• Recommend:
• 0 Comments

DVD Encryption Hacked

Harsh news for Hollywood--program can break security on almost any disc.

By Mathew Schwartz, Computerworld   

"This is a troubling situation," says Rick Clancy, a spokesperson at Sony Corporation of America. He says Sony is still gathering information on the purported hack, and adds, "Sony is of course a strong advocate of content protection."

Every DVD has about 400 keys on it to make the disc readable to all of the various DVD players on the market. The players, in turn, also have the 400 keys licensed and encrypted in their hardware or software playback systems.

But apparently one program, the XingDVD Player, from RealNetworks subsidiary Xing Technologies, didn't have its keys adequately safeguarded. The hackers were thus able to deduce how to crack DVDs and released the DeCSS program, which will do it automatically. Officials from RealNetworks weren't available for comment on Thursday.

The hackers are claiming that the DVDs only have 40-bit encryption. By contrast, Netscape 4.7, the company's most recent exportable version, has 56-bit encryption. The secure version of Internet Explorer 5 has 128-bit encryption.

Trails from the Encrypted

This isn't the first DVD encryption to be broken. DVDs already have regional codes so that they can only be played on players bought in that region. This helps the movie industry distribute DVDs in the same pattern as films: premiere it in one market, then gradually release it in other markets.

But movie producers often don't use the codes, and players have sprung up that can play DVDs with any of the various regional codes.

For more enterprise computing news, visit Computerworld. Story copyright © 2011 Computerworld Inc. All rights reserved.