Descrambling CSS w/ 7 Lines Of Perl A DMCA Violation? 270
Here's the script:
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$c=142;if((@a=unx"C*",$_)[20]&48){$h=5;
$_=unxb24,join"",@b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$h+84])}@ARGV;s/...$/1$&/;$d=
unxV,xb25,$_;$b=73;$e=256|(ord$b[4])<<9|ord$b[3];$d=$d>>8^($f=($t=255)&($d
>>12^$d>>4^$d^$d/8))<<17,$e=$e>>8^($t&($g=($q=$e>>14&7^$e)^$q*8^$q<<6))<<9
,$_=(map{$_%16or$t^=$c^=($m=(11,10,116,100,11,122,20,100)[$_/16%8])&110;$t
^=(72,@z=(64,72,$a^=12*($_%16-2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0,@z)[$_%8]}(16..271))
[$_]^(($h>>=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for@a[128..$#a]}print+x"C*",@a}';s/x/pack+/g;eval
A rewrite, using an extra five bytes (!) of perl code, caches a table, which apparently makes the program fast enough to decode a movie in realtime:
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;$t=255;@t=map{$_%16or$t^=$c^=(
$m=(11,10,116,100,11,122,20,100)[$_/16%8])&110;$t^=(72,@z=(64,72,$a^=12*($_%16
-2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0,@z)[$_%8]}(16..271);if((@a=unx"C*",$_)[20]&48){$h
=5;$_=unxb24,join"",@b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$h+84])}@ARGV;s/...$/1$&/;$
d=unxV,xb25,$_;$e=256|(ord$b[4])<<9|ord$b[3];$d=$d>>8^($f=$t&($d>>12^$d>>4^
$d^$d/8))<<17,$e=$e>>8^($t&($g=($q=$e>>14&7^$e)^$q*8^$q<<6))<<9,$_=$t[$_]^
(($h>>=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for@a[128..$#a]}print+x"C*",@a}';s/x/pack+/g;eval
As Touretzky writes on his Gallery page, typical usage is just: cat /mnt/dvd/VOB_FILE_NAME | qrpff 153 2 8 105 225 | extract_mpeg2 | mpeg2dec -
Re:Of course it's a violation (Score:2)
Re:For the love of coding! (Score:2)
The way Congress works, most of the people who voted for that bill never looked at it. It was a bi-partisan initiative with strong financial backing. The committee that recommended it considered that it would be another limit on fair use, but they probably never considered its effect on programmers and its conflict with the First Amendment. I tend to think they were looking at a law with powerful backers and few visible enemies and voted the way they thought would make them look good and help the country. Who would vote against a flashy name like Digital Millenium Copyright Act?
-the Pedro Picasso
(sourceCode == freeSpeech) [x-omega.com]
--
Art and beauty (Score:2)
Mine:Art is a human expression meant to evoke an emotional response.
I'm not right, really, but neither are you. I would say most code isn't art. I would also say code can be art. After all it is only a set of choppy written instructions. Are recipies art? Is command based haiku art? Is this post art?
(Answers: yes, yes, no)
-the Pedro Picasso
--
Re:Art and beauty (Score:2)
--
Flags (Score:2)
EU and WIPO (Score:2)
Re:.sig!! Yay!! (Score:2)
With a little work, a mail program could enocde this work of art uuencoded into the Message-ID header. Why? When anyone replies or forwards your email, they will resend your CSS code!
X-Comment: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US
Not quite (Score:2)
He could try suing DVD makers, but he'd have a hell of a time getting it through court. You see, if he encrypted his DVD with CSS and his own key, then commercial DVD players wouldn't decrypt it. If he encrypted his DVD with CSS and at least one of *their keys*, then he'd have a hard time convincing a judge that the key choice wasn't implicit consent for them to perform decryption.
a few million? (Score:2)
Re:Not quite (Score:2)
Kind of like that prior use thing in patents.
Updated Suggested email .sig (Score:2)
The following code is a PERL script capable of decoding an encrypted DVD (necessary to watch a DVD on a Linux machine) in real time. This is illegal to use according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a set of laws passed by anonymous vote in congress in 1998. The MPAA feels that they must stop you from using this code to watch DVD movies because then...
