would have loved to have seen an intelligent rebuttal to what nij said, which may have enlightened everyone involved, but the defensiveness makes it seem like he was spot on in what he said instead. Why not just counterpoint with another viewpoint in an intelligent fashion? Why not prove him wrong or just admit he's right and move on?

[Vilppi @ Apr 10th 2007 11:10AM]

Maybe young master Ricker would be happier posting somewhere else. Or, better yet, not at all as the tiniest amount of criticism seems to be too harsh for him.

[JTM @ Apr 10th 2007 11:33AM]

I say good riddance to Naj. If he hates the site so much he should just keep his mouth shut and let the rest of us enjoy it.

[Nicholas FitzRoy-Dale @ Apr 10th 2007 11:38AM]

I'm glad they banned him. "You're all pirates because Ryan talks about bittorrent on his podcast" is hardly constructive criticism.

[Jimmy @ Apr 10th 2007 11:40AM]

Whoa - I am very disappointed in the staff of Engadget. The list of comments that you posted by Nij are not any worse than many that I have read in the comments here before. If you are going to ban people for disagreeing with you then a lot of people might be happier not visiting/posting here.

The fact is that Engadget is not neutral about the stories they post. Each poster has their own likes and dislikes about technologies and brands. These preferences come through loud and clear in your posts. If your blog is not neutral then how can you expect your readers to be neutral?

[ssuk @ Apr 10th 2007 11:47AM]

All this is, is the continuing over-exaduration of piracy. The movie industry makes it out to be a huge loss to them every year, when in reality, if their profits percentage is damaged into double digits I'd be very much surprised.
They over charge us for movies just to be greeted to poorly made "DONT PIRATE" movie clips and legal warnings plastered all over menus and parts of the movie. How is this fair for the large majority of people who are buying legit movies? If anything this kind of behaviour is going to piss off people and encourage them to pirate movies more than ever, not to mention they're actually reminding people they can pirate DVDs off the internet. It's madness.

Also, as much as Nij was an asshat, banning him wont win you many points from others. Here we are talking about freedom of media and you wont let others have their freedom of speech, sorry but there's nothing good coming out of that move. =/

[Nick @ Apr 10th 2007 11:51AM]

This is how I see the above posting thread:

- Nij posts his "mini rant". While his post is a personal attack on Ricker and I believe engadget would be better without such posts, it does present his opinion on the topic at hand and thereby, IMO, he has "added to the conversation". (sort of :))

- Ricker demeaningly asks him to clarify his post: "What's your problem, son?"

- Nij does just that by outlining the basis for his jab at Ricker. He does so in a concise, easy to read fashion, clearly showing his reasoning.

- Ricker quotes from several posts of Nij, all of which "bash" Engadget. He then bans Nij. Now how does this post "add to the conversation"? In all likelihood, Ricker was already writing this post even before Nij responded and was going to ban Nij after he posted, regardless of what he said.

Now I'll just quote Peter's post because he's already said what I want to say:
"
Banning someone simply for disagreeing with you is a far worse form of information control that any DRM.

Now it's clear; we can rag on each other all we want, but the moment we start to rag on the author, we get banned.

I think you need to lighten up a bit. People like Nij are better ignored than banned. If the group thinks they are completely off base, other commenters will let them know.
"

This thread, specifically Ricker's actions, really, really undermines the integrity of, and lowers my respect for, Engadget.

[Thomas Ricker @ Apr 10th 2007 12:31PM]

Nij was banned *not* for criticizing Engadget or because I am a thin-skinned editor, but for the following reasons:

1) in just a matter of days, he publically slandered both myself and our managing editor accusing us of criminal activity (for the record, I DO NOT use bittorrent - I buy CDs and rip).

2) His comments are historically 90% Engadget bashing adding nothing to the conversation. What I shared earlier is just a tip of his hateberg for flavoring. We tolerated this for months until (1).

As a footnote: commenting is not a right. Stay on topic and treat us and your peers with respect and you can say what you want.

