Ever since the Blu-Ray video format was first announced, it has been claimed that the copy-protection on the system was uncrackable. This is because is uses technology in your HDMI port to determine the authenticity of the video source. Without this technology built into the port’s circuitry Blu-Ray video simply won’t work, which caused problems with some early HDMI-equipped computer monitors.
Even when the HDCP (High bandwidth Digital Content Protection) master key, which is a core element of the encrytion, was leaked last year the standard has still not been cracked because using it to build an decryption chip is very difficult and costly.
Instead of designing and creating an HDCP-capable chip, the two men built a standalone hardware solution that is based on an inexpensive FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) board that contains an HDMI port and an RS232 Serial port. These boards are programmable and designed to be configured by the user.
The purpose of the research was not to crack the HDCP encryption they said.
“Our intention was rather to investigate the fundamental security of HDCP systems and to measure the actual financial outlay for a complete knockout. The fact that we were able to achieve this in the context of a PhD thesis and using materials costing just €200 is not a ringing endorsement of the security of the current HDCP system”
The board modifies all the communications between the Blu-Ray player and a flat screen TV without the interruption being detected. This is something that some set-top-boxes are already able to do and some boxes that can remove HDCP data from HD video have been available since shortly after the HDMI standard was introduced. These boxes allow otherwise encrypted high-definition content that is broadcast to be compressed and recorded to disc or a hard drive.
At the moment pirates are using these boxes to copy high-definition content, admittedly in a compressed form. But there is currently no way for them to intercept the uncompressed raw data from a Blu-Ray disc.
This solution then isn’t much use for pirates at the moment then as what would really be required is a software solution, much in the way DVD John did in 1999 when he and two friends released the DeCSS software that decrypted DVDs. This hardware solution doesn’t offer anything that’s really useful for pirates, especially as the researchers aren’t saying how they did it.
It does prove though that with some know how and determination anything is crackable, and with a software emulated version of the hardware board a possibility in the future, encrypted Blu-Ray discs could still come under attack from pirates, not to mention the threat this poses to encrypted high-definition digital video downloads in the future.
Where this is of interest is the ease with which the researchers were able to do this and the affordability of the overall parts involved. To claim something is uncrackable unless significant volumes of money are spent designing a new silicon chip overlooks the fact that much existing technology can emulate this process, providing anybody with full and unfettered access to unencrypted video.
© Mike Halsey (MVP) for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Post tags: blu-ray, bluray, encryption, hack, HDCP
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