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;$ t=255;@t=map{$_%16or$t^=$c^=($m=(11,10,116,100,11, 122,20,100)[$_/16%8])$t^=(72,@z=(64,72,$a^=12 *($_%16-2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0,@z)[$_%8]}(16.. 271);if((@a=unx"C*",$_)[20]&48){$h=5;$_=unxb24,joi n"",@b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$h+84])}@ARGV;s/. ..$/1$&/;$d=unxV,xb25,$_;$e=256|(ord$b[4])>8^($f=$ t &($d>>12^$d>>4^$d^$d/8))>8^($t&($g=($q=$e>>14&7^$e )^$q*8^ $q>=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for@a[128..$#a]}print+x"C*",@a } ';s/x/pack+/g;eval
If you are interested in learning more about how to create your own DVD decoder you can take the authors class on the subject at MIT http://www.mit.edu/iap/dvd
END .SIG
I was kinda hoping to create somthing that could spell out the evils in a tolerable length/readability. Other than manditory commercial viewing and region codes what else does an open source version wreck for the MPAA?
sneaky trick (Score:2)
Then, add a script up at the top of the page, mark it "DMCA Violating PLCPS (Pig Latin Copy Protection Scheme) Script", that nicks off the last two characters... and technically, haven't you protected yourself? Because the only DMCA violation is in fact the De-PLCPS script, no? That other thing is protected under a copy-protection scheme and isn't even usable, therefor, what's there to complain about? Sure, I'm sure the owners of De-PLCPS might take offense to your violation of the DMCA, but then again, that would be THEIR problem, not the DVD-CCA's, no?
Re:7 lines of Perl... (Score:2)
Okay, I give up... (Score:2)
Would anyone care to explain exactly how this works, in english (or should I just wait until the notes from the seminar are online)?
Re:Terse (Score:2)
Re:Maybe (Score:2)
What proof do you have that you don't? The word of companies like Microsoft with their EULAs and the RIAA and MPAA who try to take away your ability to use the CD/DVD that you own?
Well, what do you think they'll say? They hope that people will believe them. And they hope they'll do what you did, pass that on to others.
Their view of copyright is incredibly short sighted. I really don't see why they deserve copyright protection anymore. Seriously. Copyright is a social contract
The MPAA/RIAA/Software publishers are trying to have the 'limited' part of the monopoly removed, and to take away all your rights to do anything with the work that they don't want you doing.
They aren't living up to their side of the bargain, thus the contract is void.
Now, they can claim anything they like, about how you'll join satan, and undermine capitalism, if you violate THEIR rights, but I don't see them saying anything about your rights. And it's not just a case of "well don't buy it." They're counting on your tax dollars funding the legal system which is granting them this unlimited monopoly, so they're taking from you and giving nothing back.
Anyways, as I see it, their laws are the product of bribery. They lobbied for those laws, which means paying politicians in "campaign funds", then they bribe judges like Kaplan (Dunno if they paid him, or if it was enough that he worked for them before and got paid then) to give weight to their laws. In my view, that's not a valid law. Like a contract for illegal activities isn't a valid contract.
I choose not to follow those laws. I honor copyright as I see it. Limited monopoly, a guarantee to the author that they'll be the first to profit from their work. I don't see it as a right for the author to control everything I do with their work, so I don't feel obligated to follow laws that they buy which say that.
Re:Maybe (Score:2)
But you're wrong when you say you that you license software...
They only software you license if something you buy specifically from a contractor, a company that sells you a specific limited site license for a special deal, or shareware.
In the first case it's because you're paying the contrator for the product. You decide which rights you want and then bargain over the value of those. With the specific site license, that'd be like Adobe selling you 100 copies of Photoshop for an 80% discount because you could show that it was all going to be used in a way that they approved of (to teach people who might later buy their own copy for example) and you were both making concessions in the deal (them price, you in what you can do with it.)
And finally and most importantly, shareware. If you download a program off of CNET (or anywhere else) there's no payment on your part so you have no right to expect it'll do anything. You then get it and can agree to a contract allowing certain use in trade for certain payment (maybe nothing, maybe a post card, maybe $$..)
