DVDs w/ Built in USB Ports for Copy Protection 306
An anonymous reader writes "Aladdin has come up with a new way of restricting the data stored on optical discs. It's 'XCD' format has a chip built directly into the disc and which fits into a USB port. So, a user needs to plug the disc into their computer to access a cryptophic key before being able to use the data stored on the disc (presumably in some sort of proprietary player)."
Stupid stupid idea (Score:5, Interesting)
The software could run, detect its host key is plugged in (hell, they could make a custom key with an encrypted read only block if they like your software can try to write to that area, and if it managed it it knows its fake...).
The data can be protected by cryptographic magic and the shareholders are happy.
Whilst this won't stop all forms of hacking, it will certainly stop the normal folks from having a go and ensures that the hardware isn't broken by putting unbalanced pointy edged crap into the dvd drive.
I'm not even considering how you would get this "key" into a computer with cramped usb slots.
The only thing a key that looks like the one described should ever be needed is for a petrol station toilet key.
Re:Heh (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously you've never worked in government procurement. [ducks] Seriously the product is bought usually isn't the best. It's the cheapest or the product whose company has the most influence.
Been there, done that (Score:5, Interesting)
It lasted about a year, when our marketshare shrank to the point of near death did they finally realize that people liked the software, but couldn't overcome the licensing problems that came with it. In my opinion, we haven't recovered from it since...
There must be something wrong here... (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course all that is moot, because you only need one person with a compliant DVD reader to extract the film data and compress it into a 4 Gb MPEG-4 film that will fit in a standard DVD, and then share it away.
Stupefyingly bad design (Score:5, Interesting)
A normal disc:
PI * r^2 - PI * (.4r)^2
PI * r^2 -
The new magical disc:
PI * (.6r^2) - PI * (.4r^2)
So in other words, if my math is correct (and it's entirely possible that it's not), you'd be looking at
And I'm sure these guys will go so much trouble to balance these things properly! Even a well balanced commercial disc in a very high speed DVD drive creates an unnerving amount of noise and vibration. I shudder to think of what would happen with the center of mass potentially thrown way off center from the cuts and the electronics, and the tremendous amount of air turbulence you'd end up with from the shape of that thing. You'd be lucky if it didn't destroy itself and/or the drive within seconds if the motor tried to crank it up to full speed.
In short, there's no way in hell this will ever make it to market, for these reasons, and reasons others have already stated.
Re:Or because... (Score:5, Interesting)
The only thing that might work as an unbreakable copy-protection scheme is to have the decryption performed within the brain of the viewer, so there is never an unencrypted version of anything anywhere. And I can think of only one way to do this: you would have to give the user mind-enhancing drugs and "train" them, with a short film, to perform the decryption. The movie itself would be displayed encrypted, and only viewable by someone trained to decrypt it -- which ability they would naturally lose as the effects of the drug wore off. For future watchings, or party viewings, more pills would be required. (This would suit the studios, as every instance of viewing must be paid for -- someone who watches a movie at a friend's house represents a lost opportunity to sell a movie. This creates a new business model: give away "unwatchable" movies for free and charge for the pills that make them watchable.) If you combined the psychotropic with another substance which reacts with growth hormone to produce nausea or other undesirable effects, you might be able to get enforced age-restriction into the bargain.
One question nobody is answering: How much of the retail price of media is accounted for by copy-protection?
And another: What if original media were sold cheaply enough that it would not be economically viable to make pirate copies?
Re:Why Not a Giant Padlock (Score:3, Interesting)
But otherwise, yeah, a special clamp that interfaces with contacts for circuitry at the hub of the disk and ends in a USB plug would be better than this unbalanced monstrosity, and you don't lose disk capacity. After the initial introduction of disks with the device included, you then sell them without the device and offer it separately as a replacement part and for new adopters.
Re:it's called a dongle. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Been there, done that (Score:5, Interesting)
empower disgruntled employees.
the last job I had one of the production guys was getting fired, he was dating one of the HR girls so he knew it for a week ahead of time.
so his last day there he grabbed every dongle he could find and swapped the plastic covers at random, then swapped all usb and PP dongles around on all the edit suites.
next monday every editing suite was dead with an "unauthorized use" message. it took 2 weeks to discover what happened and only by a electronics savvy IT guy that looked at them very carefully before sending them to the software company.
we could not prove who did it, but several of us knew who it was.
hell stealing a dongle or simply pulling them out and tossing them in the trash would completely screw any company.
as the asshat companies that use dongles on their software will not replace them without you buying them all new at $4500.00 per seat.
Before I left I helped install dongle cracks on every editing station to avoid that issue in the future. To hell with the EULA.