BeHardware - News - December 28, 2006

Early December, a hacker named muslix64, relatively irritated by the impossibility to watch a HD-DVD on his monitor connected in DVI without HDCP, has decided to decode HD movies protected with AACS. He has now succeeded and released a video and the source code if his work on Internet.

AACS (for Advanced Access Content System) is like CSS for DVDs, an encrypting method. The algorithm used is of AES type and is combined with several encrypting keys depending on the media and the media serial number. In short, muslix64 hasn't fully cracked the system but realised that the encrypting keys of one of his software HD movie player were clearly visible in the memory. Once the keys obtained, the only thing left was to use them for the decryption of HD-DVDs. The version of the software available on Internet isn't provided with the keys and isn't functional as such.

Of course, this isn't a complete method as it is based on a flaw of the software and that the key of this software won't maybe be allowed with future HD-DVD and Blu-ray. In this case, it will be impossible to obtain the media keys. Other hackers such as DVD-Jon, who participated in the breaking of the DVD encryption, are trying to break completely the AACS protection. This means that they will have to obtain by themselves the encrypting keys. They announced that they will obtain results as soon as 2007.

We have to point out here that even if you don't maybe agree with the numerous limitations, such as the impossibility to own a private copy or to watch a movie with any type of monitor featuring a digital input, such a process is illegal. It is nevertheless interesting to see that these protections, which are supposed to be unbreakable, never last. The computer environment platform is far from being "secure" for the movie industry unlike DVD players or consoles. Vista will make some efforts to solve this problem but is that a good thing for end-users?