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MS DRM Version 2 - Cracked
Posted by
HeUnique
on Fri Oct 19, 2001 07:33 AM
from the protected-media-files dept.
from the protected-media-files dept.
As the title says: Microsoft Digital Rights Management Version 2 has been cracked. The Register has the story, including a link to a downloadable zip file which contains source code, explanation and a small DOS utility. Grab it while you can. You can also read the explanation directly here, and you can also find it with Google.
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MS DRM Version 2 - Cracked
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Well, of course (Score:5, Interesting)
"Information wants to be free."
There's a lot of bored but bright minds out there, and putting mountains up in their way just BEGS them to be climbed. As the old adage goes, Why do people climb mountains? well, there's actually 2 reasons, 1) because they're there.. 2) they're in the way of where you're trying to go..
*yawn* nice try MS, better luck next time eh?
What I don't get is why not use some proven technologies to get this done right? secure key-based encryption, rotating key servers, etc?
The obligatory correction (Score:4, Informative)
[anu.edu.au]
http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/II/IW
Re: Well, of course (Score:5, Interesting)
Thus continueth the cycle:
1. A few people pirate software/music.
2. Corperations get pissed at piracy.
3. Corperation spends millions on development of an anti-piracy scheme.
4. Corperation has to raise prices to compensate.
5. Scheme gets cracked within DAYS of release.
6. More people pirate because prices are higher.
7. Goto 1.
Information doesn't *want* to be anything (Score:5, Interesting)
But people often want information -- want it to be free, or secure, or copyrighted, or burned, or locked away for the greater good. People want the latest news, the biased studies, the most accurate statistics. They want each other's secrets, their inventions, their inspirations, their dirty laundry . They want to be the first in the know, the winner in the argument, the smartest in the class. They want to be told what to think, to make others think like themselves, and to be the first with a new idea.
People in the Western world are conditioned to believe that with a little applied brain power, they can be anything they want. So they insist that information should be free, despite omnipresent evidence to the contrary. They ignore the fact that library books cost ten cents per day late, that a reliable Internet connection costs fifteen dollars a month, and that university tuition costs four thousand dollars a year.
Knowledge is power. The right kind of information is all that's needed to upend governments, bankrupt companies, exile citizens, and execute prisoners. It can turn a housewife into a millionaire, a CEO into an inmate, and a celebrity into a punch line. A poor man will kill for money, but a rich man will kill for secrecy. The patent office is filled with millions upon millions of facts which are worth anywhere from pennies to princedoms to the right people.
Information doesn't want to be anything. Information just is, which makes it an asset, which makes it vulnerable to the economic laws of supply and demand. So if your information is about Linux, it's probably worth nothing at all, save your reputation as a programmer. But if your information is about, say, Microsoft Office... in that case, it's worth whatever Bill Gates can get you to pay.
But I *like* the pathetic fallacy! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Water seeks its level." - no, sufficient quantities of water tend to be arranged by the force of gravity over time such that its open surface is roughly equidistant from the center of gravity
"Opposite electrical charges are attracted to each other." - no, there is a force on any two objects of opposite electrical charge each toward the other
"Information wants to be free." - no, it is difficult for one party to limit the distribution of information to only those parties it approves of
The common quotes are shorter and more digestable, literal truth is not relevant compared to effective communication.
On the other hand, the literal expressions are more likely to be left alone by those who don't understand them.
When will they learn?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Corps: 0, Hackers:...shit, I lost count.
SealBeater
Re:When will they learn?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Regards,
Slak
to no end (Score:4, Insightful)
But, know what? It's their property. If they want to fuck up their distribution channels, fuck em. I can do without "so-called" modern music anyway. I go see live bands locally, get lit, and have a great time and I didn't need to buy a fucking copy-protected by the DMCA CD or cassette or anything. These guys are out there trying to make a living, maybe you should check em out. And if you catch them after the show, you might can convince them that they should distribute their songs on CD's for cheap and ask them (ask them) about how they feel about MP3's and music-sharing in general. Of course, they might not agree with you (or myself), but they have that *right* to do so.