But with commercial software, you buy it at the store and take it home, where you find the 'contract'. At that point, the contract isn't valid. You purchased all required rights to the software already. It's invalid for a number of reasons.
1) You can't put limits on an existing contract (it becomes a new contract, which requires new agreement and especially, new consideration (compensation)). I can't see you a car and then call up later and say that you have to buy gas from me. I can offer you an exclusive gas contract in trade for something, free tires, a low price, whatever, but it's only an offer until you accept.
2) The 'contract' in the form of a click-through license attempts to prevent your use of *YOUR* software (you paid for it at this point) by requiring you to agree to their contract. That's duress. You're not bound by agreements made under duress. Simply click 'Yes' and ignore it...
3) That contract doesn't even offer you anything, just the ability to use your software, so you don't get anything out of it. A contract that doesn't have compensation for both parties isn't valid. Again, click 'Yes' and ignore it.
Certainly don't take the corps' word on any of this, they stand to gain by making you believe you have more obligations than you really do.
Re:Terse (Score:2)
Nope, you're thinking about unlambda.
Blame Kaplan (Score:2)
Personally, I consider that way of thinking bassackwards but that's just me. Playing Devil's Advocate I could see arguements in favor of such a viewpoint.
Re:Terse (Score:2)
(IMHO, though, there is no valid use for the ternary operator '?:' other than making code hard to read.)
Re:Owning is not a crime using it is (Score:2)
xine doesn't include CSS support by default. You can get a version of Xine with libcss support at the Xine resource page [cjb.net] (along with a DXR3-enabled version, if you have that card). OMS links to libcss as well. So neither program actually includes it, but they link to it. As well, LiVid developer Matt Pavlovich was charged under the DMCA in California court for distributing DeCSS - strange, since he isn't a California citizen, and he was really (as far as I can tell) distributing css-auth, the non-ripper version of the CSS decryption scheme.
The DMCA itself is strictly an AMERICAN law and has no jurisdiction * anywhere * else in the world.
What worries me is that DMCA-like laws may be quietly pushed into force in other nations, like my own [canada.gc.ca], which tends to bend over for any large US entity that tries to lean on it. In Canada, it would be even worse; we have no system of "fair use" up here, only a very strictly defined system known as "fair dealing", which basically says the copyright holder can set whatever limits they want on use of their work, and anything else in infringement. Just posessing DeCSS/css-auth could be very quickly made illegal up here.
Re:For the love of coding! (Score:2)
This may be more effective with new reps than incumbents, as the DMCA was unanimously passed. New reps might not have been subject to MPAA lobbying efforts yet. Some incumbents might (hell, probably did) pass the law without really understanding what it does; there was a letter in 2600 a couple issues back about a guy who runs into a southern Senator and explains to him why the DMCA is a bad thing.
What they're thinking (background info) (Score:2)
Re:Now the RIAA will sue everyone... (Score:2)
They were dragged kicking and screaming into greater profits that time, and this time will be no different, unless you prefer a police state.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Re:Maybe... all Merkins are mad. (Score:2)
[my emphasis]
Where I come from, If I bought the disk I own it, and the people who sold it to me can go whistle if I do something they don't like with it. But Merka, of course, is the land of the free...
Re:Is this one actually illegal? (Score:2)
<thinks>
Another parochial Merkin </thinks>
What if the reverse engineering were done overseas, say in (just as an example) Norway? What would be illegal about that? Or did you think the DMCA somehow covered the whole planet?
Re:Owning is not a crime using it is (Score:2)
I'm not saying you're wrong, but that's the first time I've heard that; can you provide a reference? I thought this was stictly Merkin nonsense.
Re:UUOC (Score:2)
> and do some retyping, cutting and pasting..
>but with cat you can hit up arrow,
>move to the right place, and type frob
> and a pipe!
Redirection doesn't have to go at the end
of the arg list. You're allowed to say
<file qrpff | extract_mpeg2 | mpeg2_dec
Now interpolating something before qrpff
is as simple as point + type.
