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Copy-Protection shield for Blu-Ray, HD-DVD cracked
The next generation of optical media is riddled with safety and anti-piracy mechanisms (think the AAC encoder on Sony's music program Sonic Stage ...what a pain). With this encryption in mind, movie producers felt they could rest easier, knowing their works of art (debatable at times) could not be plundered by CyberPirates, or Cyrates.But avast, mateys! A loophole has been discovered and it's fairly elementary. The first Blu-Ray enabled PCs have the ability to take a lovely full resolution screenshot whilst a movie is playing. Manipulate that Print key (Prt Sc for the hunt n' peck typists out there) so it takes pictures to match the frames per second of the actual movie and you've got a pirated video track! Snag the audio separately and voila -- a super HD movie free for distribution.Sony and Toshiba are going to counter this with updates for the video players and graphics card that will close the loophole before too much damage is done. Still, kudos to the magazine c't that found said loophole and Heise Security for bringing it to our attention.
Security flaw allows HD flicks to be copied with screencaps
With all of the time and money that Hollywood and the consumer electronics industry have poured into copy-protecting high definition content, we were amused to learn that both formats can already be duplicated by the simplest of means: the trusty Print Screen button on your keyboard. UK-based Heise Security is reporting that the special OEM version of Intervideo's WinDVD software bundled with both Sony's first Blu-ray Vaio and Toshiba's first HD DVD Qosmio contains a security hole that allows users to capture video frames at their full resolution by simply triggering that Print Screen option -- which in and of itself is little more than a curiosity, but opens up the possibility of running a script that advances a given film one frame at a time and automates the whole screencap process, which would allow pirates to create high def copies by compiling the pictures and dubbing in the audio. Toshiba is already aware of the "problem" and claims that an impending software update will provide the fix, but as one HDBeat commenter astutely pointed out, as long as you can see a picture on your monitor or hear sound through your speakers, there will always be a way to capture that data.[Via HDBeat]