So, I encourage, nay I *challenge* each and every one of you who would boycott MS or the RIAA to pick up a local newspaper and see what's going on in y our town this weekend. Chances are, there's a band or two actually worth checking out, and hey, it's not like you're going to meet chicks sitting behind your monitor.
Oh, and on-topic: Rock on Beale! I'm encouraged to see that grassroots hactivism coming alive!
Re:to no end (Score:5, Insightful)
No it's not. That's the whole point - US copyright does not create property rights. The actions of the copyright holders in shifting the terminology of the debate to the language of property rights means they've already almost won. After all, who agrees with stealing? But if they don't own it (and they don't - you paid for it), it ain't stealing...
Re:to no end (Score:5, Funny)
Chicks, take this as a warning: stay home this weekend.
Good news (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's the article just in case you can't reach it (Score:3, Redundant)
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 19/10/2001 at 09:19 GMT
An anonymous coder named 'Beale Screamer' claims to have broken the Version-2 Microsoft digital rights management (DRM) scheme, and has produced the source code and a DOS utility to un-protect
The author's zipped file contains a lengthy description of the MS DRM weaknesses, a philosophical tract explaining why he thinks it necessary to crack, the source code, and the command-line utility.
The alias Beale Screamer, incidentally, derives from the lines of 'Howard Beale' in the movie 'Network', we're told. "Just yell to the publishers 'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!'"
The motive here is said to be an assertion of fair use and a check against the abuse of copyright for purposes of consumer extortion.
A DRM scheme "used to give the consumer more possibilities than existed before," Screamer tells us. "I think the idea of limited time, full-length previews, or time-limited Internet-based rentals is excellent. If DRM was only used for this, in order to give us more options than we previously had, I would not have taken the effort to break the scheme. What is bad is the use of DRM to restrict the traditional form of music sale. When I buy a piece of music (not rent it, and not preview it), I expect (and demand!) my traditional fair use rights to the material. I should be able to take that content, copy it onto all my computers at home, my laptop, my portable MP3 player....basically anything I use to listen to the music that I have purchased."
Well said; a tremendous amount of thought and effort has obviously gone into all this, and we have to wonder who this crusader is. A university connection seems all but certain. We've got a few feelers out, and hope very much that he'll submit to an interview soon.
Be careful out there! (Score:4, Interesting)
Not only can MS revoke the certs used, it looks like they can also screw your system if you use tricks like this....
WARNING!!!!! I have just learned that the new Microsoft Media Player EULA includes a clause that says they can *automatically* modify the software on your system, without any confirmation from you required! In other words, they can disable your software, or force an upgrade so that FreeMe won't work, just because they feel like it. Be careful out there!
Re:Be careful out there! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now WHY would it want to do that? Is it part of a security scheme?
If it tell ZoneAlarm to not allow Internet access to WMP, am I in violation of DMCA? Is ZoneAlarm a circumvention tool?
Re:Be careful out there! (Score:5, Interesting)
Believe it or not, yes there is! Take a look at this e-mail I got. Fell free to check the sources:
<old Inbox digging>
>> Well, personally I did stay away from Windows 2000 not because of product
>> activation keys, but because I do not and will not support dangerous
>> organizations like Scientology, and cannot entrust a system which
>> includes their Diskeeper disk maintenance software with any sensitive data.
>>
> WHAAAAAT???? Scientology makes software included in Windows?????
Yes, they do, unfortunately.
> Where did you get that information from?
Well, this has been in the technical press in Europe for months in 1999 and 2000 and it was part of a boycott campaign against Windows 2000 for this very reason. These are not rumours, but proven facts.
Major parts of the disk maintenance software in Microsofts Windows 2000 are written by Executive Software, a software company led by and heavily influenced by very "high" Scientologists. They even talk (or talked - I havent visited them recently) about this on their web-site.
Offical German government and church authorities asked Microsoft to remove this code or open it up so that it could be checked for possibly included malware, but Microsoft refused to do this and just said they could not understand the problem and that this would be a form of religious discrimination...
Meanwhile Microsoft has published patch instructions (at least here in Germany) how to remove this component from Windows 2000, but I am afraid I can no longer trust them.