Re:Terse (Score:2)
See Tom's object-oriented tutorial [cpan.org] for an example of clear perl writing. Perl is quite like a natural language. You *can* write obfuscated perl. But then again, you *can* write obfuscated English. Try this one:
Perfectly valid English, but almost impossible to read. Conversely, English can be very clear - and so can perl.Re:.sig!! Yay!! (Score:2)
Re:7 lines of Perl... (Score:2)
Besides, let me explain what's most likely to happen now: People like Randal Schwartz and his crowd could probably reduce "War and Peace" to a JAPH. I suspect you'll see an unoffical competition among the perlites over the next few weeks to see who can chop more bytes off this code. That, in turn, will keep it in the news even longer, which is certainly a "Good Thing(TM) ".
Re:Maybe (Score:2)
- Read section 202.
Why? Doesn't seem relevant. Example:- Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied.
IANAL, but this looks about the most innocuous part of the DMCA to me.If you write a book, and sell a copy to me, then you retain copyright. I am bound by your copyright, and my actions are restricted in certain ways, e.g. I cannot print copies of your book and sell them myself.
If you write a piece of software / author a DVD, and sell a copy to me, then you retain copyright. I am bound by your copyright, and my actions are restricted in certain ways, e.g. I cannot cut copies of the software / DVD and sell them myself.
Better suggestion: This is a REIMPLEMENTATION. (Score:2)
Re:and the useless use of 'cat' goes to.... (Score:2)
qrpff 153 2 8 105 225
Hey, it's one less process!
Re:and the useless use of 'cat' goes to.... (Score:2)
Great. I lost the '<' in my command. I guess 'Plain Old Text' just ain't what it used to be.
Re:Of course it's a violation (Score:2)
Re:Maybe... all Merkins are mad. (Score:2)
Since you are the owner of the disc, by copyright's first sale principle, this is a tautology, unless I suppose you have multiple personality disorder.
Re:Of course it's a violation (Score:2)
Re:Incomprehensible Gibberish (Score:2)
Re:Maybe (Score:2)
Re:Art and beauty (Score:2)
Another defining fact about art is that it is subjective, really only art to those who can appreciate it. Just like not everyone can "get" good jazz, not everyone will see the art in code. It's a expression that can sometimes have grace and sometimes be very rough-edged, but it takes someone who can actually read it to appreciate it.
The Court's Thinking Thus Far (Score:2)
Re:Owning is not a crime using it is (Score:2)
Judges do not make law. At least they are not supposed to here in the US. Judges do not have the Constitutional authority to declare anything a crime. Their function is to take laws passed by legislators, compare them to the actions of individuals, and to attempt to decide if those laws are violated by those actions.
Unfortunately, we inherited from the British the concept of "Common Law", which in effect allows Judges to -make- laws because their rulings affect the rulings of other judges. In my opinion, this is a VERY BAD IDEA(tm). It in effect allows individual judges, who may or may not have had any clue about the subject they are ruling on, to unilaterally change laws. It's like having bunches of little emperors running around each making their own laws.
Ocassionally turf wars, called appeals, occur.
Re:.sig!! Yay!! (Score:2)
C'mon DMCA, I'm not scared.....
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=14
----------------------------
Re:CSS Encoder? (Score:2)
Re:Maybe (Score:2)
Welcome to the age of Digital Content, where people are slaves to content-providers and huge impersonal companies. Where you you can't really buy or own anything, only a right to use on their terms. Where you don't really have anything to say about it, because common consumers are made redundant. The workforce taken for granted and unemployment coldly calculated to the decimal. Where new laws and authority is created by demand of higher economic growth, not by belief in the people. Where most of the citizens live in apathy and docility, because they have started to believe the false fantasies spouted out from Hollywood. This is the Age of Information as it was meant to be from the start; the stuff nightmares are made of.