[Chicksta @ Apr 10th 2007 12:02PM]

Well, no one ever once said 'you're all pirates' nor implied that. He felt the site has a very pro-piracy slant, and expressed his opinion. If his critisism wasn't constructive, why not rise above it and be the 'bigger person' and educate/enlighten him? Why retort w/a ban; is that in any way constructive critisism? I'd rather see the misogynistic, dismissive/p-a, offtopic crap moderated first. Moderated doesn't equal banned. It's just if someone is negative, nothing positive or good comes out of reacting to that in an equally negative fashion. And quite frankly, I have yet to hear any really good, compelling reason for why drm is bad. All I've heard is 'we want to take our media and turn it into another format'. Well, that to me seems like buying vinyl records then having to buy the CD of the same thing to play it in a different device. I can certainly see that it'd be great if someone offered a digital license that enabled me to use the product in several formats, but right now the idea seems to be that you buy one medium/format, and the license is for that. Nothing in fair use that I am aware of says anything about entitlement to change the format of the product to use on something different. Nor do I see any other type of product on the market where if I break it, I haven't lost it; if I break a disc, that's my bad, just like breaking a dish. It'd be nice if you registered the license and could get a new one, like with software, but it's not an expensive enough product to warrant that. I'd just like to hear something intelligent on the matter, that doesn't have anything to do with executives or artists, or 'evil' companies, or any entitlement bs. I'm not equating drm with piracy at all, but I do think people don't have as much appreciation for the products since they're not 'physical', and since they're a luxury item.

[Azrael @ Apr 10th 2007 12:06PM]

All I can I think of when I read this article was Queen's We Will Rock You.

Buddy you’re a boy make a big noise
Playin’ in the street gonna be a big man some day
You got mud on yo’ face
You big disgrace
Kickin’ your can all over the place

We will we will rock you
We will we will rock you

[Chicksta @ Apr 10th 2007 1:00PM]

Well, I think you mean libel, not slander. If you're going to accuse someone of a crime in saying they accused you of a crime, at least get the right one. So now, you've just stooped to his level and accused him of a crime. I'm not sure how that makes the situation better.
He seems like a very negative/bitter individual, but I have to admit, some of those questions he asked seemed like legitimate queries, not just grumblings. I'm sure it was a mixture, and I'm sure it gets old to hear people whine and complain like that. However, it comes across as knee-jerk reactionism when you don't clearly define the rules to him (like a 'reminder of the tos' warning), then give him the option to abide by them or not. There are some topics that people are going to be very passionate about, but if you give them a choice and tell them their parameters/rules, that demonstrates respect, and hopefully fosters an environment of mutual respect. It certainly won't always work out that way, but you can try to encourage it to happen through your actions too.
Commenting is absolutely not a right, but of course many feel entitled to it, just like they feel entitled to other things that are priviledges. But there are many times where I see that derogatory comments about women go by (one instance was when someone called me 'dickless' - did that contribute to the conversation? Was that on topic? Hell no, and it's a direct tos violation), where people put down each other, and it slides by. I think it would be great if/when you banned someone to say, 'name, you've been banned for violating this tos item:' and post the violation. That might make people realize what the rules are and encourage them to 'play nice with others'. Just a thought.

[Nick @ Apr 10th 2007 1:07PM]

OK, if he publically slandered you and/or another editor, then that may warrant a banning. HOWEVER, what/when/where is the slander?

Nothing he said in this thread, nor the quotes of his you provided prior to banning him constitute slander IMO. What they show is his disagreement/dislike/ for you & fellow editors (which you called "hate") and you yourself seem that this is what you got out of them as well:

"Now he can hate us from a distance. Banned. Thanks for playing Nij,"

(BTW, that really makes the post come off as a quick-fired retort from an agitated, "thin-skinned" editor)

The closest thing I could see is this:
"Ryan and Peter constantly talking on the podcast about how they get all of their content over BitTorrent"
But, because you specifally said he slandered you, I do not think this is to what you are referring. If it is, then I still don't think this is slander, especially if they DO talk about getting their content over BitTorrent (I do not listen to the podcasts)!

I'm not going to search the threads for the purported slander; if you can easily provide it, then please by all means do so.