PS. If you speak German, I suggest to check ct magazine at www.heise.de. They have backlogs of all their articles available, and you should be able to find the issue discussed in all details and with names, dates, and cites in there. Otherwise, a search engine like www.google.com might help to point you to similar info in English.
</old Inbox digging>
Shocking! (Score:5, Funny)
Anonymous M$ exec1: We're hacked? Again?
M$ techie: No, we're not hacked. The MDRM v2 is hacked. We... (is interrupted)
Anonymous M$ exec2: We're hacked! Didn't the hacker read our last bulletin on that? It's wrong to post exploits we don't know about. It's almost against the law! Or rather, it should be!
Anonymous M$ exec1:Good idea. I'll give our lawyers a call! I'm sure its in the DCMA somewhere. Thats why we invented it, remember?
/Smuffe
Re:Shocking! (Score:4, Funny)
microsoft didnt invent the DMCA, that would have actually required INNOVATION. The music and movie industries invented it, MS is just embracing and extending.
Wow this guy is great.... (Score:4, Redundant)
He's done a very thourough job of reverse-engineering too. Read his README file, very interesting... some quotes:
"One very important effect of this scheme is that Microsoft fully controls who gets to write modules that interact with the basic Microsoft media modules. Without a certified public key (and the corresponding private key) it is impossible to write a compatible DLL that interfaces with their code. Since Microsoft controls the issuing of certified public keys, they also have complete control over who is allowed to make compatible and competing products. Microsoft's reputation for being generous to competitors is well-known, so this effectively gives Microsoft a technically guaranteed monopoly power."
And his 'Messages' at the bottom:
"Microsoft: You guys have put together a pretty good piece of software. Really. The only real technical flaw is that licenses can't be examined for their restrictions once they are obtained. My real beef is with the media publishers' use of this software, not the technology itself. However, it's easy to see where software bloat and inefficiency comes from when this code is examined: every main DLL has a separate copy of the elliptic curve and other basic crypto routines, and parameters passed back and forth between modules are encrypted giving unnecessary overhead, not to mention all the checks of the code integrity, checks for a debugger running, code encryption and decryption. Perhaps you felt this was necessary for the "security through obscurity" aspect, but I've got to tell you that this really doesn't make a bit of difference. Make lean and mean code, because the obscurity doesn't work as well as you think it does.
Justice Department: Maybe this should really be addressed to the state officials, since it looks like the current U.S. administration doesn't care too much about monopoly powers being abused. But for whoever is interested, there is a very serious anti-competitive measure in this software. In particular, for various modules of the software to be used, you must supply a certified public key for communication. Guess who controls the certification of public keys? Microsoft. So if someone wants to make a competing product, which integrates well with the Windows OS, you will need to get Microsoft's permission and obtain a certificate from them. I don't know what their policy is on this, so don't know if this power will be abused or not. However, it has the potential for being a weapon Microsoft can use to knock out any competition to their products."
Well said.
I agree, very impressive! (Score:5, Insightful)
All of that would've worked except that the code that actually USES the keys has to know where they're located and THAT code's location is static (lol). The author simply used THAT code to pull the keys for the decryption - I love it. I'll bet some poor schmuck MSFT techie is smacking his head going "Dammit!" right about now.
I'm not sure how Microsoft could've stopped this - obviously their bulletproof EULA didn't work (lol). At some point in the code something has to know how to pull the needed keys and I cannot imagine how they would've been able to shift the code that does the calling in every copy of Windows - something has to be static somewhere or at least the code to find the location does
Since Microsoft used code to detect debuggers I have to wonder how he did this - hacked the debugger too? Hack the code to stop the detection of the debugger? Or decompile the code in some fashion and step through it? (shiver)
If this was the creation of a single individual or even a team it's damned impressive! I hope that The Reg gets it's wish for some sort of an interview granted and that this person or team of persons releases more insightful cracks. This was pretty sweet IMO, my hat's off to this effort!
Just like deCSS (Score:4, Offtopic)
However, at the moment two little differences are apparent:
1. This doesn't allow you to decode
2. The author has remained anonymous! No DMCA prosecutions here, assuming she has covered her tracks properly.
Digital Rights Management? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was excited to get a sony mp3 player as a gift last year. Until I realized that it used a proprietary format, atrac3. It will only allow me to load a particular piece of music 4 times. I've even loaded the music I make on it, but I am still subjected to this limitation. HELLO, it's my music, I made it,I own the copyright.