- Steeltoe
Re:awk or postscript (Score:2)
Re:Updated Suggested email .sig (Score:2)
Re:.sig!! Yay!! (Score:2)
Yeah! You go first... :-)
Look at it this way... (Score:2)
I agree with the original post that the size doesn't matter. The only thing that is proven by this program is that perl can be extremely terse and can do just about anything. I'm willing to bet that this algorithm could be expressed in a shorter way using a different language. To bring it to the point of absurdity, I could propose a new, hypothetical language, "DeCSS/C", where a standard library call called "d()" will decode a file. We could all stand back and say "Ha! One line of code to crack the encryption! Don't you feel silly now!", but really it says nothing, as we just have chosen a more efficient/simple tool for the job.
Sure, it hit the /. radar. I'll agree that it's novel as well. But I don't believe that it should be taken as a proof that the DeCSS matter is off-base.
Re:Programming as an art.... (Score:2)
The objective of an artist is to produce something that is aesthetically pleasing in some way. The objective of an engineer is to produce something that is functional. As a side effect, it may also have some aethetic qualities, but these should not get in the way of the function.
The above piece of code is a prime example. To me, it's as ugly as sin (speaking as somebody who has a lot of experience of fixing bugs in ther people's code), but the objective was not to produce something beautiful, but something that would decode a DVD in the smallest possible space.
7 lines of Perl... (Score:2)
Anyway, complexity of encoder/decoder has relatively little to do with cryptographic security, so the actual line-count or complexity of the algorithm doesn't really matter. As we all know, security by obscurity doesn't work, and double rot-13 encryption isn't better than single rot-13.
Re:Suggested email .sig (Score:2)
Perhaps the gov't could stretch the meaning of "produce" to include a copy being made of it, even though it was only in memory or for one's own use. Heck, they did that with copyright.
Follow the link for more info on the DMCA [cornell.edu].
Re:Updated Suggested email .sig (Score:2)
That might actually be possible...
(Something using pack and feeding it into eval comes to mind...)
Re:Owning is not a crime using it is (Score:2)
We did not "inherit" it accidentally. In fact, the founding fathers, and myself for that matter, considered the common law one of the major advances in the field of *justice.*
They are not called clerks, they are called *JUDGES.* It is their job to exercise *judgement* in specific cases before them in the public interest.
That is a GOOD thing and is core to the entire American philosophical system. It is, in fact, the legal philosophy that gave the founding fathers the idea that they had a RIGHT to declare independence.
If there were no common law and only code, as in the code Napoleon and other essentially fascist dictatorial forms of government and law, then America itself would be illegitamate.
KFG
Re:Owning is not a crime using it is (Score:2)
KFG
Re:Owning is not a crime using it is (Score:2)
It will take a ruling of the Supremes to answer it which is not likely to take place for years yet.
The MPAA, RIAA and the like are actually themselves not in any hurry to have the Supremes make such a ruling because it could invalidate entire provisions of the DMCA. They don't want that. Until such time as those provisions might be overthrown the DMCA still has the force of law, even though they may well be unconstitutional.
I wonder, what changes might occur in the American political and legal scene if legislators could be held liable for passing laws that were unconstitutional.
Surely one could make a reasoned argument that if the legislator BELIEVED it to be unconstitutional he/she/it had commited a violation of the civil rights of nearly every resident of the United States.
KFG
Re:Vortran is a criminal? (Score:2)
in a way. Technically what you did was become civilly liable.
Note that noone from 2600 went to jail, they were just ordered to cease and desist.
If they fail to cease and desist, THEN they would be criminals. . . for violating a court order, NOT for violating the DMCA.
KFG
Re:Is CSS encryption? (Score:2)
Simple number substitution for letters, i.e. a=1, b=2, etc., is encryption.
KFG
Re:.sig!! Yay!! (Score:2)
Yeah, okay... so that's some accident, but "it could happen!"
----
PointlessGames.com -- Go waste some time.
MassMOG.com -- Visit the site; Use the word.
Re:Art and beauty (Score:2)
Well, to a coder, seeing something so cool accomplished in such a small yet powerful piece of code does invoke an emotional response! Just like "free" (or as my brother calls it, "crack-smoking") jazz, not everyone will "get" it, but in the target audience (coders) it definitely does get an emotional response.
http://www.bootyproject.org [bootyproject.org]
Re:Look at it this way... (Score:2)
The truth is that it goes to the heart of the old debate about unenforceable laws: are they just if they can't be enforced? This is a powerful argument for the negative position. Not proof, you're right about that, but it doesn't help much in the philosophical debate.