Commenting is not a right. You can run the blog however you please. And staying on topic and being respectful are very good guidelines. My issue is that you are justifying your actions (the banning) with something that, judging from the evidence so far presented, is untrue.

Assuming I am wrong, and he DID slander Engadget editors, and THIS is why he was banned, then it should have been made more clear that was the case when he was banned.

[Mitch @ Apr 11th 2007 12:33PM]

"As a footnote: commenting is not a right. Stay on topic and treat us and your peers with respect and you can say what you want."

Thomas, there is another privilege that I think you are overlooking here, and that is YOUR enjoyment of our good patronage. You have just swatted a gnat, but in the process you have dishonored what is arguably the single most venerable concept of human freedom - the right to be heard. And it is offensive. It is offensive to the degree that it raises doubt on your ability to convincingly take a principled stand on ANY issue of personal or civil liberty. It is the single most self-undermining act you could possibly perform with your keyboard alone.

And yes, you are correct that it is your right to reign as you will in your kingdom. But that kingdom will shrink in proportion to the pettiness with which you rule until you find yourself with no subjects at all. You can make the rules in your playground, but it is up to us to decide if we are going to play there or not. For my part, I will not. Engadget has shown its colors and my sense of honor won't allow it. But I earnestly recommend that you apologize to the community and bring the gnat back. If for no other reason than as an example that you DO in fact understand that the price of liberty isn't merely constant vigilance, but on occasion perpetual irritation at the voices of dissension.

[Aaron @ Apr 10th 2007 1:32PM]

Like it or not kids, this ain't your website. It's also not the secret police coming in the night and hauling off innocent people, so relax. It's Engadget, and the guy was being a dick for little or no reason. He wasn't disagreeing or "expressing" himself, he was being a dick. And now he's done, see?

Get off your collective soap box. You're not "better" people because you wouldn't personally have banned the guy. And Mr. Ricker is by no means obligated to tell you why Nij got banned; it's pretty clear.

[HiTek @ Apr 11th 2007 12:37AM]

What's with all the "banning" business anyway.. How do you "ban" someone from posting on a blog? Anyone can change their IP address / email / username - then come back and keep posting. Waste of time.

[Jazzwall @ Apr 10th 2007 1:51PM]

Banning Nij wasn't right. I've seen a whole LOT of comments on Engadget that were abusive, derogatory, pointless, or just plain stupid.

Nij's comments had some valid points in there. Engadget does have a bias against anything DRM/anti-piracy. And that's fine as long as you let the users point it out to you and take the opposite stance in the comments section.

This was a childish move made in haste.

[stracenska @ Apr 10th 2007 3:55PM]

Nij was basically the forum equivelant of a heckler. Why repeatedly come here if you hate it so much? I agree that if 90% of what he said was negative then engadget had the right to give him the boot. This is a blog, people. If someone comes over to my house monh after month and criticised my food negatively after every meal I'd want him out too. Personally, I come to this site because it gives me simple, up-to-date information on "gadgets" for free. Not politics. I could care less about the agenda of the editors or how they get their music. I read the comments section because I like to see if anyone has added anything useful to the piece I just read, and it's frustrating sifting through irrelevant conversation about the ethics of the site or the product being discussed.

[Alex @ Apr 10th 2007 4:27PM]

> If someone comes over to my house monh after month and criticised
> my food negatively after every meal I'd want him out too.

True, but not a great analogy, unless you're handing your dinner guests "how was my dinner" feedback forms. This site may be a blog, but there comment form is there for a reason.

> Personally, I come to this site because it gives me simple,
> up-to-date information on "gadgets" for free. Not politics.

What can I say, they also post about DRM, which is more than just information on "gadgets", it's clearly a political topic. The author(s) also include graphics implying their position on DRM ("down with DRM" in this post, "DRM is killing music and it's a rip-off" in the "DRM: the state of disrepair" post).

Sorry that it is frustrating to you.

[obiwan @ Apr 14th 2007 2:13PM]

sure, but how do you deauthorize a computer that has fallen down a well? You can't. You lose.