Digital Rights Management is there only to help support the massive amount of proffit that the recording industry is used to making. Well, I have a message for these people: The days of the $20 CD are long gone. Charge a fair amount of money for your product, and people will buy it. If you continue sticking it to the customer, they will break your systems and get it for free. Evolve or die. It's that simple.
http://www.assasins.net
A mirror for the zip (Score:5, Informative)
Fair use: a birth right? (Score:5, Insightful)
the following: is fair use a birth right or simply a result of the sale
contract?
If it's the latter, there's nothing we can do but informing people and
refusing to buy products with fscked up sale contracts (limiting fair use).
Maybe fair use is nothing more than a tradition and something we've grown
used to. And not "right", by all means. Is the limitation in copyright
(which it is) written in the books of law?
Re:Fair use: a birth right? (Score:5, Informative)
Sec. 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether
such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit
educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in
relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or
value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
The rest of fair use comes from tradition. What is codified here, we need to fight to protect. What rights we assert from tradition, we need to fight harder to codify.
Not that useful (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, Linux users don't even have to worry about this.
How this could be useful (Score:4, Interesting)
Would it be possible for someone to use this work to create a fix for these people?
Nice timing (Score:3, Funny)
What a wonderfully timed response to Microsoft's recent complaint about releasing sample code [slashdot.org]!
RTFPPINZ ! (Score:5, Funny)
DRM is dangerously counterproductive. (Score:4, Interesting)
The larger issue here is this desperate attempt to cling to a ridiculously outdated and inefficient method of securing profit in return for desirable intellectual production.
Put in simple terms, DRM hurts our economy. Very, very badly.
Economic growth comes from improvements of efficiency, clearing out the dead wood and finding a use for it elsewhere. Following the analogy, DRM is better systems of stakes and cables holding the dead wood from being carted off.
There is a whole ridiculous, unproductive structure built around milking every penny out of copyrighted works. This is justified essentially by accusing every citizen of the stupidest kind of miserliness, unwilling to give a dime to make they're favorite movie studio make another next year, but willing to pay a dollar as long as you don't let them into the theater otherwise.
Yes, there are people out there like that, but I don't believe they're the majority for a second!
The tools [buskpay.com] are out there, and could be supported and working everywhere in weeks if people want them to be. Don't like the details of that system? Propose another. It's not rocket science: donation doesn't need real-time verification, so it's an easy problem, as long as we agree on some system.
Once people get in the habit of freely parting with their pocket change for things that they'd gladly pay much more for, copyright will be a ridiculous anachronism, and we can finally get on with reaping the benefits of the information age.
Re:DRM is dangerously counterproductive. (Score:5, Interesting)
Really? Consider this:
Suppose I produce $50,000 worth of code in a year. My employer hands me a fat check. After taxes and living expenses, I have about $10,000.
Scenario 1: I purchase 588 compact discs (at $17 each, for $10,000) of RIAA-approved content.
- Some artists get $600 to spend on tax, living expenses, guitars, and syntheziers.
- The music seller gets about $2500 or so. He buys food with it.
- A CD pressing factory gets about $1000. They buy fancy chemicals and mastering equipment with it.
- Hilary Rosen and her friends get about $4100 to spend on hookers and booze Congresscritters, to pass more laws to restrict my freedom.
Scenario 2: I download the music "for free".Now... explain to me again why paying $17 per CD is good for overall economic growth?
Microsoft's advanced crytpography techniques.. (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft has decided to use the non-alphanumeric character '*'
instead of '/', and '!' instead of '+' in some places, and in other
places they replace '/' with '@' and '!' with '%'. This means that
any software dealing with these strings cannot use a standard Base64
decoder, but must use a custom-build decoder.
Another Addition to the Collection (Score:3, Funny)
D
Copyright Regulation (Score:4, Interesting)
"One final quote from Vaidhyanathan, this time talking directly about
the DMCA:
This law has one major provision that upends more than 200 years
of democratic copyright law. It forbids the "cracking" of
electronic gates that protect works - even those portions of works
that might be in the public domain or subject to fair use. It puts
the power to regulate copying in the hands of engineers and the
companies that employ them.