/Brian
There's obfuscated speech too... (Score:2)
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
Owning is not a crime using it is (Score:2)
Re:Of course it's a violation (Score:2)
And that gives us hope that it will someday be overturned. But in the meantime great damage can be done.
Before I moved to WA, I lived in CA. It is the stated position of the CA attorney general's office that they support and prosecute all CA laws, even if a law is widely known to be unconstitutional and is expected to be overturned in court. In other words, it isn't the police's job to interpret laws. They enforce them, blindly, and let the courts sort out the mess later.
I would be surprised if other states acted otherwise, actually. And I would be surprised if a Federal law was treated any differently. The DCMA will do a hell of a lot of damage before it is fixed, and traces of it will probably linger on forever.
7 lines? (Score:2)
Coming soon...the Linux kernel in one line of code...
Re:erm (Score:2)
Re:Maybe (Score:3)
That's an interesting point - on what basis do you draw the line? You could say that "obviously" rot-13 wasn't a serious attempt to control access but if 7 lines of Perl can be considered a circumvention device, then what about 5 lines? Or 3? Or 1?
I share your scepticism about the outcoming of trying to challenge things on that basis, but you would think there has to be some kind of definition as to how how simple a circumvention device is allowed to be while remaining "effective" (or do they intend every case to be ratified by a court? Wait, don't answer that...).
Pre-DeCSS, if you'd proposed a circumvention device that could be bypassed in 7 lines of Perl, who would have taken it seriously?
-dair
Re:Terse (Score:3)
Re:Is CSS encryption? (Score:3)
It doesn't even need to be copy protection, the DMCA talks about access control. CSS doesn't really provide copy protection, but it does do access control.
[re: reverse-engineering legalities] (Score:3)
I didn't mean to say that I agreed with (or conceded to) MPAA's or Xing's (it was a Xing player, right?) shrinkwrap-license-prohibiting-reverse-engineering . I was just trying to point out that some other "agreeably" illegal activity must be engaged in before use of the perl script became actual circumvention of CSS.
Whether or not what was done to get Xing keys (which, if I recall correctly, is the only part of the "Trade Secret" argument MPAA is using) is illegal shouldn't (IMHO) affect the status of this script.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the entire DeCSS system developed originally? That the only part that was "stolen" was the Xing master key, accidentally left unencrypted in the windows program? So MPAAs argument for trade secret theft only applies to the use of those Xing keys, right? Or could they argue that DeCSS could not have been developed without aid of those keys, and so it's a derivitave work, and so tainted by the theft of the secret?
And if so, at what point, after analysis, review, scholarly discussion, and seminars, does the CSS algorithm (and various ways to implement it) pass beyond any trade secret protection, again reducing DeCSS to a key availability issue?
Re:Is CSS encryption? (Score:3)
Re:Programming as an art.... (Score:3)
Re:For the love of coding! (Score:3)
The congress critter as well as any other corporation is not answerable to this or any other law only you are. Do you know why? It's because they have more money then you.
Is CSS encryption? (Score:3)
Firstly, I'm sure this has been discussed on
If this is the case, then it seems like CSS is more of a standard practice thing, than a proprietary thing, and the MPAA should just give up. I'm sure that "zip" technology was at one time proprietary, now its pretty much standard. And, if I am correct, this really doesn't hold up to the DMCA, because its not encryption that I am trying to circumvent, rather, I am just decoding what I have rightfully purchased.
If this is the case, I have no problem with the MPAA going after the individuals that are illegally copying DVD's and selling them to their 31337 friends. However, just using the scripts and code to watch a movie on your Linux box is another story entirely, and I have no problem with that.
Thoughts, comments, bitching???
UUOC (Score:3)
Typical usage should be /mnt/dvd/VOB_FILE_NAME | extract_mpeg2 | mpeg2_dec -
qrpff 153 2 8 105 225
Re:Competition Time? (Score:3)
Re:Is this basically compressing it? (Score:3)
No, because those tables aren't really needed.
