Blu-ray copy protection "cracked"
muslix64, who first came to fame for his work on the BackupHDDVD utility, posted that he was able to decrypt and play a Blu-ray media file without owning a Blu-ray player by working on a file provided to him by another member of the forum. He claims to have used a "known plaintext attack" to find the encryption key, but did not specify any additional software he was running. The movie he decrypted was titled Lord of War, a suitable choice for the battle between copy protection and those who would defeat it.
While BackupHDDVD was released as an open-source application, the author deliberately hid the method used to find the encryption key, leaving that essential part of the cracking process away from public view. Most of the speculation around where the keys come from involves third-party DVD viewing software such as PowerDVD. While spokespeople for PowerDVD deny that their software stores encryption keys in memory, the crackers maintain otherwise. The first pirated HD DVD movie, cracked with the help of BackupHDDVD, hit Bittorent earlier this month.
Cracking the encryption of Blu-ray and HD DVD discs isn't the only method of defeating the copy protection. Last August, a brute-force method involving capturing screen shots was shown to work as well. The fact that multiple methods have already been found to bypass the copy protection for high-definition movies is yet another indication that the real reason for digital rights management has little to do with stopping piracy.