"
As it happens, this is an "autoemployed" engineer using the power that the U.S.A. laws have given engineers to regulate the use of this copirighted material, in this case allowing access to it
Ironic...
What's all the fuss about? (Score:4, Funny)
Sometimes you people are too complicated.
Zip file mirror (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.furinkan.net/mirror/657.zip [furinkan.net]
MSDRM sounds like the work of... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm just gonna stick with Windows 98 First Edition for now hehehehe
You idiots! Why did you do this /NOW/? (Score:4, Insightful)
You have a DRM technology that is OBVIOUSLY crackable (as all are), and a stupid industry that has just decided that they should use this technology, but hasn't yet implemented it in many places yet.
Do you:
A) crack it NOW and therefore allow the industry to quickly switch to a "better" scheme because it's not implemented yet
-or-
B) wait until it's in use everywhere and THEN crack it once it's too late for them to switch back?
What do you think would have happened if CSS was cracked after the first 2 DVDs were released? They would have changed the scheme really quickly.
HAVE PATIENCE. WAIT until THEY CANNOT SWITCH BACK, and then hack to your hearts desire.
Argh. This just puts more ammo in the pockets of the industries to give us MORE RESTRICTIONS instead of a stupid scheme that doesn't really hamper things a lot and can be cracked AFTER they commit.
Argh. Sorry needed to vent.
Well I tried it.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Well as I'm working on stuff based around the MS DRM platform right now (look just shut up ok?), I was interested to see if it would work. From the comments here it looks like no-one tried it yet.
Guess what. It doesn't work. At all. I generated a whole bunch of protected files, with varying license rules, and it couldn't work with any of them.
Still, the technical documentation was a nice read.
It's bound to be cracked at some stage, this just isn't it. Even microsoft themselves say that there are ways to get around it, unfuck for example.
Slashdot could have been first with the story: (Score:4, Interesting)
But:
* 2001-10-18 23:08:39 Microsoft Digital Rights Management broken? (articles,news) (rejected)
Yeah, I'm the person who spotted this on sci.crypt and got it mirrored on www.cryptome.org.
If Slashdot would have published my story last night then they'd have been breaking the news rather than chasing after the register. Sigh.
Excellent! (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, wait, I don't have any! Oh well.
Re:Nice (Score:3, Informative)
Not, it won't (Score:5, Informative)
This is how all the SafeDisc unwrappers and the like work. They get all their info from the very files SafeDisc uses, extracts the necessary info, and then unwraps the
The reason why encryption is normally secure is it assumes two trusted parites. If I send something encrypted to you, it is assumed that you have the necessary means to decrypt it and that is what I want you to do. For example suppose you and I regularly encrypt our stuff with a semetric encryption algroithm like Blowfish. We both have a key that we use to talk to eachother. We both know this key, but nobody else does. In that way we can lock the data so that only we are able to unlock it. Well this only works because I WANT you to be able to decrypt the data. Well with copy protection the idea is they DON'T want you to be able to see the data, so they encrypt it. Problem is, your processor needs it decrypted. That means they HAVE to give you the key to decrypt it. They can hide it and obfuscate it, but it has to be there, otherwise it doesn't do any good. Well, that means you can find it, and use it to unlock the data they sent you.
Re:Nice (Score:5, Informative)
>since I don't give a fuck about the DCMA, I'll be downloading too.
In the US, yes... the Reg resides in the UK and the EU "Council Directive 91/250/EEC of 14 May 1991 on the legal protection of computer programs" states the following:
Article 6 Decompilation
1. The authorization of the rightholder shall not be required where reproduction of the code and translation of its form within the meaning of Article 4 (a) and (b) are indispensable to obtain the information necessary to achieve the interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs...
By putting it on its own server Reg is pretty much trolling Microsofts legal department. Way to go!
JK
Re:irresponsible (Score:5, Funny)
Cries of "fair use" do not render valid laws and copyrights obsolete. Just because DRM is easily circumvented [iglou.com] is no excuse to ignore Microsoft's intellectual property [iglou.com].