Most of the tables in css-auth.c are used to work out the title key from the disc key - with this script, you provide the title key on the command line.
The other tables in css-auth.c are used to reverse the order of bits in a byte - this can easily be accomplished by code instead.
Programming as an art.... (Score:3)
It definitely is.
I bow to the superior skill of the author of those 526 bytes. I've saved it even if I don't own a DVD reader (and I don't plan buying one), just to open up the file at times and contemplate it.
Maybe one day I'll see the light.
Of course it's a violation (Score:3)
Next question.
Re:CSS Encoder? (Score:4)
Has anyone though of writting a virus that
takes a persons files and encodes them with
CSS? It would be extremely funny if some MPAA
lawyer found himself sitting in front of his
computer and a message pops up
"Dear user: Your files have been encrypted with CSS. You may trivially decrypt these files with DeCSS unless you live in the United States in which case the use of DeCss could cost you five years in jail and $150,000 file. Have a nice day."
Re:Is CSS encryption? (Score:4)
Is it a crappy arrangement? You bet. The title keys are 40 bits, and the player keys are (iirc) 80 bits. This is not high encryption here. Once you get past the auth-with-drive part, the title keys are handed over anyway. But simply, yes, it is encryption - from what I've heard from cryptological experts, far from a well-designed system. But it more-or-less does what the DVD CCA intended.
_____
Re:Now the RIAA will sue everyone... (Score:4)
This nonsense of trying to lock everything down and create laws that make viewing your product illegal is not good business. Sure it maintains profit margins for now, but long term will do nothing but cause damage.
Not to sound exceedingly paranoid here, but this is not so much about money as it is about fear of losing power and face.
Pride is causing this mess, not greed.
Re:Owning is not a crime using it is (Score:4)
What's more is that USING it to view any legally obtained DVD is not a crime. These things are what allow projects like xine and LiViD to exist with a relative lack of legal molestation.
xine and LiViD, AFAIK, do not include CSS decryption tools, and can only view unprotected DVDs out of the box. There are CSS patches, but they are in countries without a WIPO law.
The DMCA itself is strictly an AMERICAN law and has no jurisdiction * anywhere * else in the world.
True; though it is an implementation of the WIPO copyright treaty (the one everybody was up in arms about a few years ago). The EU and Australia have already criminalised circumvention devices; other nations are in the process of doing so.
Maybe someone can persuade Gaddafi to set up a data haven in those bombproof bunkers he has. Given the MPAA's panic, disseminating DeCSS may be a better way of attacking the Great Satan America than using it as a chemical weapons plant.
Suggested email .sig (Score:4)
I will be appending this with a brief description to my emails. Here is what I had in mind.
The following code is a PERL script capable of decoding an encrypted DVD (necessary to watch a DVD on a Linux machine) in real time. This is illegal to have according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a set of laws passed by anonymous vote in congress in 1998. The MPAA feels that they must stop you from using this code to watch DVD movies because then...
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;$ t=255;@t=map{$_%16or$t^=$c^=($m=(11,10,116,100,11, 122,20,100)[$_/16%8])$t^=(72,@z=(64,72,$a^=12 *($_%16-2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0,@z)[$_%8]}(16.. 271);if((@a=unx"C*",$_)[20]&48){$h=5;$_=unxb24,joi n"",@b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$h+84])}@ARGV;s/. ..$/1$&/;$d=unxV,xb25,$_;$e=256|(ord$b[4])>8^($f=$ t &($d>>12^$d>>4^$d^$d/8))>8^($t&($g=($q=$e>>14&7^$e )^$q*8^ $q>=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for@a[128..$#a]}print+x"C*",@a } ';s/x/pack+/g;eval
If you are interested in learning more about how to create your own DVD decoder you can take the authors class on the subject at MIT http://www.mit.edu/iap/dvd
Re: Sure. (Score:4)
Anyway, to unobfuscate it do this:
First paste the code into your favourite editor and change eval to print
Then save the file as decss.pl and execute this command in the shell:
perl decss.pl | perl -MO=Deparse
Now it's almost readable
--
Re:Owning is not a crime using it is (Score:4)
The other thing you got wrong is that *owning* it is NOT a crime! Noone, most particularly neither a judge nor the MPAA have ever suggested that possesion is a crime, and in fact the MPAA ONLY prosecuted those KNOWN to possess it for * distribution *, not possesion.
What's more is that USING it to view any legally obtained DVD is not a crime. These things are what allow projects like xine and LiViD to exist with a relative lack of legal molestation.
I've said this a thousand times already, and I'll keep saying it until people get it:
The ONLY thing that has been ruled to be illegal about DeCSS is its *distribution.*
*Possesion* of DeCSS is legal, it has been banned neither by a judge nor by the DMCA. If you have obtained a copy of DeCSS YOU are not in violation of the law, only your *source* is.
USE of DeCSS for viewing legally obtained DVD's is not illegal.
Any illegality of DeCSS, at the moment, applies strictly only to California and New York State. It is only in these states that courts that have ruled have any jurisdiction.
The DMCA itself is strictly an AMERICAN law and has no jurisdiction * anywhere * else in the world.
KFG
Re:Is this piece of Perl covered by the DMCA? (Score:4)
Re:UUOC (Score:4)
Useless use of cat!!
Using cat to present on stdin isn't useless! What if, after running your command line, you discovered you had to run it through your special frob script:
Now if you use < you have to hit up arrow, and do some retyping, cutting and pasting..but with cat you can hit up arrow, move to the right place, and type frob and a pipe!cat is your friend..
Maybe (Score:4)
I'm not sure that it would matter to the courts whether the source code to descramble CSS was composed of 7 lines or 700, whether it was Perl or C or VB, compiled or binary. The judge probably wouldn't understand any of those details anyway. What really matters is that the MPAA scrambled the content on their DVDs and this code circumvents that. Just because you bought the disc, don't expect to use it in some way in which its owners don't approve. Unfotunately, if the judge could really understand the details of the case I think he would agree with the opinions expressed on Slashdot, so would just about any sensible person who doesn't have some vested intrest in the MPAA's revenue stream.
The reality is that once the lawyers use the word 'hacker' to describe the people who write code like this, throw in 'circumvent' a few times, and tell everyone that this program will cause their DVD prices to skyrocket, people's heads turn. The facts of the case get lost.
Anyway, this is a nice accomplishment. 7 lines of Perl that will descramble CSS. Sad that it constitutes a circumvention device, but maybe that will change.
Re:CSS Encoder? (Score:5)
For the love of coding! (Score:5)
Things that actually help:
- OpenDVD [opendvd.org] - actually learn about the DMCA and the case against it.
- Electronic Frontier Foundation [eff.org] - donate to the actual court case
- US Congress [congress.org] - Hand write your representatives and inform them of your digust with this law
Don't get me wrong. Sig files are fun and using this tiny piece of code in every post might help, but this situation isn't going to get better unless we put some real work into it.-the Pedro Picasso
(sourceCode==freeSpeech) [x-omega.com]
--
CSS Encoder? (Score:5)
and the useless use of 'cat' goes to.... (Score:5)
Is this one actually illegal? (Score:5)
Once you write brute-force wrapper around it to bludgeon out keys, or something to derive a title key from a disk key, utilizing secrets stolen by illegally reverse-engineering other stuff, then are you violating MPAA plans?
Re:For the love of coding! (Score:5)
Under current law, you are in illegal possession of a copyright protection circumvention device (see attachment). Under the Freedom of Information Act, I demand that you retain this information and make it available to me. However, under the DMCA, I demand that you initiate impeachment proceedings against yourself for your flagrant violation of the law in receiving the attached piece of paper.
Yours truly,
(insert name here)
Anyone notice this little bit of the code? (Score:5)
I think that's a portrait of the people at the MPAA.
.sig!! Yay!! (Score:5)
We should all add this snippet of code to our
Then stand back and watch as lawyers for the DVD Association go crazy, trying to sue everyone! Even better than linking! =)
The DeCSS case will be won, not in the court, but over the Internet -- so fire up that editor today... ROFL
Terse (Score:5)
erm (Score:5)